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Learning To Hear The World: I Heard My Own Voice For The First Time In 42 Years

Sherri Collins, executive director, Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, Cochlear implant

Sherri Collins is the executive director of the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing.

I am surprised by every sound, no matter how insignificant: the unique sound of a felt-tip pen across paper, the dull hum of an air-conditioner coming to life and the ticking clock.

Sherri Collins , U.S.

Date Posted: 10/16/06

Reader Rating:

For people who live with a physical impairment from birth, or for a long time, life feels as normal as it does for anyone else. They simply live using whatever resources are at their disposal. Until something changes and they rediscover the world. That's what happened to Sheri Collins only a couple of weeks ago. She had a cochlear implant -- a small electronic device placed beyond the damaged portions of the ear that directly stimulates the auditory nerve. Sherri is 42 years old; she is the executive director of the Arizona Commission for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. She was born deaf and this is her testimony.

August 29, 2006 is a date I'll never forget. That Monday morning my husband and I were sitting in my doctor's office, waiting anxiously for the activation of the cochlear implant I'd had the week before. I was anxious and a bit worried, wondering what hearing for the first time in my life would sound like. Would it change me somehow?

I was born deaf, 42 years ago, in Illinois. My mother had German measles while she was pregnant and that caused my hearing impairment. I had some residual hearing, but very slight. Actually, not even with hearing aids I was able to understand more than 20% of what people said. However, I was mainstreamed into regular public schools most of my life and I was raised with sign language. Being deaf was just another part of who I was. Some kids had freckles, some had big teeth. I was deaf. Not a big deal in the overall course of my childhood. I was a happy, normal kid.

But now my life was about to change. I was "chatting" with my husband in the way we had always done it-through sign language, but something was different when, all of the sudden, I had to pause. We were "talking!" For a second or two I was not sure what was going on. It seemed I didn't need to follow his hand gestures any more. I realized that I was hearing. Perceiving the sound of my nails tapping together as I signed and hearing my husband's hands as he signed, was an experience out of this world. Then I heard his voice and my doctor's voice too. I was amazed.