What would you do if your world slowly started going silent—and you didn’t know why? This week on Pushing Limits, we bring you the story of Claire, a young student in Utah who began losing her hearing in fifth grade, despite having no family history of disability.
When Claire was in fifth grade, she noticed the hearing in her right ear dropped, followed by her left ear. Now entering ninth grade, Claire reflects on her journey of obtaining hearing aids, a cochlear implant, and how she and her mother, Michelle, are learning to navigate a new language, a new identity, and a new understanding of access. Tune in as we ask what her audiologist and ENT did to help her, what made her decide to get a cochlear implant in her right ear, and how she learned to adapt to the cochlear implant. How do mother and daughter feel about learning American Sign Language? This week, Denny Daughters talks to Claire and her mother Michelle to answer all these questions and more.
Plus, for a full transcript of the entire program, scroll down.
The idea for this episode of Pushing Limits came from Denny’s wife, Deah Daughters. This show was hosted, edited, and produced by Denny Daughters. Audio transcription was by Nicole Struthers.
Pushing Limits – Sudden Changes
Denny: Hello, and welcome to Pushing Limits, KPFA’s program by and about people with disabilities. We air every Friday afternoon at 2:30 p.m. I’m your host, Denny Daughters. Today, I have two guests, Claire and her mother, Michelle. Both live in Utah. Claire will be going into ninth grade this fall. This is her final year of junior high. Claire’s mom, dad, and three siblings don’t have any disabilities.
In fifth grade, Claire was a typical kid without any disabilities. That year, she lost her hearing. She went from having hearing aids in both ears to having a hearing aid in her left ear and a cochlear implant in her right ear. Welcome to Pushing Limits. Let’s start out with a brief introduction from both of you.
Claire: I’m Claire, and I lost my hearing in fifth grade, so it’s been almost four years.
Michelle: My name’s Michelle, and I’m Claire’s mom.
Denny: How many people are in your family?
Claire: I have two brothers, one sister. I’m the youngest.
Denny: Do any of your family members have disabilities?
Denny: Do you remember what you were doing when you lost your hearing, and what was it like for you after you lost your hearing?
Claire: I remember very well. I was just playing Legos, and then it just dropped, and it started ringing, and it never stopped. So, I’d be like, “Mama, it’s still in my ear,” and I could still hear out my other ear. It’s kind of like a bunch of buzzing or like the ringing in your ears, but also sometimes it’ll sound like there’s a fly in your ear or something. We would put stuff in my ears trying to get a fly out, because I thought there was a fly in my ear.
Michelle: She wouldn’t believe me that there was no fly in her ear and would ask me to check over and over –
Michelle: — because she just felt like there was —
Claire: It sounded like it.
Michelle: — a fly, but it was ringing so loud that I was having to yell really loud for her just to be able to hear me.
Denny: When the buzzing in Claire’s ears wouldn’t go away, it took about a week for them to get in to see her pediatrician, and then it was two weeks after that for them to see the ENT. Here’s Michelle.
Michelle: It started to ring, and we talked to her pediatrician –
Claire: I don’t remember that.
Michelle: And he thought that maybe she had some fluid in her ears, and so we went and got that checked out, and it looked okay, but they put her on a medication in case there was some fluid that they couldn’t detect, and then he had us wait. At that point, when it didn’t come back, then he had us go see an ENT.
We got her in pretty quickly. The thing that was tricky is that I started calling around to different ENTs, and no one could get her in. They were all booked out pretty far, even just a month or two, but I was trying to explain, “She can’t hear. I feel like this is kind of an urgent thing.” So, I finally found a place that could get her in, you know, it was a week or two after I called. They weren’t pediatric, but it was fine.
They did an audiology test, and then she met with the ENT. They at that point just said – and this was our first doctor appointment – but they said, “Oh, she’s going to need hearing aids,” and it just caught me so off guard, because everything up to that point you’d fixed. Right? She gets strep throat, you get medication, you fixed it. For them to just flat-out say, “Oh, she lost her hearing,” it was just shocking to me. I don’t think Claire even knows this, but I cried the whole way home, and she couldn’t hear me in the back seat because she couldn’t hear, and I was just devastated.
