I have not been a hard of hearing person all of my life. I was born with normal hearing, but my parents were told I had a 3% hearing loss, which doesn’t seem like much. Throughout my childhood years, this small amount of loss was always given as a percent and never a decibel range to me. So, to this day, I always want to know what percentage of loss I have rather than a decibel loss.

 The hearing loss stayed the same until I was in my teens. My mother was adamant about taking me to ENT’s to make sure there was no progression. My father’s mother’s side of the family has a genetic disposition to hearing loss that normally occurs after age 40. Daddy lost a lot of his hearing in Korea with all of the guns. One day, he walked onto a firing range with 100% of his hearing and walked off with about 50% left. He received an honorable medical discharge from the Marines. So that was the basis of my mom’s obsession with my hearing.

 When I entered my teens, I had an insatiable appetite for rock-n-roll music. The louder the better was my motto! Headphones cranked as high as they would go, car stereo’s cranked to the point of distortion and standing next to or on top of speakers at rock concerts were the name of the game.

 Within a few years, people were noticing I said “Huh” and “What” a lot! After concerts, it would be days before the ringing in my ears quit and sounds seemed normal again. At 19, Mom took me to a hearing aid dispenser to get me fitted for hearing aids. At that point, I had

destroyed my hearing and was down to 50% left. After getting hearing aids and hating them and using them only half the time, I continued going to concerts, using headphones and cranking the car stereo. I lost a really good job due to the fact that I could not hear though I was told “It’s just not working out”. A HOH person can read between the lines, even if they can’t hear the speech they are given. :o)

 Moving forward, my hearing loss progressed to 70% gone by the time I was 30 and before that I became totally dependent on hearing aids to hear anything. As much as I hated them, the stigma, the embarrassment and withdrawing myself from social activities, I had to have those hearing aids. I had people look down on me when they found out I was HOH, was treated differently, treating as if I was mentally impaired and made fun of even to my face.

In 2008, I heard about a trial for the Esteem. I so wanted to join in, but it was not possible to leave the state for surgery, take time off work for it and recovery and the many trips back and for that would ensue. Plus, 2008 was the year my mother started failing in her battle with Alzheimer’s and I was her primary caregiver. So the trial was just not meant to be for me.

 In 2011, I was laid off from my job and subsequently I re-found information about the Esteem Implant. I started researching and talking to Envoy and finally decided that since I was not working at the time, it was the perfect opportunity to “go for it”. On May 28, Dr. Murray performed my implant surgery at the new center in the Woodlands, Texas just outside of Houston. On July 28, I was activated!

 I’m not a person who shows a lot of emotion for things like this, but it was exciting even if my outside wasn’t conveying what my insides were feeling. For the first time in 26 years, I was hearing without a hearing aid!!! I guess I also wasn’t overly emotional because I’ve heard these sounds before and I was able to hear pretty good with hearing aids. I just hate hearing aids! Now, by all means, things are not perfect. I do have a ways to go in my journey. I have a problem with distortion from

the Esteem but hear really well otherwise. The Esteem was implanted in my right ear, which I consider my worse ear even though my loss is equal on both sides. It is also the ear that gave the most trouble in getting hearing aids to work with. I had the distortion problems with hearing aids on the right side too and it would take many trips back to the audiologist to get my hearing just right.

 So with that said, I am not disappointed at all! I love all of the sounds I can hear without a hearing aid. It’s wonderful to wake up and hear without putting a hearing aid in. I love hearing my cats’ purring. I love bird sounds, cricket sounds, the croak of the toad who lives in the bottom of one of my potted plants, the TV on a lower sound level, grease popping in the fryer, the hum of the computer, the rustling of the sheets when I’m in bed, the doorbell, the wind in the trees and even more! The most awesome sound I’ve heard since being activated is the beating of my son’s heart! I have never in my life heard a heartbeat for real and not even with a stethoscope. Now I hear it loud and clear without a stethoscope! That was the biggest, happiest moment I’ve had on my whole Esteem journey!

 So I know it’s long, but that’s the short version of my story and how I came to receive the Esteem Implant.

I wear a hearing aid in my un-implanted ear. I'm forced to do so because, otherwise, it sounds so horribly unbalanced having one really good ear and one bad ear. A week or so ago, my hearing aid quit working for unknown reasons (it's perhaps two years old). I took it in to my audiologist for a quick fix, and it seemed to be working great when I left. Ever since that day, it has been giving my horrible feedback. I haven't had a chance to go back to my audiologist, so I've been forced to constantly decide on the lesser of two annoyances - a squealing hearing aid, or no hearing aid. Right now, my hearing aid is squealing softly, nonstop. It drives me crazy...

