(MENAFN- Khaleej Times) The first sound she heard after six long years of complete silence was a beep followed by what appeared to be doctors screaming 'can you hear?' over and over.
Renita Lovelyn D'Souza, 26, was not born with hearing impairment. She was just seven-years-old when toxicity from a now-banned flu and fever drug impacted her hearing. "It was probably an overdose of the medicine that caused partial hearing loss in both ears," she told Khaleej Times.
"I started using hearing aids and life was not that bad until I turned 14 when one fine day I went completely deaf," she said. "I was terrified since this impacted my life. I had to lip read to understand what everyone was saying and it also impacted my academic performance," said Renita who was born and brought up in Sharjah.
Even the strongest of hearing aids no longer helped Renita until she underwent a surgery to implant a hearing device in 2010. Since then, Renita has not looked back. She is currently convincing people like her to get an implant and their lives.
"I learnt hearing all over again. sounds of a bird chirping, the whistle of the pressure cooker going off," she said.
Last year, Renita got an implant in her second ear as well. Today she is learning to balance surround sounds while listening to chatter of her friends at the same time.
In the case of seven-year-old Abdur Rahman, his parents and doctors could not make out if he was born with an impairment or lost his hearing after he fell out of bed when he was four months old. "It was only when he turned one that we realised he did not speak like his siblings," explained his father Saidur Rehman.
"Despite medical tests being done on my son, doctors couldn't find any fault. They assured us that some children speak later than others," he said. But during a visit to Bangladesh, Abdur's grandfather noticed that the child could not hear, hence the reason he could not speak.
"We brought him back to the UAE and found that some hospitals carried out cochlear implants. But this was beyond our reach until Sharjah TV aired our story and the government sponsored the surgery for my son in January 2013," explained the father.
Three years later today, Abdur has undergone speech therapy and can speak now but has not joined school yet. "Doctors recommend the implant in his second ear too but the cost of the machine is too high (Dh26,000) for me," he added.
However, Abhinav Rathish, six and half, was born profoundly deaf. "No hearing test was done upon his birth," said his father Rathish Vijayrajan. "It was when he was around seven months old, we noticed that he was not responding to sound. It came as a shock to us," said the father. In 2011, Abhinav underwent a surgery and today he is attending school like a normal student.
David Raetz, CEO of MED-EL that provides hearing implant systems, said that the company had provided 10,000 people in the UAE with hearing system - including for children as young as six months - since its launch in 1996.
"While Renita's case is unique, we recommend that parents take their children for complete hearing tests upon birth," he said. "This rules out complications later."
MED-EL on Saturday organised an event for patients and their families to give updates on advancing technology in hearing implant systems.
"Currently, many countries in the region, including the UAE, are taking active measures towards giving access to individuals with hearing disabilities. However, we believe cochlear implant patients are the true driver for increased awareness," he said.
David Raetz said that new advancements in hearing aid technology meant easier options for patients. "Patients can even swim with the advanced implants," he said.
Many insurance companies are now covering the costs and MED-EL is in talks with others to make the technology availability easier for those in need, he said.
Asma Ali Zain Associated with KT for 15 years. Covers health issues, Pakistan community, human interest stories as well as general topics for daily news or features. Share More > Vote var UNIQUE_ARTICLE_ID = "964FAA90-44B5-484F-A786-238404D8B236"; var SECTION_TAGS = "tag1, tag2, tag3"; var ARTICLE_TITLE = "Opening%20their%20ears%20to%20world%20of%20sounds%0D%0A"; var GA_CODE = "UA-819330-1"; var VUUKLE_API_KEY = "841fb3e5-977f-4e2e-be39-fae608323cc5"; var TRANSLITERATE_LANGUAGE_CODE = "en"; var VUUKLE_COL_CODE = "646464"; var VUUKLE_COMMENT_COUNT = 1; VUUKLE_EMOTE_SIZE = "40px"; VUUKLE_EMOTE_IFRAME = "120px"; var VUUKLE_STORIES_TIME = 0; var ARTICLE_AUTHORS = btoa(encodeURI( '[{"name": "name one", "email":"","type": "internal"}, {"name":"name two", "email":"","type": "external"}]')); create_vuukle_platform(VUUKLE_API_KEY, UNIQUE_ARTICLE_ID, "0", SECTION_TAGS, ARTICLE_TITLE, TRANSLITERATE_LANGUAGE_CODE , "1", "", GA_CODE, VUUKLE_COL_CODE, ARTICLE_AUTHORS); (function(P,o,s,t,Q,r,e){P['PostquareObject']=Q;P[Q]=P[Q]||function(){ (P[Q].q=P[Q].q||[]).push(arguments)},P[Q].l=1*new Date();r=o.createElement(s), e=o.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];r.async=1;r.src=t;e.parentNode.insertBefore(r,e) })(window,document,'script','//widget.engageya.com/_pos_loader.js','__posWidget'); __posWidget('createWidget',{wwei:'POSTQUARE_WIDGET_90498',pubid:166590,webid:131503,wid:90498,on:'postquare'}); function ArticleVote_GetCookie(c_name) { if (document.cookie.length>0) { c_start=document.cookie.indexOf(c_name + "="); if (c_start!=-1) { c_start=c_start + c_name.length+1; c_end=document.cookie.indexOf(";",c_start); if (c_end==-1) c_end=document.cookie.length; return unescape(document.cookie.substring(c_start,c_end)); } } return ""; } function ArticleVote() { $.ajax( { type: "POST", url: '/misc/misc/ArticleVote.pbs&guid=964FAA90-44B5-484F-A786-238404D8B236&write=1&d=' + (new Date()).getTime(), success: function(data) { var LData = data || "no response text"; if(LData.indexOf("voted") != -1) { $('#NCS-ArticleVoteLoad').html(LData); ArticleVoteLoad(1); } else alert("You have already voted on this article"); }, error: function(){ console.log('Something went wrong...') } }); } function ArticleVoteLoad(ALoad) { var GVotecookie = ArticleVote_GetCookie('NCSD_ARTICLEVOTE'); var GArticleVoted = 0; GArticleVoted = GVotecookie.replace(/.*?964FAA90-44B5-484F-A786-238404D8B236.*?$/, "1"); if (GArticleVoted == 1) { $('.DivArticleVote').html('VOTED'); $('.DivArticleVote').css("background-color","#db2425"); $('.LiArticleVote').attr('onclick','').unbind('click'); } if(ALoad == 1) $('.SpanArticleVote').load("/misc/misc/ArticleVote.pbs&nocache=1&guid=964FAA90-44B5-484F-A786-238404D8B236"); else $('.SpanArticleVote').load("/misc/misc/ArticleVote.pbs&guid=964FAA90-44B5-484F-A786-238404D8B236"); } ArticleVoteLoad(0);
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