Hearing restored in 'medical miracle'

Colin Anderson says it "was incredible" to hear his wife Carmen speak.

Father of three tells of joy of being able to hear family again

Colin Anderson had been deaf for so long that he'd forgotten what his own voice sounded like.

But now, seven years after he lost his hearing, the 48-year-old has undergone a "miracle" treatment. Now, he can not only hear himself again - but also his wife and children, including a 21-year-old son whose "deep man's voice" is in stark contrast to the boy's voice he remembered.

The Rotorua father of three is the first New Zealand patient to have a hearing system implanted into the brain stem, a $50,000 treatment that was funded by the maker of the device.

Mr Anderson lost his hearing in 2007. His auditory nerve was damaged as a side effect of antibiotics he took to treat blood poisoning that occurred after routine knee surgery.

He had three cochlear implants, funded by ACC, but they only briefly gave him back some hearing.

He feared he would never again hear the voices of his wife Carmen and his children, now aged 16, 19 and 21.

Last year Mr Anderson went to Germany to have the hearing system implanted on the left side of his head. It was funded by the New Zealand Ministry of Health but didn't work.

In March this year he had the operation again, on the right side of his head, this time funded by Med-El, the maker of the device.

When it was switched on in May it worked. Mr Anderson said it was a gradual process to learn how to hear with the device and he had a long way to go - he can't understand anything from audio speakers - but he is rapt with the results so far.

"It's an absolute miracle," he said.

The first sound Mr Anderson recalls after the auditory brain-stem implant was switched on was "like a flute - very clear, very simple, very perfect and very moving".

He doesn't recall his wife's first words, but he remembers their effect. "It was just the most joyful - it was incredible."

Several weeks later he was surprised to hear his 21-year-old son's "big deep man's voice. The last time I heard him he was just a young boy".

"I have a reasonable memory of sounds and associations with people. Hopefully that recovers and returns. I couldn't even remember my own voice."

One of Mr Anderson's surgeons, Dr Michel Neeff, said a New Zealand child had been given the treatment in Australia for deafness caused by meningitis but that was unsuccessful.

Dr Neeff said judged on speech recognition tests, Mr Anderson's outcome was at the upper end of the more than 1000 patients internationally who have implants.

The implant has an external processor that picks up sounds and transmits them in radio frequencies to an adjacent receiver under the skin, which in turn sends them as electrical signals through wires to 12 electrodes placed on the brain stem.

Several companies make versions of the implants which are for use in patients whose auditory nerve - which connects the mechanical parts of the ears to the brain - has stopped working. The first were produced in the late 1970s and used only in patients with neurofibromatosis type 2 following the removal of tumours from the auditory nerve.

Now they are also used following other causes of irreversible auditory nerve damage. Outcomes vary widely and are much better in non-tumour patients.