Michelle: So, I came home and started researching more, and I saw that sometimes with sudden hearing loss, steroids would help. I called my pediatrician that night. He’s a friend of ours, and so I called him at 9:00 at night and said, “Would you prescribe some steroids for her to try?” He said, “You need to get in to this one specific ENT as soon as you can,” and I said, “I actually have an appointment with him, but it’s not for another month and a half,” and he said, “I will get you in tomorrow.”
The next morning, I got a call from their office, and they got Claire in that day, and they did another audiology test with her, and then they gave her a round of steroids, which did bring her hearing back a little bit.
Michelle: But we had to go through all of the motions to see if there was anything that we could do to help with that, and it didn’t, and so at that point, they decided the hearing aids would be the best option.
The first time we went in to this office that we’re with now, the pediatric audiologist that we’re with was on a humanitarian trip, and so they just had her seeing whoever was available at the time for her appointments. But once we got in with this specific audiologist, she has just been –
Michelle: — so incredibly amazing.
Michelle: I would say that’s something that’s been amazing with Claire’s journey is just how amazing the people have been. Her audiologist, we’ve gotten to become really close with. She’s just been amazing. I couldn’t ask for anything better. Her ENT, same thing.
Michelle: Just, they’ve been so good for Claire and done so much and truly cared about her, and it makes such a difference to go through this with that kind of healthcare provider.
Denny: What were some of the emotions you were going through while all this was going on?
Claire: I was just confused, because I didn’t really know. When I was younger, I thought it was just like silence, so I didn’t understand why I just had a ringing in my ear and why I couldn’t hear, so I was really just confused. I wasn’t really too nervous or anything.
Denny: How did you feel when you found out first you were going to have hearing aids?
Claire: I was kind of excited, because I’ve always wanted to experience stuff like that, and also because I could hear and stuff.
Denny: Which ear did you lose your hearing in first?
Claire: It started in the right ear, and then it came to the left, and then they were pretty good. Then my right ear kind of dropped, so then they did a bunch of stuff. They were testing things again, putting me on steroids, trying to see if we could get my right ear up, and then we talked about maybe getting a cochlear implant.
Denny: Claire, have you ever been around somebody who’s deaf before?
Claire: Yeah. I’ve met kids at school.
Michelle: There was one kid that had hearing aids, but he wasn’t really –
Claire: No, he had two hearing aids, and then this kid with two cochlears and a girl with a hearing aid.
Michelle: Okay. But at that time, you didn’t really know them.
Claire: Yeah, and I still don’t know them. Like, I know them, and I knew their names, but it’s not like we were friends, and I never really talked to them.
Denny: Some people in the deaf community feel that it’s better to learn American Sign Language, ASL, in order to preserve the deaf culture rather than getting cochlear implants. What are your thoughts on that, Claire?
Claire: I don’t have that many feelings, but I also feel like I tried learning ASL, but I didn’t really like doing it, and I felt like it was really hard for me to learn. Having things like cochlears for kids who might not be able to do it or like – yeah, just not being able to do it or anything.
Denny: So, for you, learning ASL was difficult?
Claire: Yeah. I only tried it for a little bit of time, and then I kind of just stopped. I know some words and the alphabet, but it’s not like I know all of the signs.
Michelle: Can I share my thoughts on that, too?
Claire: Yeah, you can share your thoughts.
Michelle: So, I actually love ASL. I have always been fascinated with it. When I was little, I took a class during the summer, and I just love it. Anytime we’ve been anywhere where there’s an interpreter that is signing, I just focus on that, and I think it is such a beautiful language. I would still love for Claire and I and other members of our family to learn it, because there are times – for example, we’re on the beach, or at night when she’s going to bed and she doesn’t have her devices on – that I think it would be amazing.
But as we talked about the decision to do a cochlear, we realized that Claire is in a hearing community. She lives in a hearing community. Her family is hearing. Her friends are hearing.
Michelle: Her neighbors are hearing. And so, for Claire to be a part of that community, if there’s an option where she can still be hearing, that’s her community. I think that would be different if other members of our family were deaf or other people in our community close to us. But because of that, we felt if there’s an option for her to be able to still have that, that was what would make her more successful in the community that she’s in.
