Left: Before Riordan underwent cochlear implant surgery, she couldn’t carry on a telephone conversation because of her hearing loss. Right: Husband Ryan encouraged her during difficult times that included not being able to gain employment because of her hearing impairment.
4 percent,” says Aaron. “When we gave her sentences, her ability to understand words was only 23 percent.” Aaron encouraged Riordan to learn more about the implant. “She was an ideal candidate because she had hearing through childhood, was a good hearing-aid user, always relied on her hearing, was very attached to auditory modality. All we had to do was restore access to sounds and her brain was able to use it to understand words.” Opting for a cochlear implant, however, is a huge decision. “I have a genetic disorder,” Riordan explains. “The exact term is ‘sensorineural hearing loss, binaurally,’ which means I have hearing loss in both ears that is related to abnormalities in the hair cells of the cochlea. “The records indicate that in 2002 I was audiometrically deaf. I could not understand speech without both hearing aids and lip reading, and was often totally unaware of environmental sounds unless they were very loud; for example, a jet taking off. I was profoundly deaf in both ears. My hearing threshold — the point at which I could hear — was at 95 dB or greater. For context, normal conversation is about 60 dB; a lawnmower in operation is about 90 dB. 32
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“My hearing loss was progressive. There was no endpoint but total deafness.” And yet, a cochlear implant was a scary idea. “You’re gambling,” she says. “You’re gambling that you’re going to have everything – be able to hear. But if the implant doesn’t work, you’ll have no hearing at all in that ear.” What does the cochlea do? The snail-shaped tube in the ear gathers electrical signals from sound vibrations and transmits them to the auditory nerve. The auditory, or hearing, nerve sends the signals to the brain, where they’re translated into recognizable sounds. A cochlear implant uses its own electrical signals to stimulate the auditory nerve. Riordan conferred with audiologist Aaron, studied the procedure and consulted her husband, sportswriter Ryan Riordan, and her parents, Dave and Carol Schepers of St. Louis. “I was ecstatic,” says Carol Schepers. “She never qualified for the cochlear implant in high school. We told her it doesn’t matter how much it costs, if we have to pay out of pocket, we’ll pay for it. As it turned out, insurance covered it.” Riordan herself had no insurance, but she qualified under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act to be added to her parents’ policy until she turned 26. The Schepers quickly added their 25-year-old married daughter to
their policy. Riordan rode a whirlwind in early 2011. She defended her dissertation, “How We Laugh and Cry Online,” in February. She underwent the $70,000 cochlear implant procedure with Dr. Bruce Fetterman as surgeon at Baptist Memorial Hospital on March 31, 2011. On April 21, she turned 26 and lost her insurance coverage. In May, she was awarded her doctorate. The cochlear implant surgery was painful, she says, and the healing and changes were a bit tricky. She suffered severe headaches from the noisy barrage to her senses as the implant mechanics were adjusted, first over weeks, then over months. “The device is programmed to match the amount of electrical current needed for you to hear,” explains Aaron. “The level of electrical current is adjusted on each electrode, and there are 22 in the device. Everybody is different. There’s a lot of tuning up in the very beginning.” “All at once, I realized how loud the world is,” Riordan says. “I could hear the refrigerator — I never knew it made noise. I could hear my husband chew. Once, he said something under his breath when he was leaving the room, and I said, ‘I heard that!’ “It had been a long time since I heard the THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS