Miss-Delectable
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After years of pain and frustration, Laura Greaney enters the hearing world - The York Daily Record
Laura Greaney sat in a soundproof booth at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
On the other side of the glass partition, audiologist Regina Presley chatted into the microphone to help Laura relax.
Presley said most patients don't like the stuffy booth. They get used to waiting inside the shed-sized cube in silence, never being able to press the button to signal that they heard a tone. Many leave in tears.
But that February afternoon, Laura was ready. She crossed her arms. Her thin, 5-foot-9-inch frame bent forward in the chair.
"It's OK to guess," Presley reminded her. "If you don't hear it, that's OK, too."
Presley pressed play on a stereo and a man's voice filled the booth. Laura repeated his sentences, speaking with a slight slur.
"The oven door is open."
"She stood by the window."
"The children...," Laura stopped. She didn't catch the end of the sentence.
Presley made notations on a chart.
"Give yourself a pat on the back," Presley when the test was complete.
Laura sank back into her chair as Presley sifted through the many charts and graphs in her patient's file.
"We've been together for so long," Presley said.
Her voice fed into the booth. Laura grinned.
Presley found Laura's test results from her first visit to Greater Baltimore Medical Center's Cochlear Implant Center in December 2003. She told Laura that she was about to play the softest tone she was able to hear from that exam. Laura braced herself.
A sharp noise - like an Emergency Broadcast System warning - cut through the room.
A decade ago, Laura felt like she was disappearing.
She had been hard of hearing since she was 18 months old, when a case of spinal meningitis left her with no hearing in her right ear and 30 decibel loss - or 70 percent hearing - in her left ear.
Hearing aids helped, but she wasn't able to hear everyday sounds - rustling leaves, bits of conversation, strains of music.
As a child, she taught herself sign language, but didn't have any close friends or family members in the deaf community to communicate with, so she learned to read lips. In school, she was placed in special education classes, making her feel even more like an outsider.
In her family's Baltimore home she felt protected, but she couldn't keep up when her six brothers and sisters talked at the dinner table.
Sometimes, she felt invisible.
She struggled with her identity: Was she part of the hearing community or the deaf community? Since she was raised by hearing parents, she didn't feel comfortable among deaf people.
She took college courses, but stopped when it became too difficult for her to follow the instructor. She landed a data entry job and by 23, she was married and settled in White Marsh, Md.
By the late '90s, Laura's world was going silent.
She had more trouble fielding calls at work. She was exhausted from trying to keep up. She had panic attacks. She was angry with God.
Already shy, Laura retreated from those around her. Her marriage began to crumble. She became depressed and sought help.
While in therapy, she decided she was tired of being misunderstood.
People would shout at her when they learned she was hard of hearing. Some took her speech impediment to mean that she had a stroke. Others thought she was rude when she didn't hear them.
Laura researched hearing aids and came across testimonials about cochlear implants, which bypass ear damage to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.
It seemed like she had found everything she wanted: The implant patients had hope. They seemed happy. They could hear.
By 2003, she had been divorced for three years. She found the courage to date again, using online services so her hearing loss wouldn't be the first thing people noticed.
She had an immediate connection with Terry Greaney of Perry Hall, Md. - also divorced - but she was nervous to tell him about her hearing loss. Terry not only understood - his former brother-in-law was hard of hearing - he was working on his thesis about cochlear implants for his master's degree.
A friend told Laura about GBMC's Cochlear Implant Center, which was new at the time.
Candidates are given speech and comprehension tests - in the dreaded sound booth. Doctors look for people who receive little or no benefits from hearing aids and have 50 percent speech comprehension.
After a January 2004 evaluation, Laura learned she was a candidate for the implants. She had 55 percent sentence recognition and 54 percent word recognition.
Insurance would cover 80 percent of the $42,000 surgery bill. Laura would pay the remaining $8,000. She didn't hesitate; she wanted to schedule the surgery right away.
"There was no choice," she said. She had so much to look forward to. Terry had proposed that February. They planned to build a house - equipped with special features including a lighting fire alarm and doorbell - in Loganville.
The Cochlear Implant Center staff counsels patients, so they have realistic expectations.
Deaf people might not notice as much improvement with the implants as those with partial hearing like Laura.
Like a muscle, the hearing nerve loses efficiency with disuse. When the cochlear implant puts it back in use, it takes time to rebuild, Presley said. It takes deaf people longer to connect a noise - running water, beeping, chirping - to a source - a faucet, a car horn, a bird.
Some people qualify for implants in both ears - bilateral implants. Laura opted for a left ear implant to make sure the technology worked well for her.
On May 20, 2004 Dr. Brian Kaplan made a small incision behind her ear to implant the internal device - a receiver the size of two side-by-side quarters with a thin tail called the electrode array. It took about three hours to place the receiver in the tissue above her ear and carefully wind the electrode array inside her cochlea.
