February Calendar Scene

Not only is February a month to celebrate Valentines Day and Black History Month, it also contains two important celebrations related to hearing loss:

1st Week of February is National Tinnitus Awareness Week

February 25 is International Cochlear Implant Day

When I was 17, I had the first of many surgeries in my ears. That was when I lost all of the hearing on my right side and got introduced to the world of tinnitus, those invasive sounds that huuum and buuuuuzzz like a constant swarm of little bees and hummingbirds inside of me. When I really pay attention to them, they get louder and I realize how many different sounds there are. Different pitches and tunes. So many that there are moments they seem to get mixed up with other sounds from my environment. Other times, they seem to be trying to play me something. Like a song or a coded message.

For quite a few years, this was all I knew about hearing loss. I knew what it was like to have unaided single sided deafness with tinnitus. Years later, I got to learn from experience what was like to lose some hearing on the other side too and what it felt like to wear hearing aids.

Eventually I got to learn about the world of deafness and cochlear implants when my son, Jason, was diagnosed profoundly deaf when he was almost 3. Up until then, we were told that he had a moderate hearing loss. I was already familiar with hearing aids, but cochlear implants were very new to me.

I can see clearly now that he’s 14 years old, all the wonderful opportunities a cochlear implant has given him, with the support of all the work he did along with it. It’s quite a miracle what a cochlear implant can do and even more fascinating is its relationship to the brain and how the brain learns from all the signals it receives from the electrodes inside the implant.

So let’s celebrate this month and share our stories, support each other and create more awareness around these important dates!

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