It only serves as a reminder of how much nicer my Esteem has been compared to my hearing aids. It's nice to have no maintenance or earwax issues, or to not worry about being caught with a dead hearing aid and no batteries. Of course, there's always the risk of losing a hearing aid, as we experienced recently when one of my 9 year old daughter's hearing aids seemingly vanished into thin air (we were very lucky - her aid had two weeks of insurance left and only required a $250 replacement deductible). It only fuels my desire to one day be able to afford the expense of a second implant. If one implant can can my life as much as it has, I can't wait to see what two implants will do!

At this very moment, my 7 year old daughter is suffering from another stomach migraine, or cyclic vomiting syndrome. This causes her to be extremely sick, and she will vomit several times an hour, all through the night. She's in my bedroom, the darkest and quietest room in the house, and I'm watching TV in the living room. Every few minutes, it hits her. She doesn't have time to call my name, she quietly gets sick until it passes.

I can hear her. Every single time. Even over the chatter of the TV and the other kids. Because she will get sick as much as 20 times or more through the night, she sleeps in our room. I hear her, every single time, and awaken from my sleep, and I help her get through it.

This, to me, is one of the true miracles of my implant.  
 

A while back, I met someone online who had a hearing loss and was interested in the implant. His name is Tony, and he lives in Alaska. He wears hearing aids, and he has some pretty interesting stories about various hearing aids that have, uh, met their deaths over the years. Tony is a commercial fisherman, and I'm sure that can be a pretty wet job at times. We all know hearing aids and water do not mix...

I'm not sure how Tony initially found out about the Envoy Esteem, but I came across a comment he had left on a blog, asking for more information on the implant. So I emailed him, told him what I could about the implant, and how much I've enjoyed it. We exchanged a few emails and discussed the implant. Tony decided he wanted the implant, and scheduled a date for surgery. If my memory serves me correctly, he had his surgery on May 1st. He was the second person in the U.S. to be implanted post-approval. Unlike me, he was not in a clinical trial for the Esteem, so he paid for his surgery/implant. Tony's wife, Jeanine, said the surgery went fine, no complications at all. I was surprised to find out that he didn't even have that strange sensation of a "dangling" ear because of the post-surgery numbness!

Anyway, Tony will be activated on Wednesday, June 9th! I misunderstood briefly when I talked to Jeanine today, and thought he was being activated today at 1 p.m. It was actually 1:05 at the time, and I was surprised at how nervous I was! I was pacing the room at school. Again, Wednesday is actually the day he will be activated.

I am so nervous and excited, it's not even funny.

It feels like I almost had a certain amount of influence in his decision since I was the only patient he had talked to. So I have a hundred questions going through my head right now:

-What will his reaction be when he first hears with the Esteem?
-Will he like it?
-Will he feel as overwhelmed as I did when I first had to adjust?
-What if he doesn't like it?
-Will he be happy with his decision?
-Will it be as life-changing for him as it was for me?

I can't wait to see what he thinks about the implant. When you're sitting in the doctor's office as they make adjustments to the implant, it's hard to get a real feel for the implant. It's once you get back home, in your familiar surroundings, that you can truly explore the new world of sound. Looking back, I can't help but smile at my reactions to the new sounds I was hearing, and how loud everything was. The talking, chewing, swallowing. The first shower that sounded like I was going through a car wash. Flushing the toilet and thinking the world was ending. Then there were the softer sounds that I'd never heard before. A soft drink fizzing, my children talking in another room, distant thunder, the wind in the trees, a child whispering in my ear.

I just hope Tony enjoys the Esteem as much as I have. I hope it helps him to live life without the limitations that a person with a hearing loss experiences. I hope he discovers sounds he never even knew existed. I hope he smiles the first time he realizes he can now hear sounds he couldn't hear before. I hope, if he uses his remote at all, he gets used to the strange looks he'll get when he says "I can't hear you, my ear is not turned on." I hope he enjoys the new-found freedom of no longer keeping up with a pair of hearing aids. And I hope that, unlike a poor hearing aid or two, he manages to keep his new remote hidden from his dogs. ;D
 

Envoy Medical's Esteem® Fully Implantable Hearing Restoration System was Approved by the FDA on March 17, 2010

Envoy Medical, a Minnesota corporation, has developed the first Fully Implantable Hearing Restoration System known as the Esteem®. On March 17, 2010, the FDA formally approved the Esteem® for marketing to the public.

