Faye Yarroll received her first cochlear implant in April 2005 and her second exactly two years later in April 2007. She is a bilateral implantee with Freedom Implants and two Nucleus 5 Speech Processors and she "just loves it!"

Faye is an active member of NSW Cicada and is also a volunteer with the Cochlear Awareness Network and now regularly shares her experiences with others.

I would like to share with you my journey through life of being hearing impaired and now my new life as a recipient of Bilateral Cochlear Implants.

My grandparents, parents and siblings are all hearing impaired to some degree. I was born with this same hereditary hearing loss and so grew up with two hearing aids from my early school days until aged 47.

As a teenager I spent 5 years learning to Lip-read through Better Hearing Australia. This was a wonderful experience and improved my communication and allowed me to develop what many have called "a remarkable memory". It also gave me an advantage of "watching and understanding" people's conversations. Travelling home from work on public transport had a whole new meaning and became "interesting". Did I have some great stories to tell!

When I was 25 years old, I had an accident in the snowy mountains that resulted in a profound hearing loss in my right ear. I was forced to rely on just one hearing aid in my left ear and this made life very challenging. In 2003 (aged 44) I suffered a medical problem that caused me to lose most of the small amount of hearing I still had in my 'good' left ear. This caused major communication and personal problems simply because now I was profoundly deaf.

“If only someone had said years ago, why don’t you find out about getting a Cochlear Implant I would not have had to struggle so long with profound deafness”.

2004 and 2005 were probably the hardest years of my life. During these years I worked for an IT company managing all the Sydney Outsourcing Service Desk Operations for many major corporations. This involved managing IT support for thousands of users throughout Australia and 39 countries worldwide. I had a large number of staff, an extremely high pressured job around the clock and lots of responsibility.

I loved my job and worked hard at maintaining world-class standards in service management to my customers, but at this stage in my life, I was seriously considering throwing-in-the-towel because my hearing had become so bad. Everything was just too hard.

In April 2005 I had my first Cochlear Implant operation at Sydney's RPA hospital performed by Professor Gibson to whom I am ever so grateful.

The surgery went without a hitch and I was only in hospital overnight. Back home the next morning I was feeling pretty good. Surprisingly, the incision behind my ear was very small.

”Having my operations was the easiest part of the whole process” I knew this would be the start of something great. I didn't know exactly what to expect at switch-on but I was nevertheless eagerly waiting for this special day to arrive.

At first after "Switch-On", everything sounded a bit robotic, but my brain quickly responded and within 24 hours people started to sound normal ... well as normal as I can remember.

Day one was unbelievable ...I could hear the birds calling in the trees, the blinkers clicking in the car, and I had no idea that flushing the toilet was such a noisy event! Filling the kitchen sink with water sounded like Niagara Falls and my little dog barking was unbearably loud.

Obviously, over time my specialists gradually extended the level of noise so I could establish a comfortable threshold for listening. I was really over the moon with happiness in the very first week with the Speech Processor - and then it just got better. After experiencing great success with my first implant sadly my left ear deteriorated to a level that I was again experiencing some difficulty. So, it was time to "go for it" again and have a 2nd Cochlear Implant.

Some people weigh up the odds at this point in their life and say, you have one working well, why not leave it at that. But the way I looked at it was, are two ears better than one? And for me the answer is DEFINITELY YES.

My second operation was at Sydney Mater Hospital in April 2007 again performed by Professor Gibson. I took a little longer to recover this time and switch-on wasn't as good because my brain needed to click in for me to understand sounds. However, with plenty of perseverance I was soon hearing so much better with two ears. Having two processors allows me know what direction sounds are coming from. If I had my life over again, knowing what I know now, I would have had my first implant 20 years earlier. I had no hesitation in getting the 2nd implant, and now I am a successful and happy user of Bilateral Cochlear Implants.

I can honestly now say “Having one cochlear implant was great, but having two is fantastic!”

Thanks to Cochlear I can now hear better than I have ever heard in my whole life. I have regained my independence and confidence, I can communicate much better at work and at home and I couldn't be happier.

For me, the world is looking AND HEARING, great! Why put off living and hearing for today. Since receiving my Cochlear Implants, I have decided to volunteer some of my time to help other hearing impaired people and I am happy to talk to or answer any questions from anyone who is considering a Cochlear Hearing Solution.

I believe that it definitely helps to do your research and to talk to other recipients first before embarking on this amazing journey.

Faye also is a recipient of 3 Cochlear Hearo Awards:
2008 – In recognition of Faye’s outstanding contribution to the advancement of hearing health in Australia.
2009 – In recognition and appreciation of Faye’s tireless efforts in raising awareness of hearing loss and the solutions available to help hearing impaired people connect with the world around them.
2010 – In recognition and appreciation of Faye's outstanding achievement – reaching 10,000 candidates and 1000 hours of Cochlear Awareness Network volunteer services.

Faye is available as a Guest Speaker for any organisation that may wish to hear Faye’s Story of The Gift of Hearing. Faye can be contacted at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it