Champions are a breed apart. Their motivation and their dedication are far beyond average. Mohammed Ali said it best; “I hated every minute of training. But I said… Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”

When the opportunity came to interview a recent cochlear implant recipient who also is a special champion I jumped at the chance. Lou Ferrigno at age twenty-one was the youngest Mr. Universe and later went on to win it two years in a row along with a long string of other wins in body-building competitions. His career included his best-recognized performance as The Incredible Hulk in the television series.

In a recent interview Lou mentioned being bullied as a child for his hearing loss. I could identify with that. We both lost our hearing at about the same age and used analog body-worn hearing aids with a wire running to an earpiece. I was a skinny weakling, but I could not image anyone picking on Lou and live to tell the tale.
After suffering with a life-long hearing loss Lou was implanted in April and is now using a Cochlear Kanso 2. Like most cochlear implant recipients, he mentions how he waited too long to get a CI. The misconceptions held him back and it was only after a friend received a CI did Lou understand the potential for getting out of the isolation of deafness and into the world of sound.

His dedication to rehabilitation is a factor to his rapid success. For a man who understands dedicated training it should come as no surprise. There is a lot to learn here about that dedication to perfecting his hearing and speech.

Lou is also the first recipient I have interviewed with experience with the Kanso 2. There is insight to this device that candidate who are deciding which Cochlear processor to choose will find helpful.

Transcript

Voiceover:
Cochlear Implant Basics is a site for candidates and their families and friends. If you have been told you qualify for a cochlear implant, these podcast interviews tell how receiving a cochlear implant can be a life changing experience. You will meet recipients who face a hearing loss and then hearing aids could no longer provide comprehension of speech or music. They face growing isolation, inability to socialize or compete in the world of business. The joy of music disappeared. They explain how receiving a cochlear implant changed their lives. Welcome to Cochlear Implant Basics. A reminder, Cochlear Implant Basics is not sponsored by anyone nor is it offering medical advice. Please consult your own healthcare provider.

Richard:
Good afternoon. We’re about to interview with one of the most famous bodybuilders in the world. If you would just tell me your name, the date and where you’re at.

Lou Ferrigno:
My name is Lou Ferrigno, and today is July 26th, 2021. Right now presently, I’m in Englewood, Colorado.

Richard:
Lou, I understand from what I’ve read, you had a hearing loss from an infection when you were very young. I think one of the things that intrigued me was the fact that you said you were bullied when you had a hearing loss. Could you tell me a little bit about that? I can’t imagine somebody bullying you. It must’ve been an interesting experience.

Lou Ferrigno:
Well, at a young age, I used to wear the old fashioned hearing aid. I went to parochial school. A lot of kids made fun of me, because at the time I had a very severe speech impediment. It was difficult for people to understand when I communicated. I was very skinny as a kid. I wasn’t big. I got beat up a lot because I was afraid to defend myself, believe it or not. My father was a police lieutenant. When I go home, I tell my father what happened. He would give me another beating because he said, “Don’t come home and you can’t fight for yourself.” I’d say to myself, “I’m here with this problem, my hearing problem,” and children do not have the psychological defenses to defend themselves. I went through that period, went to school and I was always known… People they, “Oh Lou, the deaf kid. That mute, this and that stuff.”

Lou Ferrigno:
For me, I kept going along because I didn’t want to feel sorry for myself. But then eventually I discovered bodybuilding and fitness and that started my journey just changed my whole life because being bullied as a kid, I wanted to work out, be strong because I want to be able to defend myself because I grew up in a tough neighborhood and I got pushed around a lot. I got beat up a lot. Sometimes they would take their finger and flip the hearing aid out of my ear just to be mean because I had the old fashioned hearing aid. That to me brought so much shame. Sometimes I was too quiet by myself, I would pray to God saying, “I can’t keep living like this.” Then when I discovered bodybuilding, that gave me the ammunition to be able to build the body, able to change my life.

Richard:
Was it a Charles Atlas advertisement in the comic book? What was the thing that flipped you over?

Lou Ferrigno:
It’s funny, it wasn’t Charles Atlas in a comic book. I remember, I looked at it, but I was poor as a kid. I begged my father, “Buy me one of those,” he wouldn’t. What I did as a kid, I had friends of mine. They had weights, sometime I would try to lift their weights. I wanted them to have my own weights. I did, I would go to the junkyard, I would get a pail and I filled with cement, I put the pole in the middle so it gets hard. I made myself my own makeshift barbell. For example, I’d get a pail of half full, three quarters, maybe different sizes and made my own barbell there because I couldn’t afford it because I was so determined to have my friend had to have weights because then I discovered Muscle Magazine. I’d see the guys like Mr. Universe flexing and I said, “Wow, why can’t I be like this?” Because it’s a very masculine thing back then.