Patrick Spearman, Envoy Medical's Chief Executive Officer, was quoted as saying "This is great news for all sensorineural hearing loss sufferers. Envoy has been able to accomplish with the Esteem® what hearing aids set out to do but were unable to. Our Esteem® allows recipients the opportunity to hear naturally and restore their lives back to normal." In the clinical trial, patients averaged an 11 decibel improvement in Speech Reception Threshold (SRT) scores beyond their hearing aids. At a quiet conversation level, average patient speech understanding improved by more than 45% over their hearing aids.

Esteem® - The Hearing Implant™ - is surgically implanted, invisible to others, and has been approved for the US market. The expected cost will be approximately $30,000/implant (including the device, surgery and audiometric testing).

Several people have asked me to share my thoughts on the Esteem and how it has made a difference in my life. With my two year anniversary approaching, I thought it would be a good time to look back and reflect.

I'm incredibly lucky that I even found out about Envoy and the middle ear implant when I did. It came at a time when I realized that I needed to hear better, but my hearing aids just weren't helping as much as I would have liked. It was a bit scary - taking part in a clinical trial, and putting my trust in the company and its representatives. I knew I was taking a risk, and it was a risk that truly paid off for me.

My implant has become a normal part of me now. Sometimes I wonder how I ever got along without it. Even now, two years later, little things continue to surprise me. The other day, my youngest daughter had been home sick. We were waiting at school in the car/pick-up line, and I heard something. I looked at my daughter, and said "What's that noise?" She said "That's the fire whistle." I had actually heard the fire siren go off in another town! Sometimes at night, I can even hear the train rumbling through town, about six miles away.

There's something so serene about sitting outside on a beautiful day, and not only hearing the birds sing, but being able to identify at least three different birds singing. Or sitting on my porch and listening to the soft patter of the rain and the distant thunder.

One thing that has really been a blessing to me is being able to sleep at night with my implant turned on. I will admit, I often prefer to turn the implant off at night. But I can leave it on when I need to, which is often. My middle child suffers from migraines and stomach migraines. Her stomach migraines cause her to vomit repeatedly, every 10-15 minutes, all through the night. So she has to sleep on a cot beside my bed so I can help her. Leaving my implant on during these nights allows me to hear her each time she gets sick, so I can immediately help her through it. With hearing aids, this wouldn't be possible.

You know, I had titled this blog 'Building My Self Esteem,' because I've always had self esteem issues related to my hearing loss. Any person with a significant hearing loss will often feel like they don't fit in. It's such a struggle to communicate with others that it's often easier to just withdraw and shy away from social settings. Because we are so hesitant to join in socially, people tend to think we are snobby or unapproachable. It's a vicious cycle. We often try to hide our hearing loss or our hearing aids, because we feel like it instantly labels us as disabled. I've had instances where I would tell someone I was hard of hearing, or they would see my hearing aids, and they would immediately begin speaking in a very loud slow deliberate voice, as if I had some severe mental handicap. It's no wonder we often feel compelled to hide our disability! The remarkable thing about the Esteem is that it makes me forget that I even have a hearing loss! All of my family and friends have noticed that my self confidence has gone way up. I'm not so shy and introverted anymore.

Just a couple of years ago, I never would have imagined just how much my life would change. Because of the Esteem, I found the courage to go back to school. I now work one-on-one as a peer tutor in kindergarten. I also work as a substitute teacher. Communicating with young children is no longer a struggle. It's a pretty amazing thing to be able to carry a conversation with someone who's sitting in a different room. I can even recognize and sing along to the music that's playing from my daughter's room, on the other end of the house. I can pick up quite a bit of my daughters' conversations when they are talking in their rooms. And it's funny - they still can't get used to this. They were so used to knowing they were out of earshot before, and now I can actually hear and comment on their conversations. 

"Huh?" and "What?" are no longer the most commonly used words in my everyday speech. (My mother once commented that my middle name should have been 'What.')

I noticed that I no longer make people look at me when talking to me so I can read their lips.

One great thing about the Esteem is the ability to turn it on or off, change programs, or adjust the volume. It's truly wonderful to hear almost normally, but sometimes it's nice to just briefly sink back into that old familiar world of quietness. Whenever I have a headache and the kids are being too loud, I turn the Esteem off, and the pain is cut in half. Otherwise, I rarely change the program or volume with my remote. This seems to be the norm with most Esteem patients though.

I will be doing my annual testing in the next couple of weeks, and I'll see if I can get my before and after test results so I can post these. Maybe then I can really show just how much my hearing has improved with the Esteem. Having the surgery was a huge decision for me, one that I do not regret at all. There has been a few bumps in the road, but it has been an amazing journey.