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Terry’s story
By Terry Breyer
I received a cochlear implant (CI) in March 2025, four decades after I got my first pair of hearing aids. It took me eight years after medically qualifying for a cochlear implant to make this leap at age 60. Now, after nearly a year of dramatic improvements in hearing, communication, and human connection through this life-changing technology, I wonder: Why didn’t I do this sooner?
The simple answer is that I wasn’t ready…until I was. After a lifetime of using increasingly powerful hearing aids in response to the slow creep of progressive hearing loss, I figured there would always be a more advanced option to help.
Hearing loss at school
Terry (second from right) at her first HLAA conference in 2017, enjoying Salt Lake City with a group of HLAA Los Angeles chapter members, including several cochlear implant recipients.
I was diagnosed with mild sensorineural hearing loss during a school screening in first grade. This was in 1971, before newborn hearing screenings and the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) of 1975, which evolved into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 1990. Except for monitoring my condition, the doctor prescribed no intervention for me, and no one ever mentioned accommodations for the students.
Throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, I would instinctively sit near the front of the classroom so as not to miss anything. Although I did well academically, I found it increasingly difficult to understand my professors and conversations with classmates. By age 16, my hearing loss had decreased from mild to moderate, but at that age, I didn’t want to be “the girl with hearing aids.”
College and career with hearing aids
As a freshman in college, despite the great acoustics of the lecture hall, I followed well enough to maintain my grades. But when I returned to Los Angeles that summer, my grandmother insisted that I finally get hearing aids. Thank God she did, because wearing them made a huge difference in my ability to learn, understand, communicate, and connect with my peers.
Terry with Tony Parent, HLAA Southern California Chapter Coordinator and HLAA Orange County Chapter President, at the 2017 Long Beach Walk4Hearing. Tony was another person who influenced Terry’s decision to get a CI.
However, I continued to hide my invisible disability from others, due to shame and social stigma. I spent the first 30 years of my career in journalism, advertising, and marketing trying to fit in. I eventually left the corporate world and started working on my own as a freelance copywriting consultant.
As my hearing loss worsened over time, it became difficult to find my way in work, life, and ultimately my favorite hobby as a choral singer. Often times, I felt extremely embarrassed when I misunderstood someone or sang out of tune, so I found myself leaving the choir, retreating from social interactions and becoming more isolated.
Support and impact of HLAA
By the time I discovered the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) in 2015, I had done extensive inner healing work, gained confidence and was ready to “own” my hearing loss more openly. I soon co-led two successive HLAA chapters and made new friends with cochlear implants that encouraged me. Almost without exception, they said it was the best decision they had ever made.
Terri prepared for outpatient cochlear implant surgery.
I started the medical rehabilitation process for CI in 2017, but did not continue at that time. I was still “getting by” and feared losing what was left of my hearing and enjoyment of music, among other fears. I didn’t know if I could maintain my job during the long downtime needed for recovery and hearing rehabilitation. Meanwhile, I continued to be active in the HLAA, attending some annual conferences and volunteering with Long Beach Walk4Hearing.
In 2023, I joined the HLAA Task Force, which has gratefully allowed me to make a tangible difference for other people with hearing loss across the country. Daily collaboration with my fellow CI wearers has motivated me to take action and stop missing out.
My first year with a cochlear implant
Fortunately, I was able to understand speech from the first moment of my “activation day” in April 2025 — even though every sound and syllable was covered in annoying robotic beeps and echoes, as my brain tried to make sense of these new digital signals. With continued auditory rehabilitation practices, the noise disappeared after three months.
Terry with fellow HLAA Los Angeles Chapter member and recent CI recipient Ramona Lee at the 2025 holiday party.
Since then, I’ve picked up higher frequencies that I haven’t been able to reach since my twenties. I enjoy (and sometimes annoy) the sound of birds again on a daily basis. I can now understand songs and commercials on the car radio and talk on the phone without commenting. Just this week, I was elected to serve as President of the HLAA Los Angeles Chapter – the next step in my hearing health journey! It’s like a whole new world is open to me now. Best of all, I finally feel back to my old self, actively participating in conversations, relationships, and everyday life.
For now, I remain bimodal (meaning I use a hearing aid in one ear and my cochlear implant in the other). But I’m thinking about when to get a second CI. Every day, I am so grateful for my cochlear implant, and especially for my role models at HLAA who showed me what was possible.
