My mum heard my voice for the first time today!

[Francesca]

My mother, profoundly Deaf since the age of 3, heard my voice for the first time ever today

She's always been happy being deaf, is very involved with the deaf community and has never expressed a desire to be hearing. However, she decided to try out a new hearing aid just because she might as well, and now she can hear me. I don't even have to shout. I said "Mum!" and she heard me! That's never, ever happened before ever! :eek:

She can't understand words since she has no concept of what different words sound like, but we tried with me saying "Mum" and "hello" and she could tell the difference, kind of. With some practice she might be able to tell what I am saying, but we probably won't get to that stage since I don't see her often enough for us to be able to practice. But that's not important, she's happy enough to be able to hear the dog barking and traffic and suchlike (and we can of course communicate perfectly well through sign language).

How mental is that though? Imagine if, for your entire life, your mum had never been able to hear you and then one day, you could say "mum" and she heard you. It's quite mind-boggling.

And now my dad, also profoundly Deaf, is also getting a hearing aid after Christmas. He's well excited about being able to hear music again, which he hasn't heard since he was a teenager.

Both of them still very much identify as Deaf, and my mum is very pleased to be able to turn the hearing aid off when she wants to. And I won't ever stop thinking of them as being Deaf. But it's still pretty astounding to me to shout "Mum!" and be heard! How's that for a Christmas present? :D

[Hugh Jass]

that is really terrific. Congratulations on you and your mom getting a great Christmas present.

[Baker]

Oh that is wonderful! What a Christmas gift.

The hearing aid can be a safety measure when outside, traffic and such I imagine.

[Francesca]

Oh that is wonderful! What a Christmas gift.

The hearing aid can be a safety measure when outside, traffic and such I imagine.

Yeah, that's mostly why she got it. I remember she once stepped in front of an ambulance she didn't see coming and only got pulled out of the way at the last minute. It was frightening at the time.

Well, that, and to provide me with several hours of entertainment tonight:

Me: Mum!

*mum turns her head*

Me: You heard me! I said mum and you heard me! I'll never get tired of this!

And later...

Me, from a different room: MUM! MUUUUM!

*no response*

Me: MUUUUUUMMMMMM!

I wander into the room she's in, feeling very worried and disappointed:

Me (in sign lanuage): Did you not hear me?

Mum: I took the hearing aid out.


:D

[Sonnenstrahl]

Wow! That's wonderful news. You're right, it completely blows my mind to imagine hearing sounds for the first time, or being heard for the first time.

[Johnny L.A.]

She can't understand words since she has no concept of what different words sound like

Not knowing any deaf people, this is something I'd never considered.

[Khadaji]

Pretty cool news! :)

[E-Sabbath]

I got to ask... how does she feel about music?

How about music linked to videos?

[Lavender Falcon]

Wow, that is really, really cool! Merry Christmas to all of you.

[StGermain]

Growing up, we'd had a friend who was severely hard of hearing. He'd hit a blasting cap with a hammer in a tunnel his father was working in, and the concussive noise deafened him. He got along well reading lips and with the hearing he had left, getting exceptional grades in school and learning 5 different languages (including speaking them, in his atonal way). He'd always been told by doctors that his hearing couldn't be improved with hearing aids, so he didn't think about how it would be. THen he became and adult artist attending University in Germany. The doctors there said "Of course hearing aids can help you!" and promptly fit him for them. It was miraculous. However, he still often takes them out when he doesn't want to be bothered.

Congrats to your mom. Hopefully she'll soon be able to work out what the sounds mean. Is she undergoing any therapy to help put them together?

StG

[SomeUserName]

Wow that is pretty amazing. I wish good luck to her and your dad when he gets his. That is really neat.

[MerryMagdalen]

This story makes me really happy. Merry Christmas.

[Lionne]

What an incredible story! That's so cool!
I remember taking my hearing aids out a lot when I first got them because it was just too overwhelming. But then I missed hearing the birds outside, and the sound of tires on the road, stuff like that.

[Finally]

That's tremendous! Congrats to your whole family.

[Lucretia]

Not knowing any deaf people, this is something I'd never considered.

It's a very interesting aspect of speech, and one I became aquainted with about
two years ago, when I became an OR nurse. I'm fairly hard of hearing, but didn't realize how much I'd relied on lip reading until I began working in a situation where everyone had their mouths covered! Adding to my difficulty was the fact that I was trying to learn new occupational jargon, and I'd simply never heard many of the words before. I frustrated a LOT of surgeons by saying "I'm sorry, what did you ask for?" twelve times before they spoke loudly enough for me to understand it. Having then heard the word, it was much easier to "hear" it on subsequent occasions.