Laura was completely deaf during the four weeks it took her ear to heal. She felt uneasy without any hearing, so she spent a lot of time at home studying literature about her Advanced Bionics HiRes 90K implant.
In June, doctors activated her implant. Presley and other staff taught her how to attach the external device: The transmitter connected to the receiver through her skin with a magnet. The sound processor was worn behind her ear, like a hearing aid.
Using a thin cord, Presley connected Laura's sound processor to a computer.
For the first time since she was a baby, she could hear dozens of sounds.
"It was overwhelming," she said. People's voices were distorted; they sounded like Donald Duck. She couldn't eat her cereal in the morning because the crunch was too loud. The noise of crinkling trash bags made her skin crawl.
During the next few months, Laura went back to GBMC for speech therapy and sound lessons with Aural Rehabilitation Specialist Kelly Hume. Her implant also required adjustments so it would give her better sound quality.
Laura said the Cochlear Implant Center staff became like a family during her many visits to GBMC.
"They pulled me through," Laura said.
At 49, Laura said she feels normal for the first time in her life.
She knows normal is a relative term. Her speech impediment improved, but is still noticeable. Sometimes, people stare at the sound processor on her left ear. But she doesn't mind. She feels comfortable and happy in the hearing world.
"I'm not afraid of anything," she said. "I feel free."
She can talk on the phone, listen to her favorite band - The Eagles - and hear her husband's jokes. Laura and Terry waited until October 2005 to wed so she could hear the ceremony.
When they have an argument or when Terry snores, Laura jokes that she takes off the receiver.
In 2006, she was hired at McCormick's Flavor Manufacturing Center in Hunt Valley, Md. She finally feels challenged at work. She recently wrote an input program for safety cards that might be implemented at McCormick plants nationwide.
During her February visit to GBMC - she now only goes in when she needs an adjustment - Laura said that she felt her voice sounded too nasal. She still has trouble hearing higher frequency "s" "f" "th" and "ch" sounds. Presley hooked Laura's implant into a computer and fiddled with the channels.
Presley noticed significant improvement in Laura's speech comprehension - she now had 93 percent sentence recognition and 76 percent word recognition. She said the withdrawn woman who entered GBMC in 2003 is now engaged, even bubbly at times.
After Presley played the softest tone Greaney could hear seven years ago - so loud it would make any hearing person cringe - there was one more tone to test: The softest tone Laura could currently hear.
Laura waited for her transmitter, accessorized with a yellow happy face and tucked under her feathered brown hair, to pick up the tone. She learned forward, straining.
The sound was barely audible.
Laura Greaney sat in a soundproof booth at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center.
On the other side of the glass partition, audiologist Regina Presley chatted into the microphone to help Laura relax.
Presley said most patients don't like the stuffy booth. They get used to waiting inside the shed-sized cube in silence, never being able to press the button to signal that they heard a tone. Many leave in tears.
But that February afternoon, Laura was ready. She crossed her arms. Her thin, 5-foot-9-inch frame bent forward in the chair.
"It's OK to guess," Presley reminded her. "If you don't hear it, that's OK, too."
Presley pressed play on a stereo and a man's voice filled the booth. Laura repeated his sentences, speaking with a slight slur.
"The oven door is open."
"She stood by the window."
"The children...," Laura stopped. She didn't catch the end of the sentence.
Presley made notations on a chart.
"Give yourself a pat on the back," Presley when the test was complete.
Laura sank back into her chair as Presley sifted through the many charts and graphs in her patient's file.
"We've been together for so long," Presley said.
Her voice fed into the booth. Laura grinned.
Presley found Laura's test results from her first visit to Greater Baltimore Medical Center's Cochlear Implant Center in December 2003. She told Laura that she was about to play the softest tone she was able to hear from that exam. Laura braced herself.
A sharp noise - like an Emergency Broadcast System warning - cut through the room.
A decade ago, Laura felt like she was disappearing.
She had been hard of hearing since she was 18 months old, when a case of spinal meningitis left her with no hearing in her right ear and 30 decibel loss - or 70 percent hearing - in her left ear.
Hearing aids helped, but she wasn't able to hear everyday sounds - rustling leaves, bits of conversation, strains of music.
As a child, she taught herself sign language, but didn't have any close friends or family members in the deaf community to communicate with, so she learned to read lips. In school, she was placed in special education classes, making her feel even more like an outsider.
In her family's Baltimore home she felt protected, but she couldn't keep up when her six brothers and sisters talked at the dinner table.
Sometimes, she felt invisible.
She struggled with her identity: Was she part of the hearing community or the deaf community? Since she was raised by hearing parents, she didn't feel comfortable among deaf people.
She took college courses, but stopped when it became too difficult for her to follow the instructor. She landed a data entry job and by 23, she was married and settled in White Marsh, Md.
By the late '90s, Laura's world was going silent.
She had more trouble fielding calls at work. She was exhausted from trying to keep up. She had panic attacks. She was angry with God.
