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EL PASO, Texas — Fifteen years ago, Dawn Keim lost her ability to hear entirely after a lifetime surrounded by sound. A genetic condition caused what seemed like irreversible damage. Not even hearing aids could help.
She carried on regardless — what else can you do? — and had a family of three. Still, due to her hearing loss, she never heard the sound of her 8-year-old son's voice.
That changed in Nov. 2012. A talk show called "The Doctors" contacted her, and offered to pay for cochlear implants from the House Ear Institute, the institute that invented the implants.
She accepted, and the episode covering her life with and without hearing will air Feb. 7. But a viral video featuring clips from the episode shows the moment that Keim hears her little son's voice for the first time in a tender and quite poignant moment.
Viewers can see her face light up with genuine surprise, and then melt into affection for her child.
"I was so fearful of what I was going to hear and what it was going to sound like. I'm still overwhelmed," she said.
Her son, Asher, expressed gratitude that they could both communicate.
"I'm just really excited that she can finally hear," he said before speaking to her.
Implants to aid in hearing have been around, at least experimentally, since the late 1950s. Modern implants use electrical stimulation to send sound information to the brain.
Though the quality of hearing is not on par with natural hearing, it often allows people who were formerly deaf to understand speech and hear music. Some models will even work under water, allowing recipients to go swimming.
In 2010, a 14-month Utah child with profound hearing loss received Cochlear implants, allowing the boy to hear his parents' voices for the first time, again with dramatic results.
