S’porean, 57, opens up on the struggle of losing her hearing overnight & living in silence for 5 years

57-year-old Oh Lee Hoon still remembers the moment she lost her hearing vividly 25 years ago, in 1997.

The day before it happened, she was experiencing a headache and a fever, Oh shared with me.

She went to see a doctor who prescribed her medicine for flu.

What she did not expect was to wake up the following morning, on a Sunday, with her sense of hearing completely gone.

Oh tells me that she initially did not think much about the fact that she did not hear the usual chirping of her neighbour’s birds that morning.

It was only when her two-year-old son entered her room to speak to her that she realised what had happened.

“I could see his mouth moving, speaking, but I could not hear anything. I was shocked,” she said.

Inner ear nerves had been damaged from infection

Oh added that she went back to see the doctor who referred her to the Accident and Emergency department of Changi General Hospital.

She subsequently spent a week at the hospital undergoing multiple tests.

Oh described her experience during this time as “terrifying” and difficult to accept, as she had not expected to lose her hearing completely from what was supposed to be a common flu.

In addition, she lost her appetite and kept vomiting.

Eventually, Oh was told by doctors that the nerves of her inner ears had been damaged from an infection – a moment that still frightens her to this day.

Compounding the issue was the fact her children were still very young at that point, with her son aged two years old, and her daughters aged three and six.

The struggles of losing her hearing ability

It is here that Oh begins tearing up – the next few years of living in silence were the darkest period of her life as she was effectively unable to do anything.

According to Oh, the loss of her hearing meant she could no longer work as a door-to-door salesperson for stainless steel kitchenware – a job that she had done for seven to eight years to support her family.

This made her feel like a burden to her husband, her parents and in-laws, even though they were extremely understanding.

All she could do were the household chores and taking her children to school, while her mother-in-law worked to support the family.

She also became reliant on people writing down their messages on post-it notes to communicate with her.

Oh recounted how one of the biggest challenges she faced caring for her young children was that she would not know if they were playing or fighting while doing the laundry as she could not hear anything.

A simple matter of taking in the laundry when it rained also became a major issue as she could not hear the thunder or the incoming rain, resulting in the laundry getting drenched many times.

When it came to taking her children to school, Oh added that she often received death stares from cyclists as they often assumed she did not make way for them intentionally.

She also avoided her fellow parents when she picked up her children from school as she did not want to be seen as ignoring their greetings on account of her deafness.

Oh did not go for a single lip-reading or sign language class during this time either as her mounting frustration and anger at the decline in the quality of her daily life meant that she had no mood.

“It felt like I couldn’t do anything right,” she said.

Tried various means to treat her condition

Oh also highlighted that during this time, her family tried various means of alleviating her condition.

This included traditional Chinese medicine, having needles stuck into her head through acupuncture, and spiritual help by visiting temples and churches.

At one point, Oh also spent thousands of dollars for a hearing aid piece at hospital in 2000.

However, this proved to be unhelpful as it was too echoey, she said.

Eventually managed to receive a Cochlear implant at a subsidised cost

Things changed in 2001 when her eldest daughter became ill at one point and Oh took her to their regular GP doctor.

Oh added that she was fearful of her daughter experiencing the same condition as her.

The doctor who knew Oh could hear previously was shocked to learn about what happened, and so he referred her to another doctor, Yeo Seng Beng, at Tan Tock Seng hospital for help.

It was Yeo who recommended her to consider a cochlear implant – a small electronic device that stimulates the nerve for hearing known as the cochlear nerve.

Oh said that she was initially sceptical about how helpful a cochlear implant might be, given that many methods she had tried had failed so far.

However, she decided to go ahead with the treatment in 2002 after Yeo assured that it has a success rate of about 90 per cent.

Oh was also persuaded by the doctor to seek financial support from social services and the hospital’s Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) department as the cost of installing a single implant in one ear can come up to S$30,000.

She subsequently chose to do it on her left ear after she successfully secured a grant and a year of free follow-up appointments.

Regaining her confidence and life

Oh still remembers the first words she heard upon receiving the implant.

“Madam Oh, can you hear me?” Yeo asked.

“I couldn’t speak,” she told me. “I couldn’t believe it, and I cried a long time afterwards.”

It was an extremely moving moment, she said, to finally hear words after five years.

On top of that, she was able to regain her quality of life.

Oh told me that she was able to return to work, by joining a manufacturing company that hires the deaf to do packing at one of their warehouses.

It was a job that she held for more than a decade before switching to her current job at SBS Transit’s cash centre where she is in charge of counting and collecting the money from MRT stations.

She also no longer required the use of post-it notes to communicate with her children, much to their delight.

Nevertheless, the experience of several years of silence has left its mark.

When I ask Oh about her biggest takeaway from her experience, she replies that whenever her own children or the children of others come down with a fever, it makes her nervous, no matter how old they are.

“I would never expect that a flu and a headache would result in me losing my hearing,” she said.

You can click here to find out more about cochlear implants.

This sponsored interview made the author more appreciative of how medical technology has advanced in helping people.

Top photos courtesy of Oh Lee Hoo