Denny: Besides giving you steroids, what were some of the other things they tried with your hearing aids?
Claire: Not only did my hearing aid test, but they did a lot of cochlear tests, and then they would try stuff other than steroids. They turned up my hearing aid, because they can make the sound on hearing aids lower and less volume and a stronger volume.
Denny: Were the tests hard that they had you do?
Claire: No. It’s kind of stuff like I go in this booth, and it’s like, “Repeat this sentence. Repeat these words,” just to see how well I can hear those things, but if I don’t hear it, I just say nothing. A lot of them were like, “Say armchair. Say hot dog, baseball,” really weird, just random words.
Denny: Michelle, were you there for all the tests?
Michelle: Yes, I was there for every one of them. She was in the sound booth, and then I was sitting by the audiologist.
Claire: Because the audiologist has headphones and a microphone, so she can talk to me and hear me, but she couldn’t, but she was at least in the office.
Michelle: And there was a window, so we could see her.
Denny: For two years, the hearing aids helped, and then without warning, the hearing in her right ear suddenly decreased to almost nothing. When you decided to get the cochlear implant, were you presented with other options, or did you feel like this was the only option that you had?
Michelle: I mean, first it was deciding if you wanted to get a cochlear.
Michelle: And it was, “The hearing aid will no longer work.”
Claire: Well, and we tried steroids again.
Michelle: Yeah, we did. We went through two different rounds of steroids to see if that would help, but it didn’t help enough, so it became we can do a cochlear or not. And then once we chose to do a cochlear, they did present us with a few different companies that do cochlears.
Denny: Did you ever feel like they were trying to push a certain technology on you?
Claire: No. They were asking us about it, like, “Do you want to try hearing aids?”
Michelle: They talked about all the pros and cons of both hearing aids –
Michelle: — and the cochlear. I sincerely felt that they had Claire’s best interest in mind.
Michelle: But the decision very much felt like it was our decision –
Michelle: — and they weren’t telling us what we needed to do.
Denny: Claire talks about the final round of tests she underwent before getting her cochlear.
Claire: So, there was like a hearing box room for hearing aid and cochlear tests, and they would put me in there to make sure I needed it, and I was telling them afterwards, “I couldn’t hear a thing.” I thought it was telling me to do actions, and apparently it was saying sentences or something. I don’t even remember it.
Michelle: Yeah, her audiologist said, “I only had to do that as a formality, but I knew that you wouldn’t be able to pass that test,” –
Claire: Yeah, I couldn’t hear anything. I thought it was –
Michelle: — because she had lost all that hearing in the right ear.
Denny: How did you feel when you found out you couldn’t hear the directions your audiologist was giving you?
Claire: I wasn’t too worried, because I knew that if that didn’t work out, I would just have my hearing aid in my one ear and get my cochlear, and I would be able to hear in that ear again with the cochlear. Failing that test would mean I needed the cochlear.
Michelle: Claire’s been very resilient. When we were driving home from that, I wanted to kind of talk with her and say, “How are you feeling? What are your thoughts? Are you okay?” and Claire said, “There’s a reason for everything that happens, and there’s a reason for this.” I was just amazed at the maturity and the acceptance and the resilience, that she’s been able to say, “There’s a reason that this is happening,” and she’s just gone with it, and she’s done so well because of that. She’s had such a great attitude.
Denny: What’s the definition of a cochlear implant? A cochlear implant has two parts to it. The processor is surgically inserted. It sits in the inner ear, and it bypasses the damaged cochlea cells. There are some really thin wires that stimulate the cochlear nerve endings. In most cases, they don’t physically touch those nerve endings; they just stimulate them. The cochlear nerve endings are attached to the cochlear nerve, which is attached to the brain. The receiver sits outside the skull, collecting sounds in the natural environment. The two components are connected via a magnet.
When they gave you your pre-surgery instructions, do you remember if they said anything besides ‘Don’t eat anything after 11 p.m. the night before your surgery’?
Claire: I don’t think so. It was really just like a normal surgery that you would undergo.
Denny: Were there any scary moments with your surgery?