Already shy, Laura retreated from those around her. Her marriage began to crumble. She became depressed and sought help.
While in therapy, she decided she was tired of being misunderstood.
People would shout at her when they learned she was hard of hearing. Some took her speech impediment to mean that she had a stroke. Others thought she was rude when she didn't hear them.
Laura researched hearing aids and came across testimonials about cochlear implants, which bypass ear damage to directly stimulate the auditory nerve.
It seemed like she had found everything she wanted: The implant patients had hope. They seemed happy. They could hear.
By 2003, she had been divorced for three years. She found the courage to date again, using online services so her hearing loss wouldn't be the first thing people noticed.
She had an immediate connection with Terry Greaney of Perry Hall, Md. - also divorced - but she was nervous to tell him about her hearing loss. Terry not only understood - his former brother-in-law was hard of hearing - he was working on his thesis about cochlear implants for his master's degree.
A friend told Laura about GBMC's Cochlear Implant Center, which was new at the time.
Candidates are given speech and comprehension tests - in the dreaded sound booth. Doctors look for people who receive little or no benefits from hearing aids and have 50 percent speech comprehension.
After a January 2004 evaluation, Laura learned she was a candidate for the implants. She had 55 percent sentence recognition and 54 percent word recognition.
Insurance would cover 80 percent of the $42,000 surgery bill. Laura would pay the remaining $8,000. She didn't hesitate; she wanted to schedule the surgery right away.
"There was no choice," she said. She had so much to look forward to. Terry had proposed that February. They planned to build a house - equipped with special features including a lighting fire alarm and doorbell - in Loganville.
The Cochlear Implant Center staff counsels patients, so they have realistic expectations.
Deaf people might not notice as much improvement with the implants as those with partial hearing like Laura.
Like a muscle, the hearing nerve loses efficiency with disuse. When the cochlear implant puts it back in use, it takes time to rebuild, Presley said. It takes deaf people longer to connect a noise - running water, beeping, chirping - to a source - a faucet, a car horn, a bird.
Some people qualify for implants in both ears - bilateral implants. Laura opted for a left ear implant to make sure the technology worked well for her.
On May 20, 2004 Dr. Brian Kaplan made a small incision behind her ear to implant the internal device - a receiver the size of two side-by-side quarters with a thin tail called the electrode array. It took about three hours to place the receiver in the tissue above her ear and carefully wind the electrode array inside her cochlea.
Laura was completely deaf during the four weeks it took her ear to heal. She felt uneasy without any hearing, so she spent a lot of time at home studying literature about her Advanced Bionics HiRes 90K implant.
In June, doctors activated her implant. Presley and other staff taught her how to attach the external device: The transmitter connected to the receiver through her skin with a magnet. The sound processor was worn behind her ear, like a hearing aid.
Using a thin cord, Presley connected Laura's sound processor to a computer.
For the first time since she was a baby, she could hear dozens of sounds.
"It was overwhelming," she said. People's voices were distorted; they sounded like Donald Duck. She couldn't eat her cereal in the morning because the crunch was too loud. The noise of crinkling trash bags made her skin crawl.
During the next few months, Laura went back to GBMC for speech therapy and sound lessons with Aural Rehabilitation Specialist Kelly Hume. Her implant also required adjustments so it would give her better sound quality.
Laura said the Cochlear Implant Center staff became like a family during her many visits to GBMC.
"They pulled me through," Laura said.
At 49, Laura said she feels normal for the first time in her life.
She knows normal is a relative term. Her speech impediment improved, but is still noticeable. Sometimes, people stare at the sound processor on her left ear. But she doesn't mind. She feels comfortable and happy in the hearing world.
"I'm not afraid of anything," she said. "I feel free."
She can talk on the phone, listen to her favorite band - The Eagles - and hear her husband's jokes. Laura and Terry waited until October 2005 to wed so she could hear the ceremony.
When they have an argument or when Terry snores, Laura jokes that she takes off the receiver.
In 2006, she was hired at McCormick's Flavor Manufacturing Center in Hunt Valley, Md. She finally feels challenged at work. She recently wrote an input program for safety cards that might be implemented at McCormick plants nationwide.
During her February visit to GBMC - she now only goes in when she needs an adjustment - Laura said that she felt her voice sounded too nasal. She still has trouble hearing higher frequency "s" "f" "th" and "ch" sounds. Presley hooked Laura's implant into a computer and fiddled with the channels.
Presley noticed significant improvement in Laura's speech comprehension - she now had 93 percent sentence recognition and 76 percent word recognition. She said the withdrawn woman who entered GBMC in 2003 is now engaged, even bubbly at times.
After Presley played the softest tone Greaney could hear seven years ago - so loud it would make any hearing person cringe - there was one more tone to test: The softest tone Laura could currently hear.
Laura waited for her transmitter, accessorized with a yellow happy face and tucked under her feathered brown hair, to pick up the tone. She learned forward, straining.
The sound was barely audible.
