40-year-old Soozie Tarkenter from Dunoon
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October 4, 2011 TheFreshOutlook  |
40-year-old Soozie Tarkenter from Dunoon, Scotland underwent cochlear implant surgery to regain her hearing but lost her sense of taste.
On August 19 last year, Soozie Tarkenter, an artist from Innellan heard everything for the first time a week after her cochlear implant was activated. However, she has lost her sense of taste as the implant lies close to facial nerves.
Ms Tarkenter said: “I couldn’t believe the difference when they switched the implant on. I could hear everything so clearly, it’s incredibly strange but brilliant at the same time. But because the implant area is so close to my facial nerves I lost my sense of taste. It may come back – but if it doesn’t it’s a small price to pay for being able to hear again.”
She added: “It’s changed my life. I do miss the taste of some things like wine, but the bonus is I can handle really spicy curry.”
Ms Tarkenter struggled with her condition at school and she could only hear tremendously high and low notes, known as the ‘cookie bite’, as if somebody had removed the middle-range notes and speaking tones.
She said: “When I had my first hearing aid I thought things would get better, but it was awful. People think that putting on a hearing aid is like putting on glasses - that your hearing is instantly fine. It’s not like that. It just seemed to amplify all the rubbish around me. I thought my life was over.”
The first song she listened to was ‘Lost in Music’ by Sister Sledge. She continues: “It was amazing listening to the words and the melody, before all I could pick up were some bass notes. You have to train your brain to tell what different things are because it is not used to it.”
Married to John, a 42-year-old gardener, Ms Tarkenter still has problems hearing discussions amongst background noises such as the washing machine; nevertheless, she believes her brain will eventually filter out the unnecessary sounds.
Medical research has claimed that there are a number of risks with cochlear implant sugery, such as leaking spinal fluid, infections, tinnitus and facial weakness. Although a weakening of the facial nerves is quite rare, disturbance of taste is not unusual. Changes in or loss of taste are usually temporary but may be permanent.
An estimated 59,000 people worldwide received cochlear implants in 2002, and by the end of 2008, the total number had risen to 150,000.
By Davina Qureshi
[Image courtesy of DickSijtsma]