Claire: The only scary part for me was if they hit this certain nerve, then I wouldn’t be able to move the right side of my face. That’s one of the biggest ones. They’ll have little things by it so if they get too close with the thing, they’ll know.
Michelle: Yeah. So, to clarify, if they touch that nerve, it will paralyze half of your face, and so during surgery, they have sensors all over your face so that if you get even close to it, the sensor goes off so that the doctor knows that he’s getting close to that nerve.
Claire: Yeah. That was the only part that scared me about the surgery, because I’ve had other surgeries.
Denny: The city of Lehi is about 28 miles south of Salt Lake City. Here’s Michelle.
Michelle: Claire was the first child to have a cochlear implant surgery at the new Primary Children’s Hospital that they had just opened in Lehi. So, they got her under anesthesia, and then the doctor realized they didn’t have all of the tools that he needed to do it, and so they had to get them from the other hospital in Salt Lake. She ended up being back there double the time, and so they called to give us an update and said, “They haven’t started yet.” They didn’t go into details at that point, and we were so confused why she had been back in the OR for so long.
Claire: It was same-day surgery, so I was able to leave after that and go home. I was excited to go to my bed.
Denny: The surgery took between five and six hours to complete rather than the usual two or three hours. What was it like for you recovering from the surgery?
Claire: It was a very long recovery, I’d say. I’d be mainly staying in bed, and people would come visit, and my mom was like, “Come out to the couch.” I didn’t really want to walk around too much, because I’d get dizzy and feel nauseous. I was tired a lot of the time, so I didn’t really want to talk to people as much, but I still wanted to see them and visit with them. I mainly just stayed in my room, and I watched shows on my headphones.
I didn’t lay on that side of my head for a while, because there was stitches, and it hurt. I would wear clothes that I didn’t have to put over my head, like button-ups and stuff, so I didn’t have to put anything around that ear. I just laid in bed and rested and had medicine.
Michelle: It’s hard to watch your kid struggle, you know, after surgery, when she was so miserable and she kept saying, “I wish we wouldn’t have done this.” That only lasted a couple days, but it hurts to see them go through that.
Denny: How long did it take to recover from your surgery?
Claire: I want to say like maybe a week or something.
Michelle: Yeah, maybe. I can’t remember exactly.
Claire: It was like a week or so.
Michelle: But after a few days, her dizziness was so bad she didn’t even want to lift up her head.
Michelle: So, her ENT called in a little patch to put behind her ear, and we tried that, and that actually helped quite a bit, too.
Michelle: So, it was probably four days, five days, maybe.
Claire: Yeah. And also, I have a small goose egg where the magnet is. It’s kind of just popped up a little bit where the magnet is, just a little bump on the back of my head.
Michelle: But the scar from the surgery, you wouldn’t even know it’s there, it healed up so nicely.
Michelle: It’s right at the crease of her ear in the back.
Denny: It’s where your ear joins your skull in the very back, right?
Claire: It’s healed up. It took a while for it to be completely healed, I’d say like two months, but now you can barely even see the scar.
Denny: 94.1, KPFA. You’re listening to Pushing Limits. I’m your host, Denny Daughters. Today, I’m talking to Claire and Michelle. Claire just finished telling us how she recovered from her cochlear implant surgery a couple years ago when she was in seventh grade.
While recovering from surgery, did you have a lot of schoolwork to make up?
Claire: I only took off a couple days, and then I was back to school, and my teachers were very accommodating to me. So, if I missed a test or I had something past due, like I couldn’t turn it in, they would accommodate to me and let me do it because I had my surgery.
Michelle: One of the things that was nice for Claire is a lot of times, people will get two cochlears at the same time, but because Claire had the one and then she has a hearing aid in her other ear, she was still able to hear through all of that process, which was really a nice advantage for her to have.
Denny: What was it like when your audiologist first turned on your cochlear implant?
Claire: It was weird. It sounded like everyone was a robot. I couldn’t hear out of it as well as my hearing aid, that’s what I’m trying to say. If my mom talked, I couldn’t really understand what she was saying. At night, I’d take out my hearing aid, and she’d cover her mouth and test, like she’d say words to see how well it improved. Eventually, we got to where my mom and dad would switch off saying words, and I wouldn’t be able to say it, and now I can be like, “Oh, that’s Mom,” “Oh, that’s Dad,” “Oh, that’s whoever.”