Richard:
You started building your body up. Now, how many years until you won Mr. Universe? How many years of training did you go through?

Lou Ferrigno:
I started bodybuilding maybe about 12 or 13. I won the Mr. Universe when I was 21, the youngest one to win the IBB Mr. Universe, I’ve won it twice. I won Teenage American, Mr. America, Mr. International and your favorite governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Richard:
Now, all this time, do you have this hearing loss and you were building up your body, obviously getting bigger and people weren’t going to pick on you anymore. My question is basically when you had the hearing loss, you now have won this title twice. You start to build a career. How was your hearing loss affecting that career?

Lou Ferrigno:
Well, when I won the Mr. Universe competition, they could not use my interview because my speech was not understandable. Then I realized, I had to do something about my speech. I studied phonetics. I’ve learned to speak by the hearing of my tone. This way, I didn’t want to sound like a deaf person. I wanted to speak the best I can. It was a long, hard journey because I’ve learned to read lips when I was very young, but the speech therapy, I’ve gone to speech therapy for many years because it’s a lot of sounds we hear, but we say it differently compared to the way it’s written.

Lou Ferrigno:
I had to endure that. Sometimes, I put marbles in my mouth and try to speak very clearly with marbles in my mouth, to say each word. Because at the time, my speech was like monotone. I sounded like “My name is Lou Ferrigno,” but I did not have the inflection like I have now. That made a big difference. In Hollywood, they always put the stigma and limitations they ain’t that well. You could play a body role but you can’t play a good acting role because speech was the problem. But I never wanted to feel that I have this deficit. I’m going to do something about it, which I did. That was my journey back then to take me where I am now, especially now with a cochlear implant.

Richard:
Your motivation, you’re obviously a highly motivated guy. You spent eight or nine years building up for the competition. I read somewhere, you were doing bodybuilding five hours a day which is a huge amount of time. As a motivated person, you now have a cochlear implant. It’s been about four months now. We’re going to talk about that activation in a second, but I’m very curious, how much time a day do you spend in rehabilitation to get the results you want?

Lou Ferrigno:
Almost every day, before I went three times a day, I think are called the Angel App where you have different words and you have to distinguish the words, which one is the correct word. To me at the beginning, it was challenging. But then over time got easier and easier because it’s just like working out. The good thing about [inaudible 00:06:34] for me to do this because I trained this body to build this body. It’s easy for me to have the motivation and the discipline to do that. I was amazed that over the course, how I was hearing better and better, very exciting for me, it’s incredible. Now, that’s my bad ear. I have 115 decibel loss in the left ear. That took one ear, how well I can hear. Could you imagine when I had the second one?

Richard:
Oh my gosh, you’re unbelievable. You’re an inspiration. By doing this podcast, you’re going to inspire more people than you can imagine, because this is not print. My experience is those who listen to these podcasts or read the transcripts, tend to move forward. We get them off the fence. The next topic I wanted to ask, what was the day that you decided to come off the fence and go forward and get a cochlear implant?

Lou Ferrigno:
Well, a friend of mine had a similar situation. He had a profound hearing loss. He lost his hearing when he was seven. It got progressively worse. He did a lot of research and he got a cochlear implant and I saw how well he was going to hear. Now for me, I was at the point that I couldn’t improve my hearing anymore with hearing aids. Good hearing aids, you are very limited because it doesn’t give you the clarity, like cochlear does so I made the decision. I said, “Why not? Because, I’m going to be 70 years old.” I said, “I want to wait till I’m to 85, 90.” The only thing going to change is your self taken action to do something about it. I’m very competitive. I just started to get the cochlear and I was determined to hear better, but I’m just amazed that I should’ve done it sooner.

Lou Ferrigno:
I wish I could have done it 10 years ago. But back then people were saying that, “You have a cochlear implant, it doesn’t work, you can never go back to a hearing aid. A doctor can’t make promises because every one is different.” I was terrified. I was terrified to death before I had the surgery, but I didn’t want to tell anybody about it. I was literally terrified. For two time, I was supposed to have the surgery was canceled because of COVID, because of other circumstances. Finally, when I got the chance to do it a third time, I have less fear. I just want to get over with it. It’s amazing how, when you hear different sounds, you never hear with a hearing aid like a refrigerator, people whispering. This morning, I hear a fly in my hotel room. I was in the [inaudible 00:08:54] Hotel staying [inaudible 00:08:55]. Yeah. Basically, if I could track that down, I’m doing pretty damn good.

