Click the image to see a larger size of the article published in Girlfriend gets real - True Stories Girlfriend Magazine 2008
Transcript
"I had to have an operation to hear again"
Bethany, 14, was one of the first peeps in South Australia to receive not one, but two, bionic ears to fix her hearing.
When I was born I was a bright and happy baby, always aware of what was going on around me. One day when I was 10 months old, my mum looked into my room to see if I was awake or not. She slowly opened the door and called my name. I didn't respond, so she tried again and again. When I still didn't respond, she knew there was something wrong with me.
Five months later, I was diagnosed as profoundly deaf. My parents were told that I would never develop usable speech and they had no idea what to do. Then they received a phone call from the principal of the Cora Barclay Centre in Adelaide, who said they would be able to teach me how to talk. I was fitted with hearing aids and had therapy to help me learn how to listen and speak. Everything was fine until my parents noticed I was responding less and less to things around me, so I had a test and it showed there had been a significant drop in my hearing.
When I was three I was taken to a surgeon who suggested I have a cochlear implant, also known as a bionic ear. My parents thought it would be a good idea so I was admitted to hospital and was in the operating room for five hours. There are two parts of a cochlear implant, one part inside your head with a magnet and an outer part on your ear which connects to the magnet inside your head. The magnet sends a digital signal from the microphone on the outside to the inner part and then the brain recognises the sound. It's amazing technology that was created by an Australian professor and is now used throughout the world.
Two weeks after the operation, they switched on my implant. I could hear the birds singing, the sprinkler and the planes above. With a lot of practice and hard work I learned to speak as well. My parents and I would play listening games every day. I used to get really annoyed because if I didn't say a word correctly, Mum would have to repeat it and we'd keep going until I got it right.
I started Kindergarten when I was nearly five but I still had the language age of a two-year-old so my teachers were concerned. They thought I might need to repeat however I made it through the year and went into Year One as normal. My mum had to explain to my class why I was different and what the thing on my head was. Sometimes I would get frustrated because it was still really hard to hear my friends in the noisy classroom.
Last year I had another implant fitted in my other ear, making me only the second child in South Australia to have bilateral implants. I'm still getting used to it because over the past 10 years my brain has learnt to listen on one side so it is taking a while to adjust. Having one in each ear makes it easier to know which direction sound is coming from and to hear in noisy situations.
I can't really remember what life was like before I had the operation but I know what it's like to be totally deaf because when I take the cochlear implants off I can't hear anything. Sometimes when I wake up in the morning I forget to put them on and my parents try to talk to me but I can't hear word they're saying! When I go swimming I have to remove them because they're not waterproof, so I understand what it's like to be totally isolated and not be able to hear what's going on around me. It's like I'm in a little world of my own that no one else can get to.
The best thing about having 'bionic' ears' is just being able to live a normal life. I am in Year Eight now and I no longer have problems with my hearing. If it wasn't for the cochlear implants then I wouldn't be able to talk to my friends, I wouldn't be able to play netball, and I probably wouldn't be able to go to a normal school. The implants have impacted on my life in very single way I can think of. I truly believe that miracles can happen because even though I am deaf, this fantastic technology lets me hear and speak like everyone else.