Denny: Claire talks about when her audiologist turned on and adjusted the cochlear implant.
Claire: I’d go in, and they would turn it on, and then I’d go in in another week, they’d test me and turn it up a little, and then in another two weeks, turn it up a little, see how well my tolerance for the sound needed to be and how high it should go or how low it should go. Now, we’re to the point where it’s like every six months, they make sure my hearing aid’s not going down and I need another cochlear or anything like that.
Denny: Claire, in your opinion, what’s the possibility of you getting a second cochlear implant in your left ear?
Claire: Personally, I think it’s low, because my left hearing is good. If I take out my cochlear and my hearing aid, I can still hear out of my left ear a little bit. It’s not a lot, but I can still hear a little bit.
Michelle: Because they don’t know the cause of her hearing loss, they said there’s a chance that it could. Everything was so sporadic with her hearing loss in the first place, they just keep an eye on it, but they have no idea what that will look like.
Denny: How long did it take for you to start recognizing different voices?
Claire: Probably like three to four months, I’d say. But overall, for me to fully adjust, I’d say it’d take a year, because I had my year anniversary, and I’m doing a lot better now. Lip reading was a big thing when I downed my hearing aids at first. I’d be like, “What did you say?” I’m like, “Come closer. I need to read your lips.”
Denny: Are you still pretty good at it?
Claire: No. I can still kind of do it, but it’s very hard for me to read lips.
Michelle: I think with the little bit of sound she was getting and the lips together, the combination…
Claire: Yeah, with the little bit of sound.
Denny: Did you have any other problems after getting your cochlear implant?
Claire: It would give me headaches at first, because we got too strong of a magnet. There’s different magnet strengths to stick on your head.
Denny: The part of the cochlear implant that is detachable and sits on the outside of your ear, do they have a waterproof version of that so you can go swimming and take a shower?
Claire: There’s no waterproof hearing aids, but there is an aqua kit for my cochlear implant, which I wish there was one for my hearing aid, because again, I can’t hear out of my cochlear as well without my hearing aid, so I sometimes won’t wear it, but at least I have that option.
Michelle: And it’s more of an option for swimming, not for showering and things.
Claire: Yeah, not for showers.
Denny: What was the support like from your friends and family?
Claire: It’s been good. My friends were really worried at first, because they didn’t know why I was not at school for a while, because I didn’t really tell them. They were supportive and really friendly. They’d write stuff on pieces of paper in school. I couldn’t hear the teacher, so I’d ask them after, because we’d have little talks with our little groups with our teacher, and I wouldn’t hear her. So then, I’d ask my neighbor, and they were pretty accommodating in helping me.
And then, my family was super supportive. They adjusted to it. They would write stuff on pieces of paper or whiteboards to talk to me sometimes, or they would help my mom get my attention if she was further away.
Denny: Have you ever been bullied or teased by other students?
Denny: As we were talking about school, Claire brought up one of the frustrating things she encountered at school before she got her hearing aid.
Claire: Before I got my hearing aid — because I didn’t have it yet, because they had to make the mold and stuff – they’d give me this hearing aid that connected to a microphone so I could hear my teacher, but I couldn’t hear anything else other than in that microphone, which got frustrating sometimes, because my teacher didn’t know how to turn it off.
We’d go to art, and then I would hear my teacher talking to other teachers instead of my art teacher or whatever. It got frustrating at times, and I didn’t like it as much as my hearing aid, but it was very nice of the accommodation, because then I could at least hear my teacher until I got my hearing aid.
Denny: What kind of accommodations are you receiving?
Claire: So, I have these two people who my mom can email. They can give me microphones that I can give to my teachers, which I don’t like doing as much, but I can hook them up to a cord which go into my computer, so instead of having to wear headphones, which I can’t really hear anyway, I just connected that, and then it goes from the computer into my hearing aid. Then they also will come, and if I need new tubing, which is a little thing that connects the ear mold and the electronic part of my hearing aid – like, my old one broke, and we can’t get into my main ENT. My mom emailed her, and she came and fixed it for me. So, they’ll just really help me with anything I need if they can.
