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March 6, 2005'Pure Joy': Hearing children's voices, other sounds for first timeByRecord-Eagle staff writer TRAVERSE CITY - Susan Frymire never knew what a cricket sounded like until this past year. Frymire, 51, was nearly deaf until she received a cochlear implant in her left ear at Spectrum Health Butterworth Campus in Grand Rapids in February, 2004. The implant was "hooked up" so she could begin hearing with it last April 2. When she first heard crickets, she was walking with a friend and heard what she thought were odd birds. She asked her friend what the sound was. "I had never heard a cricket before in my life," she said. "They're too high-pitched for hearing aids." It's been a year of aural discoveries for Frymire, whose hearing began deteriorating when she was about 3 years old. The problem is in the nerves of her ears and is believed to be hereditary, she said. "My mom lost her hearing in her 20s, but I never really had my hearing," she said. Like many people with profound hearing loss, she pulled back from society. "When I was growing up, I had very few friends," she said. For years, she's worn a hearing aid, which has helped, though not as much as an implant. She's also had a dog for about 11 years. Hobbes, a Schipperke, is trained to be her ears for the teapot, kitchen timers and smoke detectors. While cochlear implants, a small electronic device implanted in the inner ear, have been around for several years, Frymire took some time to warm up to it. Implantation is almost always safe, though there is a risk of complications, as with other surgical procedures, according to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders. But after thinking about it for about five years, she decided to go for it. "It got to where voices were getting harder and harder to understand," she said. With the type of implant she opted for, surgeons placed a magnet in the back of her skull, to which she attaches a tiny computer that hangs from her ear and has different settings for different situations. The operation and equipment cost $60,000 and insurance paid for almost all of it, Frymire said. Her frosty blond hair covers the magnet and the connection, so all that's visible is a little bit of the computer and a connecting line that looks like it could be part of a barrette or hair tie. She can also remove it, which she does at night because she'd rather have the sound off at that time. Frymire kept a journal of her experiences since having the surgery. In it, she described how, at first, all sounds were like beeps and her brain had to get used to sorting them out and recognizing them. While she's long wanted to hear the world around her, it hasn't been a non-stop symphony. In fact, many sounds were unsettling or annoying. "I never knew cars made so much noise when they're driving by," she said. Crumpling paper set her teeth on edge. A running water tap sounded like a waterfall and a flushing toilet sounded like "a space craft in an old science fiction movie." Human voices were no treat at first, either. "I told everybody they sounded like a bunch of whiny 2-year-olds," she said. On the other hand, the first time she heard doves cooing and then flapping their wings, she said, "That's neat!" She has also been able to enjoy music, saying it's better live than on the stereo. When she hears it from a live band, its easier for her to differentiate the different parts. "A CD or the radio is a little better than with the hearing aid, but not something I would really enjoy," she said. Her 29-year-old daughter's voice is one of the easier voices for her to hear, she said. In fact, when her daughter Beth visited her at Christmas time, she got to the point where she could understand her without looking at her. And of course the implant has affected her speech, as well. "My friends say I'm not slurring my words as much as before and my voice is much crisper," she said. In some situations, she can hear better than people who depend on the ears nature gave them. She found that out when she went to a Christmas party. She set the hearing device to leave out the crowd noises. "I realized I'm not hearing this crowd noise, but they are," she said. There' s one sound that has stood out in her mind and sounded beautiful right from the start. "I have not been able to understand children's voices in a long time," she said. "Now I can understand children when they talk to me and it is a pure joy." There are other things she hopes to do as she gets more used to hearing. For one thing, she still doesn't talk on the phone much, preferring e-mail. "I would love to be able to watch TV without Closed Captioning," she said. "And I'd like to go to the movies and not have to ask my husband questions about it later. And I'm hoping to understand what somebody's saying at a distance."
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