Interview with Barbara Liss Chertok

HH/Beck: Good morning Barbara. Thanks for spending a little time with me this morning.

Chertok: Good morning Dr. Beck. Its nice to talk with you.

HH/Beck: Barbara, I think your story is an important one for many reasons. But I dont want to get too far ahead of myself! When you were in school, did you have normal hearing?

Chertok: Yes, I had normal hearing until I was 21 years old.

HH/Beck: And what happened at age 21?

Chertok: When I was 21, I suddenly lost my hearing in both ears practically overnight. I found out many years later my deafness was caused by Cogans syndrome, an autoimmune disease.

HH/Beck: At that point, when you first acquired hearing loss, did you start wearing hearing aids? How did you get by?

Chertok: I communicated by reading lips. I waited four months before trying a hearing aid because I was hoping my hearing would return. I had been told by a world-famous Harvard Medical School neurologist that I would regain my hearing within two to eight weeks. So I waited and then I finally gave in and was fitted with a hearing aid to make use of a small amount of residual hearing remaining in my right ear.

HH/Beck: And the left ear was totally deaf?

Chertok: Thats correct. I used a powerful body hearing aid in my right ear for about one year. Then, I suddenly had a relapse and I could no longer hear with my hearing aid. For the next year, I was in total silence and relied on lipreading to communicate with others. One day, by chance, I met a hearing aid salesman and he asked me to try one of his powerful body hearing aids. I was delighted that I was able to hear a little bit of my own voice and a few close range sounds with it. So I bought it and used that hearing aid for several years and a variety of others over the next 40 years. My hearing loss at the time was so profound, I had no audiogram, my hearing loss was off the charts!

HH/Beck: So how did you get by in your day-to-day life?

Chertok: Fortunately, I was an expert lipreader from the start. I had been a singer and studied operatic voice in my teens. I used to watch peoples mouths as they sang, and, I believe, this helped me become an instant lip reader when I lost my hearing. Lipreading is a valuable communication tool which allowed me to remain in the mainstream. Many years later, l became a lipreading teacher, and I taught for ten years at in a community college in Rockville, Maryland. I am still in touch with one of my first group of students, six or seven ladies in their 70s and 80s, who meet weekly to practice their lipreading skills. I saw them recently when I was visiting the Washington, D.C. area, and they took me out for lunch. Im so proud of them!

HH/Beck: Thats very nice. Tell me about your work in courtrooms please?

Chertok: I was asked to be a juror candidate in a Maryland courtroom and I wanted to make sure that I wasnt rejected because I had heard that thirty other people with hearing loss had been turned down. So I brought my own oral interpreter with me, and, after answering some questions put to me by the judge and the trial lawyers, I was selected to sit on a jury and my oral interpreter was allowed to sit in the jury box with me. At the start of the trial, I memorized everyones place in the courtroom, so that when my oral interpreter pointed to the person speaking, I knew who it was without having to take my eyes off his lips.

HH/Beck: Wow, that is amazing. Has that ever happened before? Have other deaf people been on a jury before, or were you the first?

Chertok: I was the first in Maryland, and others have followed since then.

HH/Beck: What year was that?

Chertok: It was 1982.

HH/Beck: How exciting. You were blazing trails for deaf people way before the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act)! OK, new topic -- In 1997, you got your cochlear implant. Can you tell me why you decided to get a cochlear implant?

Chertok: It was a very difficult decision for me to make. Even though I had so little hearing, because I was an expert lipreader, I managed to stay afloat in the hearing world. I do not take to technology immediately, Im from Missouri, youve got to show me! But when I heard the behind the ear (BTE) cochlear implant device was ready to be marketed, I decided to go for it. Also, a cochlear implant surgeon I spoke with soon after I moved to Florida told me, Dont wait for the straw to break the camels back.

And I thought to myself, what if I waited so long that something happened to prevent me from having it done. I had been investigating cochlear implants since 1971 when my husband was on sabbatical leave at Stanford. I was volunteering in the Stanford Medical Centers Crib-O-Gram Program which tested the hearing of newborns before leaving the nursery using a specially designed crib. In the next office was a famous pioneer in cochlear implants, Dr. F. Blair Simmons who was doing cochlear implant research on cats at the time, and I became friendly with him. Years later when I was investigating a cochlear implant for myself, I wrote to him for advice. Like me, he favored the Clarion device which is the device I chose.

HH/Beck: Are you comfortable in most conversational speech situations? In other words, can you converse easily with most people on the street?

Chertok: I can certainly converse a lot more easily with my implant than I could without it. However, because of my long history of deafness 41 years to be exact -- there will always be some situations where I will have some difficulty. For example, if Im attending a lecture and the speaker is far away, I will use an FM or Infrared device plugged into my processor, if it is available. Otherwise, I sit up front and rely on my implant together with my lipreading skills. On occasion, I might have some difficulty in groups or in noisy places. However, Im delighted to be able to hear on the phone with my implant after a 41-year hiatus.

HH/Beck: Id like to point out you and I are literally thousands of miles apart and were speaking over the phone at this very moment. Can you remember the first sounds you heard after receiving your cochlear implant?

Chertok: During the hookup, which is when the implant device is activated, I was able to hear the different frequency beeps, and that was truly wonderful because I had feared I might not hear anything at all. Then, when the audiologist said, Now well try some speech. I was listening very carefully, of course, and straining to hear. Then, as I spoke, I said Oh my God, thats me. I was hearing my own voice -- I couldnt believe it. It sounded very distant, almost like it was being beamed in from Mars, and it wasnt clear; it was quite mushy sounding, actually. But I was so happy to hear my own voice and then the voice of the audiologist that I began to grin from ear to ear.

HH/Beck: Can you recall how long it took before the sounds started to sound like speech?

Chertok: I would say about two or three months. However, speech was electronic- and hoarse-sounding for a long time, and eventually it became more and more natural sounding until I did not notice it, but that took a couple of years.

HH/Beck: How do you do now with music? Can you hear the lyrics and the individual instruments?

Chertok: I have a strong music background. I studied operatic voice for six years and piano for three before losing my hearing. I never stopped going to musical events even when I couldnt hear. I used to go to operatic voice competitions and pick the winners with my eyes. Now that I have my implant, I subscribe to the Opera, the Pops, a jazz series and the ballet. I cannot always identify all of the lyrics of a song or all of the instruments being played, and music does not always sound as beautiful as I remember it, but my memory kicks in and I enjoy it tremendously. Jazz, especially the saxophone, really sounds great! And I listen to music on the car radio all the time.

HH/Beck: I know youve also done lots of volunteer work and supported various organizations for deaf and hard of hearing persons. Would you tell me the name of the cochlear implant support group you founded?

Chertok: Its called the Cochlear Implant Support Group of Southeast Florida. It meets at the Boca Raton Community Hospitals Education Center.

HH/Beck: Thanks so much for your time Barbara. It has been a pleasure getting to know you.

CHERTOK: Thank you very much for this opportunity Dr. Beck.

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