Miss-Delectable
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WKYC.com | Cleveland, OH | Life or Deaf: Jessica's journey continues
Five months ago, a West Michigan woman had to make the choice between saving her life and losing her hearing.
Twenty-three-year-old Jessica Stone chose to go deaf.
She has neurofibromatosis, or NF, which is a condition where tumors grow on the nerve endings. She needed to have one removed from her brain stem in order to save her life.
A television crew followed her through her surgery and the first few days of living in a silent world.
Now, Jessica may be given the chance to hear again. She is a candidate for a cochlear implant and last month she underwent surgery to have one inserted at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Once again, Jessica allowed cameras to record another one of her life changing events. Only this time, it could mean regaining her ability to hear.
Since April, she's been learning how to cope in a silent world.
"I can't call my mom or my dad or my sister anymore, so we text message a lot, so at least I got a cool new phone out of it," said Jessica.
And she still has her sense of humor about being deaf, but Jessica says it's one she may not have to keep for long.
"I just started learning what normal things are."
But now normal is about to change again. As she's wheeled off to the operating room, Dr. Hassan El-Kashlan prepares to insert Jessica's cochlear implant by creating a place for the implant on Jessica's skull.
"We then create the passage into the middle ear where the bones are," explains the doctor.
Then the electrode is threaded into the cochlear nerve. There has to be careful monitoring of the facial nerve because if it's damaged, one side of Jessica's face could droop for the rest of her life.
The entire operation takes about three hours and it's one Dr. El-Kashlan is very optimistic about.
"It was amazing that actually with that big of a tumor that we were able to preserve one of the waves of hearing," he said.
But she'll have to wait at least a month before she knows if she'll be able to hear her mother say "I love you" again.
Jessica's implant will be activated in a few weeks. That's when we'll learn if she'll actually be able to hear voices or just sounds or vibrations.
The activation takes two days and we'll be there every step of the way. You'll learn if the cochlear implant was successful this November.
Five months ago, a West Michigan woman had to make the choice between saving her life and losing her hearing.
Twenty-three-year-old Jessica Stone chose to go deaf.
She has neurofibromatosis, or NF, which is a condition where tumors grow on the nerve endings. She needed to have one removed from her brain stem in order to save her life.
A television crew followed her through her surgery and the first few days of living in a silent world.
Now, Jessica may be given the chance to hear again. She is a candidate for a cochlear implant and last month she underwent surgery to have one inserted at the University of Michigan Hospital in Ann Arbor.
Once again, Jessica allowed cameras to record another one of her life changing events. Only this time, it could mean regaining her ability to hear.
Since April, she's been learning how to cope in a silent world.
"I can't call my mom or my dad or my sister anymore, so we text message a lot, so at least I got a cool new phone out of it," said Jessica.
And she still has her sense of humor about being deaf, but Jessica says it's one she may not have to keep for long.
"I just started learning what normal things are."
But now normal is about to change again. As she's wheeled off to the operating room, Dr. Hassan El-Kashlan prepares to insert Jessica's cochlear implant by creating a place for the implant on Jessica's skull.
"We then create the passage into the middle ear where the bones are," explains the doctor.
Then the electrode is threaded into the cochlear nerve. There has to be careful monitoring of the facial nerve because if it's damaged, one side of Jessica's face could droop for the rest of her life.
The entire operation takes about three hours and it's one Dr. El-Kashlan is very optimistic about.
"It was amazing that actually with that big of a tumor that we were able to preserve one of the waves of hearing," he said.
But she'll have to wait at least a month before she knows if she'll be able to hear her mother say "I love you" again.
Jessica's implant will be activated in a few weeks. That's when we'll learn if she'll actually be able to hear voices or just sounds or vibrations.
The activation takes two days and we'll be there every step of the way. You'll learn if the cochlear implant was successful this November.