And Francesca, that's wonderful for you and your family.

[Hunter Hawk]

Congratulations! That's a heckuva Christmas gift.

[Kolga]

What an amazing Christmas gift! It also sounds like your mom has a good sense of humor about the whole thing :)

[GingerOfTheNorth]

My god, Frannie, that's amazing. Tell her Merry Christmas for me. And I'm VERY glad she didn't get a hearing aid before you became a teenager. :D

[cmyk]

Just in time — let us know what she thinks of Christmas music!

I've always been fascinated listening to stories about the life-long deaf, and life-long blind hearing or seeing for the first time, in an Oliver Sacks sort of way. Please share anymore stories and experiences. Sounds like you have cool parents, how old are they?

[Johnny L.A.]

And Francesca, that's wonderful for you and your family.

Francesca, I meant to add my congratulations for your mother, you, and the rest of your family.

It truly is wonderful news.

Best of luck to your dad, too. Although he might get a shock at how much music has changed since he last heard it!

[BwanaBob]

This is wonderful news. Are there prospects for her to be able to learn to distinguish words, or is that skill no longer possible.

[Marley23]

That's really amazing.

[Astroboy14]

Wow, that's great!

I'm severely bending my mind trying to imagine how it must feel for her to hear things for the first time, however... :eek:

[freekalette]

Fantastic! Reading this really made my day. :)

[Bam Boo Gut]

Wicked. I know the feeling.

My mum got one, she's been pretty deaf since the age of about 10. It's a bit overwhelming at first. I remember her saying she couldn't believe how distracting and intrusive all these sounds are and would turn it down and she's never worn it constantly.

[Cat Whisperer]

It's a very interesting aspect of speech, and one I became aquainted with about
two years ago, when I became an OR nurse. I'm fairly hard of hearing, but didn't realize how much I'd relied on lip reading until I began working in a situation where everyone had their mouths covered! Adding to my difficulty was the fact that I was trying to learn new occupational jargon, and I'd simply never heard many of the words before. I frustrated a LOT of surgeons by saying "I'm sorry, what did you ask for?" twelve times before they spoke loudly enough for me to understand it. Having then heard the word, it was much easier to "hear" it on subsequent occasions.

And Francesca, that's wonderful for you and your family.
I think we all read lips more than we realize - I wear glasses from the time I get up until I go to bed, and if I take them off and try to talk to someone, it just doesn't seem to work (and my hearing is perfectly normal).

That's super news, Francesca. Here's hoping your father has a good result, too. It's interesting that you posted about how your mom was almost hit by an ambulance, and safety was a concern for her getting the hearing aids, after hearing about the raging controversy in the deaf community about cochlear implants and how some of them consider being deaf to not be a handicap.

[jali]

Wonderful story!

I'm very happy for your family.

[Dangerosa]

Very cool....

[Musicat]

Francesca, is the new hearing aid something fancy like a cochlear implant, or just an acoustic amplifier-type device? Hope you don't mind my asking -- I'm just curious for technical reasons how that works.

[Kythereia]

That's awesome! *glees quietly for you and your mum*

[ToeJam]

Your story made me smile and brought tears to my eyes, as its a topic that hits very close to home for me- I totally grok the concept of hearing something for the first time and how mind blowing of a thought that is....

Congrats to you and your mother, and best wishes and luck to your father as well. Take Care.

[rocking chair]

that's fantastic!

just remember not to mumble around them anymore... they'll hear you!

[Shirley Ujest]

Now you can ask her for money all the time!



My cousin Rick is profoundly deaf and has hearing aids since an infant.

When he was in his late 20's, he got a new kind of hearing aid and his first day wearing it, he heard a noise that he couldn't figure out what it was.

Then he tripped over it.

It was the cat meowing at him for food.

He had never heard him before.



Thanks for sharing.

[The Scrivener]

Your parents both have a lot of sounds to catch up on!

How old is your father, BTW -- who you said lost his hearing in his teens? I'm thinking about what changes in music have happened since... and what classic movies your parents can now more fully enjoy.

I'm trying to imagine having watched, say, forty-plus years' worth of James Bond movies without ever knowing the instrumental Bond theme, or for that matter, the sounds of gunshots, explosions, car chases, Shirley Bassey, etc. To pick just one of a zillion such examples...

[Bongmaster]

That's fantastic news, thanks for sharing with us?

I'm sure others are curious as well...how is she handling exposure to new sounds like music and people singing? Birds? I'm very curious about that kind of thing...really give people new perspective on how our world works.