Talking Hearing Loss

I want to share with you a wonderful story about how a chance encounter on a train changed the life of a child who was diagnosed as profoundly deaf at 14 months old.

The 1st part of this story is an excerpt  from Sound of Silence by Dr Elaine Saunders.

My parents lived in England and my father had become quite ill so I made a number of trips to spend time with them. This involved quite a lot of train travel when I got to England. One trip led to a conversation with a woman who told me her worries about what to do with her deaf son. I shared the knowledge I had, as anyone would, and did my best to help. We didn’t exchange cards; the Internet was not omnipresent, and we lost touch. Some years later she contacted me and has shared this story, which I’m sharing with you because you never know when your one brick in the wall is an important brick:

“Meeting Dr Elaine Saunders on the train in 1989 between London Paddington station and Exeter station was just like wining the lottery for us, and has had a huge impact on our lives.

We had boarded the train on 22 December at four o’clock in the afternoon. The train was packed with Christmas shoppers and we asked this Lady if she minded if we sat with her. She explained that she had travelled from Australia and was on the way to visit her mother in Exeter.

We were on holiday from Botswana visiting family in England and we had taken the opportunity to see an Ear, Nose and Throat specialist and an audiologist in Harley Street that day with our son Hughan who was diagnosed profoundly deaf at 14 months old; at the time he was 16 months old. We had desperately been searching for answers on how to deal with with his deafness and how we should be teaching him his communication skills in the future.

On the train, we explained to the Lady why we had been to London and about Hughan’s hearing loss. We couldn’t believe it when she told us she had been to University with the audiologist we had seen earlier in the day, and started explaining that she was studying deafness and all about a device called the ‘Cochlear Implant’. It was still in the early stages of being developed and she gave us some details about how the equipment worked and that the Australian device was ahead in technology at the time. This gave us huge hope for how we could maybe help Hughan in the future.

When Hughan turned three years old he was unable to hear most speech sounds using his powerful hearing aids, so we had to choose between a signing programme or the Cochlear Implant. Because of information that we had been told that day on the train in 1989, we didn’t hesitate with the idea of Hughan having the Cochlear Implant, especially if it was the Australian device. He was the tenth child to receive the Cochlear Implant in Cape Town in 1992. England had not started giving children the implant yet. 

In 2011, I came across a packet with our train tickets and a small piece of paper with the name Dr Elaine Saunders on it. I decided to Google the name, and couldn’t believe it when I found all the information about the incredible work she had done since we had met her that day on the train in 1989. I was able to email her to say thank you for all the information she gave us…

The Cochlear Implant has had a huge impact on our son’s life. Hughan, now 25, drives and owns his own car and he works full time servicing caravans. He has recently travelled by himself to visit family in South Africa. He is now even able to hold a conversation on a telephone. Strangers assume he has normal hearing!

Words cannot express how thankful we are for having met Dr Elaine Saunders all those years ago. Just like winning the lottery!

– Hughan’s Mother

Jump forward to January 2019 for the 2nd part of this story which comes from the blog of Elaine Saunders

I’ve just attended the most special wedding…

There are special moments in most people’s careers, but one of the most special for me resulted from an event where I wasn’t really working at all.

Thirty years ago, just before Christmas, I met a couple on a train. They were visiting from Botswana and told me they had a 16-month-old deaf son, Hughan. I asked what they were doing in London and they told me they’d been seeking advice from specialists for the best options for their son’s future.

I gave them the best advice I could on cochlear implants, which were still in their early days. I had just finished writing a review article on the status of developments and advised them to try for the Australian device.

We did not keep in touch— this was before omnipresent connectivity, but I later learned that when Hughan turned three he was unable to hear most speech sounds using his powerful hearing aids, so his parents had to choose between a signing programme or a cochlear implant.

In 2011, Hughan’s mother Sue found me online and shared her story. This is what she said:
“Because of information we had been told that day on the train in 1989, we didn’t hesitate with the idea of Hughan having the Cochlear Implant, especially if it was the Australian device.

He was the tenth child to receive the Cochlear Implant in Cape Town in 1992.”

Today Hughan uses his implant well and has complete access to the hearing world, and normal speech.

It gets better!

Hughan met Emma, a New Zealander who is also profoundly deaf and uses cochlear implants, via his mother’s special Facebook page that she started to share tips and experiences with other parents of hearing-impaired children.

Last Saturday, I attended Hughan’s wedding. What a happy day!
These two beautiful young people met as a result of a combination of a chance encounter on the train by Hughan’s parents and the dedication of a mother to help parents with deaf children.

I’d like to end this blog by extending my very, very best wishes to Hughan and Emma, and add a thank you to Graeme Clark and the early team at Cochlear.

Dr Elaine Saunders

Dr. Elaine Saunders is an award-winning businesswoman, audiologist and academic. Her accolades include being awarded BioMelbourne Network’s inaugural Women in Leadership Award in 2015, Asia’s Leading Woman in Healthcare in 2011, the Victorian Pearcey Entrepreneur Award in 2011, and the American Academy of Audiology’s Award for Achievement in Industry in 2010. Elaine was awarded the 2012 Melbourne Award for Contribution to Community by an Individual, and is one of Australia’s 100 most influential women (2015), and received the prestigious Clunies Ross Entrepreneur of the Year award (2016).

Elaine blogs about hearing and hearing loss at elainesaunders.com.au.