On Hearing and Belonging: After Reading Jen Pastiloff's On Being Human -- Guest Blog Post by Susie Stricker

There are times in our lives that we refer to as a before and after points which mark a significant change in our life. I remember the day the world that I had known for 40 years would never be the same again.

Nearly a month before I had undergone a surgery that re-engineered my brain to bypass my external and middle ear to process sound. The surgeons implanted a device connected by a cable which was threaded into my cochlea where thousands of microscopic nerves transmit electrical impulses to the auditory nerve.

On this day, I received the external part called the processor. The processor has a microphone that receives acoustic sound externally. As the processor converts the sound digitally, it sends the information internally through the implanted device to my auditory nerve and on to my brain for processing. Because the sound is now digital, it takes time for the brain to reprogram itself to make sense of the information being transmitted.

After spending the entire morning at the hospital, my husband and I decided to celebrate with lunch at our favorite local riverside restaurant. It was a weekday and already past the lunch rush by the time we arrived, so we were seated at a table for two with a lovely view of the waterfront and recreational boats of every kind. Our server set down two tall glasses of ice tea in front of us, then left us to look over our menus. I was so startled by the loud noise of tearing and crumpling paper, as if many presents were being torn open at once by excited children on Christmas day, that I nearly fall out of my chair.

“What is wrong? Are you okay?” my worried husband asked

The noise had ended as quickly as it started. “What was that noise?” I gasped.

He looked around the empty room and said, “What noise?”

Was there something wrong with my processor? Did I really hear something?

Seeing that I was confused, my husband asked, “What did it sound like?”

“It sounded like someone loudly crumpling up a newspaper.”

“Hmmmm.” he said as he looked down at the glass in front of him, resuming the task of sweetening his tea with a small white sugar packet he held over the glass.

A loud sound of ripping paper imploded in my head again, and I jumped. Startled by my reaction, my husband dropped the packet into the glass and gave me a look of bewilderment. I burst out laughing as I realized I was hearing him opening the small packet of sugar.

It was a sound that was unfamiliar to me.

During my “rehabilitation” period, I became familiar with sounds I had never encountered before: owls calling out in the night to each other, the sound of snow falling, my two pre-teen age boys mumbling rude and inappropriate comments to each other in the back seat of the family car. That day marks my new relationship with sound and the hearing world.

The new technology of the implant improves the quality of my hearing and my life. I no longer suffer from exhaustion from the extra energy it takes to listen and read lips, the embarrassment and humiliation of having to ask people to repeat themselves and the lack of independence and feeling of isolation because I could no longer use a telephone. It wasn’t a cure. I’m still deaf, but my implant brought me closer to being a person with hearing.

I was closer to belonging.