Denny: Tell me how the microphone connects to the computer and then to your hearing aid.
Claire: There’s a little thing. So, it plugs into the microphone, and then that thing that plugs in the microphone plugs into the computer, so instead of it plugging into my hearing aid, it plugs into the microphone. I can also use that on airplanes and stuff. I have one for at home that I got with my hearing aid, so I can also use that anywhere I really want.
Michelle: Or if we were at a really busy place, you know, a really busy restaurant that was super loud –
Claire: I could bring it with me and bring it to my mom –
Michelle: She could bring it, yeah.
Claire: — so I could hear her.
Denny: Do things like music, listening to the radio, or different musical instruments sound any different with the cochlear implant?
Claire: They sound about the same. My hearing aid, it’s using the sound from my ear. It’s not from my brain. With my cochlear, it sounds a little bit different, but with my hearing aid, it sounds basically the same.
Denny: If you’re eating something crunchy, like potato chips or carrots, you can still hear the crunch?
Claire: Yeah. If I’m talking without my hearing aid and cochlear, I can hear myself, but I don’t know how loud I am. Sometimes my friends will be like, “You’re yelling,” and I just don’t know. I don’t have that concept of sound if I don’t have any hearing aids in or cochlear or whatever.
Denny: You have to see an audiologist every six months. Do you have to see an ENT, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, as well?
Claire: No, just my audiologist. If it’s like I’m losing my hearing and I need a cochlear or whatever, then we’ll go see the ENT, but it’s mainly my audiologist.
Michelle: She just had her six-month checkup. The cochlear side that they tested, she’s getting 68% accuracy in what she hears, which can sound not great, but without the cochlear, she would be hearing 0% and understanding 0% in that ear. Literally, when she was tested before in that ear, she understood zero. It’s gone from 0 to 68. Every time she goes in, it does seem to increase some. It’s not quite as good as her hearing aid ear, but almost hearing at 70% is a lot better than what she is without it.
Denny: That’s great. Claire, how do you feel about your numbers?
Claire: I feel good about them. And, like, the sentences are really weird. They’re like, “The sister-in-law is toxic poison,” so they’re hard ones, too. That’s one of the ones that I remember, because it was like I got 100% on them. They’re weird ones, so sometimes I’m hesitant to say it, too. I can understand a lot better, too, with my hearing aid, which that was just with my cochlear.
Michelle: With the combination, she actually hears really well.
Claire: Yeah, with the combination, it’s 100% or something.
Michelle: Yeah, or close to.
Claire: 95, 98 or whatever.
Denny: Are there any activities that you can’t do anymore because you have a cochlear implant?
Claire: I can still swim, but it’s kind of hard sometimes. It’s good if it’s an indoor place, because it’s echoey, but sometimes I won’t be able to hear them. It’s harder if I’m with people, like at the ocean or whatever, because I don’t want to wear my aqua kit thing because I’m worried I’m going to lose my cochlear. I can still do everything, but if I have to take off my hearing aid or cochlear, I’d rather not do it as much, because it’s sometimes harder for me.
Denny: When you’re in a crowd or a noisy environment, is it hard to distinguish one voice from another?
Claire: No, I can tell their tone of voice. Sometimes if it’s really loud, my hearing aid, if it gets too close to something or something’s really loud, it will send out a high-pitched noise. It’s feedback. If I’m like at the audiologist’s place, there’s an elevator, and every time it comes down, it’s like my hearing aid will give feedback at that event. It kind of hurts my ears when there’s feedback, but I can take out my hearing aid, and I’ll be fine.
Denny: How long does the feedback last?
Claire: As long as the noise is. So, if the noise is going on for a minute, the feedback’s going to be going on for a minute, or if I’m laying against a pillow, it will be giving feedback until I get off the pillow. There’s no feedback from my cochlear; it’s just my hearing aid.
Denny: Do you ever use the closed caption option when you watch TV?
