IMPLANTEES’ VIEW
Persons who have received cochlear implants, whether voluntarily or
involuntarily, are an invaluable resource in our community. If you are
an implantee, we encourage you to share your story with us. If you are
a deaf person with a currently-functioning implant, what has your
experience been? Has it been good? Bad? If your parents made the choice
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experience been? And if you’re one of the growing number of deaf people
who have stopped using their implants or have even had them surgically
removed, we’d like to ?read? from you. Please E-mail us at editor (at)
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Metabolic mess-up
Hello, my name is Daniel Foley and I have been implanted at age 13. It
does nothing but causes problems with me physically. Since I have been
implanted, I noticed that my metabolism slowed down and I gained weigh.
By the time I became 16 years old I weigh almost 300 pounds and I had
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roof. I really wanted to take the inside part out so bad.
The strange thing is I was supposed to hear things with the implant,
but I never heard one thing and my parents still tried to make me wear
it until I became 18 and now I am almost 20. Now my parents are doing
better. They also told me that my personality without the implant on is
better than with it on. My friends said the same!! I even like myself
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a student from MSSD (Model Secondary School for the Deaf)
Out from the bubble: enjoying life with an implant
Hello, my name is Betsy Hitzel and I’m 28 years old. I just got my
implant last October 2003, and I’m very happy with it.
The cause of my hearing loss is called Perrault’s Syndrome. I was deaf
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my own little bubble.
When I heard about the implant I was scared and worried, but the more I
thought about it, I got excited. Now I’m happy I did it. Sounds that
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outside, even hearing the engine of a car when started, things people
do not think about. So I’m glad I got the implant. I admit I don’t hear
every word people say, but I don’t say “Huh?” all the time now.
I’m hoping I can get the implant in my left ear. I feel whoever
invented the implant, I would like to shake his or hers hand and thank
them for giving me my life back.
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Anyway I come from a large deaf family and I have a deaf granddaughter.
And I have a cochlear implant my self. I have had mine for about five
years and I am against children having one until they are much, much
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pain was and he asked me want it pulled out and I said “no!” so I asked
him if he thought it was coming from my cochlear implant as I notice
with certain sounds it would make it ache so I decided to go back to
the place that did my cochlear implant and I explained to the doctor
what I just told you and he was stunned and acted like it was weird but
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Please do not allow these little ones to have it done also it is hard
for me to get an MRI due to the cochlear implant so theses little ones
may not be able to tell something is wrong. I hope this will help.
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“The doctors wouldn’t listen”:
an implantee’s nightmare
Hi. My name is Nan Young. [Editors’ note: All names in the following
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Victoria, Australia, I am profoundly deaf, late-deaf, I lost my hearing
at age 44, I had an implant put in in January 2001 and I had it removed
in April 2002. I would love to be able to tell my story to you, so that
many more can see the problems I had with the implant and also the
trouble I had with the doctors not listening to me, and then leaving me
to fend for myself with not much help from them once the implant was
removed. I would like people to see the other side of the Implant
“Problems” but first I need to see if you get this, so that I can
continue to give my whole story. This I need to do for myself and for
all those thinking of getting the implant, so that one day I may feel
that I have done my best to show the other side of it.
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have received it and then I can continue with the long story of my
journey with getting hearing from the implant and then going back to No
Hearing again.
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Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital. (This hospital houses one of the
world’s leading cochlear-implant clinics.) Punctuation and
capitalization have also been regularized. We have responded to Ms.
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removed. Soon after this, I felt like I had fluid in my head around the
implant area. I spoke to a young doctor (can’t remember his name), who
aid it was impossible to have fluid in that area, and said not to
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but I was happy, as I could hear something. For the next couple of
weeks I used the implant a lot trying to understand the T.V. and people
talking, I had to go back to the Implant Clinic on a regular basis once
a week, at that time.
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didn’t. It was this day that I asked Mr. Cash to just please take the
implant out! I didn’t want it in anymore; it was causing me too much
trouble.
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At my next visit, Kim told me that I was not the only person having
problems with the implant. There were others! When I saw Mr. Cash next,
I asked him about the other people with problems, and I told him Kim
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a letter, stating how concerned they were for me. This letter also
[had] a list of Management Options that they, the Implant Clinic, would
give me to help. There [were] a number of options for me if I would
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omewhere for long-term stay to help with the sleep and for them to
check the implant and infections. That was [also] back in May, and it
was now September.
Every time I saw the doctors there was always an excuse. That something
else was wrong, never the implant! And I still asked [them] to please
remove the implant or try and fix it, and also to move the electrodes
up like Dr. Smith said he was going to do. Mr. Cash’s response to this
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again this was put aside and they, the doctors spoke of what they
wanted! I said that I wanted the implant out, and Dr. Smith said that
it would be too expensive to do that. My brother then asked Dr. Smith,
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till there were infections in my ear that they didn’t believe.
[On] my next visit to Mr. Cash, I said I wanted the implant taken out.
Again, his response was, even if the implant was taken out, at this
tage he didn’t believe that it would get rid of my problems. He
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was in the other room asking Kat a lot of questions—things like
“What would you feel like if your mother had the implant removed?” and
“Why had your mother been to see so many other doctors about the ear
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can. He said that the scan showed a lot of fluid all around the
implant area. I was totally stunned! Fluid? He said yes, but he could
ee no hole that Mr. Cash was talking about.
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hole and the electrode was pushing through, and the doctor told me that
the implant area was full of FLUID! Now I was told there was nothing?
I went back up to my room and I was too furious, I think, to even cry.
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nothing?!?” He said he was sorry; he must have made an error when
looking in it. I said “Oh, yeah? Well, I want the implant removed!”
When I said this we were just outside his room, in the hallway, again.
He then told me that having the implant removed was not a consideration
at all!
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another appointment with Mr. Cash on the 12^tth March at 12.30 p.m.,
hoping that they will agree to remove the implant. If not, I am going
to have to find someone who will.
On the 1st March I went and saw my local G.P., and he said to me to ask
if the implant was pressing on or against the internal carotid artery,
as this could be causing the throbbing in my head.
I am hoping that you may be able to help me get something done on
getting the problems fixed or on getting the implant removed.
Yours sincerely,
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means, use them.
I really hate to see little kids getting implants but it is their
parent’s decision. I often wonder about the longevity of implants.
I never considered C.I. because it did not have good beginning with
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I don’t think I would have made it this far
without an implant
Hello, my name is Paige Adams.  I'm sixteen years old and here is my
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At the age of five, the University of Virginia offered a possible
operation for a cochlear implant. After doing research and listening to
deaf pro-implant and deaf community advocates, my parents decided it
was for the best for me to receive a cochlear implant. After a six-hour
urgery, I had a magnet installed inside my skull on my right side
above my ear. Within a month, I was wearing my cochlear implant to
chool and I could hear things that I had never heard before such as
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and use it as an advantage for my education and communication skills.
Today, I still wear the same old cochlear implant and I love it!!!!
Even today, I hear something new and it is a learing experience. Also,
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Algebra (one and two), Geometry, and Precalculus. If I didn’t receive
my cochlear implant, I do not think I would have made this far.
My goals are to graduate high school with an advanced diploma and to go