From Hearing Loss to Sound Outlook
Living With a Cochlear Implant
By Amy Halloran
After Melissa Enslin got her first cochlear implant, on
March 19th of this year, “I can hear voices very faintly for
the first time,” she said. 
The device was surgically installed behind her right ear,
which has no hearing capacity. The implant, which works to create new neural
pathways in her brain rather than amplify sound like a hearing aid, allows her
to use the telephone, and although she feels frustrated that her progress has
reached a plateau, she is hopeful she will gain more function over time.
Function should increase with the help of an audiologist, whom she meets with
regularly to determine her range of hearing and tune the implant. In addition
to improving her hearing, Enslin seeks to perfect pronunciation of certain
consonant combinations with the help of a speech therapist.
Enslin’s hearing loss can be traced to her birth,
which occurred prematurely at six and a half months. She weighed 1 pound, 11
ounces and was on the operating table for 30 hours as a newborn.
“They can do a lot with preemies nowadays, but back
then, I made the history books,” she said, half-joking.
Enslin’s words mostly come across loud and clear
thanks to her hard work with a speech pathologist as a child, though her voice
does indicate signs of hearing impairment. That impairment was initially
misdiagnosed as autism when she was 4 years old; she had her hearing tested and
got her first hearing aids when she was 6. The youngest of three children,
Enslin was mainstreamed in public schools and was often the only child with
hearing difficulties in her classes in rural Bucks County, Penn.
“Kids were mean,” she said. “They made fun
of me. Socially, it was the pits, especially in middle school.” Enslin
grew a thick skin that served her well as she faced other major challenges,
including domestic violence and another unnoticed medical issue.
“I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when I was 32,
in 1996," she said. "I had it for a while, but they didn’t pick up on it.
They thought my mood swings were related to my hearing trouble. They thought I
was frustrated.”
Unfortunately, her misdiagnosis is not rare. Symptoms of
bipolar or manic-depressive disorder don’t appear until late adolescence
or early adulthood and can be overlooked or attributed to other causes. Because
it encompasses mania and depression, the disorder requires multiple treatments,
which for Enslin means a variety of therapy and medications, including lithium,
respiradal, Abilify and Wellbutrin. She’s happy with the medications,
except for weight gain; she’s trying to address that side effect by
walking daily for two miles with her dog through a nearby cemetery.
The 13 years since her bipolar disorder diagnosis have
held a lot of dramatic ups and downs. Positives included applying for and
receiving funding from the New York state Vocational and Educational Services
for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID) to study massage at the Center for
Natural Wellness. The nearly two-year program is known for its academic and
physical demands but was tough for Enslin on another level, too. She
couldn’t look at her notebook while taking notes because she had to read
lips, but she found the many reading assignments very helpful. She completed
her studies and has her license to practice; she worked in a few massage groups
but now works with clients on her own.
Another positive has been her mother’s recent move.
Enslin described her relationship with her mother as very close, and she was
thrilled when her stepfather, an Episcopal priest, was placed in a church in
the upstate New York city of Troy, where Enslin lives.
Setbacks related to her struggles with mental health,
including many hospitalizations, are on the list of negatives.
“I am determined that this last hospitalization was
my last,” Enslin said. “I was in the hospital for two months in 2005.
I was influenced by the wrong type of people, (who were involved in) shamanic
healing. I don’t know what happened. They said they could get me off my
meds with nutritional healing and other kinds of alternative medicine. I lost
my apartment, my car, almost lost my dog. He was in the shelter for a month. I
lost my job. Anybody who has this illness, I tell them, 'Don’t go off your
meds; it’s not worth it.' It took about two years to get my life back
together.”
A big part of Enslin’s recovery and stability is her
connection to art. A potter since she was 15, she has a studio and teaches
occasional classes. “My favorite thing to make is bowls,” she said.
“I love to make coil pots.”
She made one of her coil projects, which won first prize
at the county fair, at the Roarke Center, a drop-in center that provides many
community services, from a food bank and other social-support systems to art
workshops in a variety of media. Enslin began attending the center in December
2005 and was teaching there the following year. Currently, she’s teaching
a four-week class to four students.
“I did watercolors for a while, and pottery and
writing,” she said of her participation in the art program. “I had a
hard time with watercolors because I couldn’t touch what I was
doing.”
Contact and connection are important to Enslin, not just
with clay but also with people. She has a dream of doing face pots with other
people. Massage is another route for human connection, and she has just begun
exploring writing with the goal of reaching people.
“I’m writing about my life story,” she
said. “I want to be a role model to other people who are going through
things I’ve gone through: domestic violence, cochlear implants and bipolar
disorder. My mother’s a good storyteller, and she told me to tell the
story in third person. That way I don’t have to say 'I,' 'I,' 'I' all the
time.”
This process, she thinks, will also help her tell her
story to herself, to see her experiences as a narrative dotted by highs and
lows, and marked by progress. The writing, she hopes, will help her realize how
far she’s come, including being in a stable, loving relationship.
Her advice to others? “I would like to say,
'Don’t feel like you can’t do anything.' There’s always
something to do within your different ability. I don’t like the word
'disability' because it makes you think there’s something you can’t
do.”
Amy Halloran, a writer, lives in upstate New York with
her sons and husband. |
