"A video captured the moment 39-year-old Joanne Milne’s cochlear implants were switched on, allowing sounds to flood unchecked into her brain for the very first time."
"Hearing things for the first time is so, so emotional, from the ping of a light switch to running water. I can't stop crying," Milne told The Independent. read more
23 comments:
Wonderful. Thank you, God!
I'd recommend that she listen to Odd to Joy, that great piece written by a master composer who lost his hearing in the latter years of his life.
I would love to learn how this is experienced by adult people. How does it sound compared to what they expected? What sounds are most pleasant? What do they think of various types of music, etc. What surprised them about sound once they had it? It's just fascinating, because the rest of us have no idea what it would be like. We have always had sound. We never lived without it.
On the evening of that same day she banged on the neighbor's wall to "Turn down your damned TV!"
Tears of joy and overwhelming wonderment. Powerful. Imagine if we could give the gift of sight to those who are blind?
My aunt just passed away and she was an organ and tissue donor. She was able to donate her corneas. Fills me with a smile to know a part of her lives on.
Ol' AllenS got a little teary-eyed.
I thought the friend's idea for a lifetime playlist was very touching.
I understand that later she was forced to listen a compilation of Shouting Thomas's best pick up lines and started weeping uncontrollably and ripped out her implants.
Pollen count must be really high today.
How did she recognize the sounds as high pitched? Chip?
Emotional detachment is important for medical professionals, but, damn, the nurse seems like an especially cold fish.
On the downside, her pinball game will really start to slide.
I understand that later she was forced to listen a compilation of Shouting Thomas's best pick up lines and started weeping uncontrollably and ripped out her implants.
Shit! And, we used to be buddies, Troop!
What Rabel said about Pollen, eh.
The purest joy imaginable is shown in that clip. I've enjoyed no other post more than this one.
Also, Rabel's question: how did she identify high and low pitch sound? Instinctive? a sense of vibrations in tones?
We still are Shouting. But somebody told me you were fighting with some handicapped broad and thought it was this chick.
Sorry if I got it wrong.
"Shit! And, we used to be buddies, Troop!"
Trooper's comment means you are buddies.
Can't type today.
"...but, damn, the nurse seems like an especially cold fish."
Her remaining calm helps defuse the situation. I had the sense this might devolve into anxiety or panic.
It was quite beautiful, I do not think there is an adult who can really compare anything in his/her life to suddenly gaining one of the five senses.
I did wonder if the patient should be instructed to turn the thing off several hours a day to give them selves a rest, but I do not know anything about this.
Honest question - will this now enable her to learn proper speech patterns?
These videos are always amazing examples of the wonder that is life.
Trooper's comment means you are buddies.
Yeah.
Big Joe, my guitar player, is fond of the old "breaking balls" thing from the Bronx.
And, yeah, I've been beating up on old ladies!
Coming down with the friggin' flu, too.
OK, first reaction, of course: this is awesome and wonderful.
But then, as I'm watching, I have questions. I'm sorry if this is obtuse, but here goes...
The article says she was also blind; did it look like she was blind? She seemed to be reacting as if she could see.
And if she was blind, I'm wondering, how did she understand the sounds she heard? If she could see, and read lips, I could see how she'd know what "January" was; but if she couldn't read lips, what does "January" mean?
Am I the only one who thought this?
My guess is the woman perceived high pitch because the therapist's voice IS high pitched.
What a shock to find out your own speech therapist sounds like Minnie Mouse. And she pitched her voice even higher!
"It will come down later."
No it won't. You sound like Minnie Mouse permanently and it will never come down. The deaf woman sounds better than you. Tone-wise.
That is my opium and I'm sticky with it.
I was deeply moved.
Not just regular moved.
The words you've seen your whole life and imagined spoken, suddenly heard. Like a submarine picking up pings, and then suddenly clear speech coming through. Too bad it was Minnie Mouse on the other side.
[They should go out for a cheese sandwich.]
Jeffery who is more profoundly deaf than this woman here, not capable of accepting an implant, told me he did hear one word one time, "ice-cream" and that is all.
[Or pick up some Cheeeeeeeetose]
Conversely, I heard him say only one single word the whole time I knew him, once I was walking away down the hall and he needed my attention before I was too far so called out my name because nobody else was around and nobody but I would hear how precisely retarded he sounds when he attempts any vocalization at all. He knows what he sounds like so he avoids it. Completely. Except that one time, an excruciating, cheh +peh" my name, for my ears only, from a distance I was washed with intimacy and embarrassed by it. The touching trust that came with that is what I am trying to relate.
[Or a big bowl of mac and cheeeeeeeeeze]
Days of week, months of year. Familiar things sent chills. Isn't your impulse to hug her and keep murmuring in a calm and low voice.
"You sound kind of high."
"I am, Bitch."
[The beautiful deaf woman and Minnie Mouse settle on cheeeeeeeeeze and crackers]
Behold, another British accent is born. They'll have her speaking non rhotic in no time, with oddly aggressively intrusive r's stuck all over the place in compensate for the r's removed, apparently at random. They'll have her saying "Korea" like "career" in a snap.
Fr Martin Fox....The article said she became blind in her "20's" so I assume she had visualizations fairly well set by that age. I wondered about it too, until I re-read the bit about the age she lost her sight.
Aridog:
OK...but please bear with me.
The woman has never heard a single word, correct? So she doesn't know any words by sound.
Now, when she gains hearing, she can't see -- which means, when the sound of a word reaches her brain, how does she know what it signifies?
Remember the Helen Keller story? That was her teacher's problem. She couldn't point -- and say "dog." So she developed the business of signing into her hand.
But none of that happened in the video.
Fr Fox, I had the same question.
They gave her a sheet of paper, maybe it was braille? Or maybe she's not absolutely blind.
She did seem to respond to the person as if she were reading lips, though. Though, maybe that's socialization remnant from having sight.
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