How Arlene got her hearing back

Arlene Velloen didn’t know that coming into contact with the Chickenpox virus in 2007 would end up causing one of the biggest challenges of her life. But, thanks to her fighting spirit and resilience, and help from Discovery Health, Arlene was able to bounce back and is now living a healthy and full life once more.

“My story goes back to 2007,” Arlene begins. “A colleague had Chickenpox and I later found out that although I didn’t get it myself, it affected my ears. My hearing soon started to deteriorate. Although ear infections linked to Chickenpox are common; hearing loss is quite a rare result of this condition but within a few months I was deaf in my right ear.”

Although this came as a big shock for Arlene, she still had full hearing in her left ear so her quality of life wasn’t too badly affected. “I started going for regular aural checks and hearing tests and then I got the bad news: the hearing in my left ear was progressively worsening, too.”

In 2012, on the morning of the 5^th of January, Arlene woke up completely deaf. “I couldn’t hear a single thing. It was terrifying. I immediately went to an ear, nose, and throat specialist, Dr Bouwer at Wilgeheuwel Hospital but he told me that there was nothing more he could do for me as an ENT and referred me to another specialist,” Arlene recalls.

At only 50, Arlene felt as if her world was crashing down around her. “I had no way of communicating when people spoke to me as I did not know how to lip-read. I was about to start a new job and here I was, handicapped. It was all such a shock.”

“I was advised to make contact with a lady at Wits University, Carla Zille, who is also deaf. She sat me down and explained, by writing it all down, that being deaf was not the end of my life and that it was only the beginning. It was hard to believe her at this point.”

Carla recommended that Arlene explore the possibility of an effective and safe treatment for deafness – a cochlear implant – and gave her the details of audiologist Wendy Deverson at the Johannesburg Cochlear Implant Centre in Parktown and Dr Maurice Hockman, one of the pioneers in South Africa for the cochlear implant.

A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that transmits sound to a person who is deaf or quite severely hard of hearing. “I needed to be assessed because not all deaf people qualify for this treatment. I read up as much as I could about cochlear implants and watched a DVD for hearing-impaired people that helped me make my decision: if I qualified, I was going to go for the procedure.”

Following her assessment, Arlene was given the go-ahead for the implant and she was booked into hospital for the five-hour surgery. “The implantation went well but I then had to wait nearly a month before they could ‘switch on’ the cochlear implant device.”

21 days later, Arlene’s cochlear implant was activated, much to her delight. “After not having heard anything for such a long time, my world was a delight of noise once again,” she says, “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not as clear as normal hearing and you need to get accustomed to the electronic quality of the sound. But I could hear. I was ecstatic!”

A year later, Arlene opted for a second cochlear implant. “This has made even more difference to my life. Immediately, life was back to normal.” So much so that Arlene sometimes forgets the batteries for her audio processor at home.

“Life dealt me a terrible blow but it also taught me to not take my health for granted,” Arlene concludes, “My advice to all is take care of your health and that includes your ears. Going for a hearing test annually is just as important as seeing your GP annually.”

Discovery Health provides support for a range of auditory healthcare procedures including cochlear implants, auditory brain implants, and processors as part of the Executive, Classic Series, Essential Series, and Coastal Series plans paid from your Hospital Benefit. For more information about aural health and screenings, contact Discovery Health online.