Claire: Not really, only if I don’t have my hearing aids in or something. If I’m wanting to go to sleep because I’m getting tired, but I don’t want to fall asleep with my hearing aids in — because I take them out, I put away my cochlear, I plug it in, my hearing aids on batteries – if I have my hearing aid and cochlear in, then I can just watch it, and I can still hear it just fine. I might turn it up a little louder, and people will be like, “Claire, we don’t need to turn it up more. We need to turn it down more,” but I’m like, I can’t hear it as well.
I could also put my microphone by the TV if I wanted to, just by the speaker of my TV, or Chromebook, or whatever I’m watching on. My hearing aid can Bluetooth connect to my iPhone, so it’s like I’m having an AirPod or something in my ear, or an earbud. I can watch my TV show on my phone, and I can just hear it. Or like I’m cleaning my room, I can listen to my music while I come into the kitchen to grab something. I can still hear it, even though I’m far away from my room. I usually use Siri.
Michelle: It reads all of her texts to her, so if she gets a text, it just pops up in her hearing aid.
Claire: Yeah. So, I go to school, and they don’t like us having our phones, so I make it so Siri reads me my text messages, so if it’s an emergency, I can be like, “Oh, I need to look at my phone,” which is nice, because then I have it at school.
Denny: Michelle, have you noticed any differences in Claire since she got the cochlear implant and hearing aid?
Michelle: It was kind of weird, because she was hearing. There was a few months in there, but it was relatively short compared to someone who hadn’t heard and then could hear. It was amazing for her to come home that first day with hearing aids and go, “I can hear my footsteps on the floor. I can hear my cup set down on the table. I can hear an airplane,” and it made me wonder a little bit if maybe her hearing had been fading a little bit before that, and she didn’t know. I don’t know.
Claire: I think it did, because I’d do the hearing tests at school that they make you do in elementary. They were saying they were lower than normal.
Michelle: Yeah, but still in a normal range. The hearing aid is kind of like an instant difference for her. Like, she didn’t have them, she puts them in, it’s like a microphone so she can hear immediately. The cochlear took about a year to adapt to, and so there was that difference, but when she got the hearing aids and could immediately just hear, we were just so grateful for that, because it was hard for her in this environment to not be able to hear. I would flash the lights if I was trying to get her attention or different things like that.
Claire: You still do that.
Denny: Have you ever forgotten to charge one of your batteries?
Claire: Actually, recently. I was at school, and it was dying because my battery thing for my cochlear was unplugged all night. I plugged it back in, and then right before I went to babysitting, I just switched it and went over and babysat. My hearing aid is on batteries, so it will let me know when it’s low on battery, and then I’ll switch it. On my phone, I can also look and be like, okay, I have 20%, so I still have time.
Denny: Claire, what advice would you give to somebody who’s thinking about getting a cochlear implant?
Claire: I’d say it’s a very good option, and even though it’s frustrating at times, you just have to keep going with it, because there’s going to be people sounding like robots, but if you don’t wear it, they’re going to keep sounding like robots. If you learn ASL beforehand, it helps, because then you can still talk to people after. There’s a learning curve with it, is what I’m trying to say.
Michelle: I agree. I think that it’s definitely scary going into anything unknown. That’s normal. It does require a lot of patience. With her hearing aid, it was instant hearing, and with this, it’s not, and it does require a lot of patience, but given time, it’s definitely been the right choice for Claire. I think part of that is getting the right audiologist and ENT, so I think if you don’t feel confident or comfortable with how they’re treating your healthcare, it’s worth trying someone new.
Michelle: So, that has made such a difference. We’ve seen that as being a big factor in her journey.
Denny: I’d like to thank both Claire and Michelle for sharing their story with me and for letting me interview them for this episode of Pushing Limits. I’d also like to thank my wife, Deah Daughters, for coming up with the idea for this show.
Today’s show was hosted, edited, and produced by Denny Daughters. Audio transcription was by Nicole Struthers. And thanks to our engineer, Kirsten Thomas. Contact us by email, [email protected], find us on Facebook at Pushing Limits Radio, or you can visit our website at pushinglimitsradio.org.
I’m your host, Denny Daughters. Thanks for listening to Pushing Limits. Stay tuned for Talk It Out Radio, 94.1, KPFA.
The post Sudden Changes – Pushing Limits – July 4, 2025 appeared first on KPFA.
