International Cochlear Implant Day was celebrated on Wednesday and Donald Gilmour is one of the many individuals reaping the benefits of an implant.
As an avid old-time sequence dancer, music was an important part of Mr Gilmour’s life and he would attend dances around South Canterbury and Ashburton at least once a week if not two or three times.
He first began to notice hearing loss in the early 1980s, when he was in his late 30s.
Two hearing aids and eventually a microphone near the square-dancing caller helped him to continue to dance, until his hearing deteriorated further and he had to step away.
He received a cochlear implant 18 years ago through the Southern Cochlear Implant Programme (SCIP) meaning he could hear music again and return to the dance floor.
After Mr Gilmour’s switch-on for his cochlear implant he recalled the sound of the cicadas in Hagley Park, Christchurch, as he was driving under the trees.
‘‘My word were they noisy!’’
He said initially people sounded like Donald Duck — speaking with sing-song Disney voices.
‘‘The brain is a wonderful thing, and the voices got better and better until I could tell who was talking to me without having to look.’’
When his cochlear implant was replaced 10 years later, he said the second switch-on was very straightforward as his brain had already adjusted.
Mr Gilmour grew up in Central Otago on a dairy farm and for two decades had a truck-driving role for a general carrier at Millers Flat, before he moved to Timaru in 1982.
His career then spanned driving dairy tankers for the Clandeboye dairy factory and, as the factory and numbers of trucks expanded, working in the truck workshop servicing vehicles and later as a storeperson for fleet maintenance parts.
His cochlear implant surgery in 2006 allowed him to keep working for another nine years until he retired at 71.
Those early years were when he drove ‘‘very noisy’’ trucks and that industrial noise was blamed when routine health checks at the factory identified his hearing loss.
‘‘There was no ear protection in those days,’’ he said.
Mr Gilmour is a widower twice and being able to once again socialise and attend dances with the help of his cochlear implant played a big part in aiding the grieving process.
He said the social aspect of being able to get out to dancing groups once again kept him active, healthy and part of the community.
‘‘It’s wonderful. Otherwise, I would go into my shell.’’
As well as returning to dancing, with his cochlear implant he was able to enjoy six Pacific cruises with his second wife, Bev and a bus tour of Italy.
In a statement about International Cochlear Implant Day SCIP chief executive Neil Heslop said the programme was government-funded and provided implants for 60 adults and 23 children who were profoundly deaf each year.
‘‘There are so many people in our community who have hearing difficulties that on International Cochlear Implant Day it’s particularly important to prompt them to seek help from an audiologist in case this technology can re-introduce them to the hearing world.
‘‘The cochlear implant technology improves people’s lives immeasurably and that means there’s an excellent social, community and economic return on the government’s investment.’’
