New Technology Allows A Local Nurse To Hear After Suffering One-Sided Deafness Over 50 Years

(CBS Detroit) - 2020 was no doubt a challenging year, and most were happy to see it go, but 62 year old Angela Holland ended the year on a high note, and was able to do something she hadn't been able to for 50 years.

"I finally had hearing again in my left ear that I lost when I was 12."

For the past 5 decades Angela, a nurse with Health Alliance Plan has suffered from single-sided deafness cause by a disease known as Cholesteatoma. During a recent doctor visit she says she was asked a question that would change her life.

"They asked me if I ever thought about correcting my hearing, and I had never been aware that that was a possibility."

Thanks to new hearing technology that was a possibility, and in early October, Angela was the first person to receive the implant at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. Dr. Kristen Angster describes the implant.

"We are one of a number of systems across the country implanting this new technology which works by conducting the sounds through the bones of the skull," said Dr. Angster, a neurotology surgeon with the Henry Ford Department of Otolaryngology. "This new bone-anchored hearing aid is more comfortable for patients and it's innovative because it eliminates much of the feedback that exists with traditional bone conduction implants."

Angela says right after the surgery her hearing was no longer muffled and she was able to hear things clearly that most of us take for granted, like the sound of traffic and the slamming of a car door.

"That's the hard part for me I didn't know that there were things I couldn't hear."

Now this new technology has restored a world of sounds Angela hasn't heard in over 50 years. Like the vows from her new husband and the ringing of a new year.

"You really don't know what you're not hearing until it happens." Said Angela

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