SILENCE is golden, or so it's said. But for Sue Walters, it was deafening.
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Mrs Walters, 52, of Oatley, was the first person in NSW to receive a cochlear implant after losing her hearing to meningococcal meningitis in 1984.
At the time, she was aged 22, fun-loving, loved to party and dated a musician.
"When you are used to hearing, it is such a weird feeling to be caught in a world where there's absolutely no sound," Mrs Walters said.
"There's all this noise in your head because your brain wants to hear so it heightens all the sensitivity."
The surgery was performed by ear, nose and throat surgeon Bill Gibson as part of a ground-breaking study by the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital and Sydney University.
"In the five months that I was deaf, I lost all expression in my voice and I couldn't control the volume," she said.
"You can hear your body, the blood rushing around, things like that."
Mrs Walters runs a support group for people with cochlear implants.
She and Professor Gibson are based at the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre, Gladesville.
The centre provides Australia's largest cochlear implant service at little or no cost to children and adults with hearing impairment.
Unlike hearing aids, which make sounds louder, cochlear implants do the work of damaged parts of the inner ear to provide sound signals to the brain.
"When you are first switched on, it sounds really strange . . . like Donald Duck or people speaking under water," Mrs Walter said.
"But even within the first day or week it starts to sound a whole lot better."
Hearing Awareness Week, August 24-30, coincides with the 30th anniversary of Mrs Walter's implant in her right ear; the left was done nine years ago.
The focus this year is noise-induced hearing loss.
"Most kids think they are invincible and they don't think about the possibility of things like that [deafness] in their big lives," Mrs Walters said.
"It's great to listen to loud music and it feels really good but you have to limit the amount and length of time you listen to loud music because that is when the damage can be done."
Presentations and a barbecue will be held at the implant centre on Sunday from 11am to 3pm.
In 2012, Professor Gibson became the first surgeon in the world to perform 2000 cochlear implant surgeries.
Details: scic.org.au or hearingawarenessweek.org.au
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