A man with a bad cold he just couldn’t shake woke up one morning, answered his cell phone, and realized he was deaf. With 12 percent hearing in his left ear and 78 percent in his right, Leon Woody, 52, knew he would have to do something quickly to maintain his management position at work.

“When I answered my cell phone that morning, I thought I had a bad connection,” Woody said. “Then I realized it was my left ear, not a bad connection. I went to a lot of doctors and they all said they couldn’t do anything for me.”

But Woody came to Dr. Green at JHBI in hopes that there was still a remedy. Dr. Green performed surgery to give Woody a cochlear implant in each ear. It has been three years and Woody cannot say enough about the “amazing instruments” in his ear.

“I couldn’t do it without them. It took a while, but now I can get back in front of groups. I challenged myself to get in front of people and communicate. Without the hearing aids, I couldn’t be working. I don’t know what would have happened.”

After receiving an internal cochlear implant, a patient wears external speech processors. Woody said that if he is not wearing the processors, he cannot hear anything at all. His co-workers do not understand that he truly cannot hear without them. To get his ears used to hearing noises again and understanding pitch and tone, Woody practiced listening to books on tape and music on the radio.

“I can’t say enough about the staff. They’ve done an excellent job working through the issues and making my wife and I feel comfortable and understanding the process.”

Our professional staff is here to help with hearing loss diagnosis and treatment every step of the way.