Richard:
It’s so interesting to me that I waited 35 years, but the misconceptions kept going on and on and on. In fact, I have a YouTube channel and one of the videos I did was for the medical professionals because medical professionals have no clue what cochlear implants are. My short video, five minute video is dispelling the myths about cochlear implants and hoping that medical professionals will pay attention. It’s just amazing. As far as waiting too long, I’ve gone to seminars for Cochlear. The first question they asked is, “Who regrets having a cochlear?” Nobody raised their hand. The second question is, “Who wishes they had done it sooner,” and a hundred hands will go up. It’s not an uncommon story. What we’re trying to do here is that people know you don’t have to wait. My next question is your two sides. One, you had it done. What’s left on the other side now? How much [crosstalk 00:10:05] you have left?

Lou Ferrigno:
I still have a hearing aid in the right ear.

Richard:
You don’t need a cochlear implant in that side?

Lou Ferrigno:
Eventually, I’d like to, because I feel with two of them, why not have better hearing? This left ear is 115 decibel hearing loss. My right ear is 110. If I can hear this well with 115 decibel hearing loss, I just want to be able to appreciate music more and able to hear better sound because this is just one ear. Most people, they listen out of their right ear. They talk on the phone with the right ear, but I’ve never really talked on the phone with the left ear, now I can talk [crosstalk 00:10:38].

Richard:
[crosstalk 00:10:38] next question which is about music, are you listening to music again through the cochlear?

Lou Ferrigno:
Trying to listen to music, I’m starting to understand the word now by listening very carefully. But I think once I have two of them, it’ll make a big difference, the main thing for me is the clarity.

Richard:
Yes. The speech clarity is first, and just to tip when you’re learning to listen to music that we remember, you go to YouTube and choose a song you remember, and use the word with lyrics because the brain kicks in better if it knows the lyrics that you’re listening to, do try that.

Lou Ferrigno:
That’s why it gave me more confidence in my speech. That’s more important to me than anything, my own speech. Because right now, as I’m speaking to you, you would never assume I’m hard of hearing. I’m just saying that before I had the cochlear implant, my speech wasn’t quite as clear as now. There may be like a five, 10% difference.

Richard:
You couldn’t hear yourself speaking before? Now you can hear yourself.

Lou Ferrigno:
Correct, but before I had to say the words carefully because more memorization, but with the cochlear implant, it will come more natural.

Richard:
Absolutely, it does because now you’ve had the cochlear implant for four months. Is sound improving every day or do you think you hit a plateau?

Lou Ferrigno:
They’re improving every day. I think I still [inaudible 00:11:54] to learn because especially now, I fly a lot on airplanes and it’s amazing that if I take my hearing aid out, I’m going to watch something on the computer subtitled. With the cochlear implant, I can hear what the airplane is doing or the captain is saying. They talk randomly fast, I could understand what they’re saying compared to the hearing aid, because the hearing aid, sometime [inaudible 00:12:15] surrounding the cochlear does more of what you call, differentiate.

Richard:
I just went to a charity function last week, which was a happy hour. The room was packed with 200 people. Because of the Smart app from Cochlear I was able to carry on conversations without any problem whatsoever. When you get two of them, you’ll do even better.

Lou Ferrigno:
When you got the second one, did you see a big advantage?

Richard:
I got them both done at the same time. I had nothing to lose. My audiogram looked like a stiff in a morgue. There was nothing there. Like you, when you screwed up my courage to move ahead, the doctor said to me, “Why don’t you do two of them? You have nothing to lose.” I did it. Boy was I scared.

Lou Ferrigno:
I can imagine, but you had no hearing. How long did this go on for before you decided to get the implant?

Richard:
35 years, but I decided to get the implant when I was qualified for, when I moved to Florida. The doctor said, “You’re qualified for both.” I was so scared. I pushed the operation five months out because I wanted to be sure I wasn’t making a rash decision. This is why I do what I do to let people know, don’t make my mistake. Nothing to fear. If you have nothing to lose and if a doctor is willing to operate on you, you will hear again. The question is, how much hearing you will get is never a guarantee. But once the doctors says, “It’s okay to operate, you’re going to hear.” This is the message I constantly work to get out there. Don’t be afraid.

Lou Ferrigno:
What caught my attention, was that Rush Limbaugh lost his hearing. He went completely deaf I think because he was taking a lot of pain medication. I was amazed that when he had the cochlear implant, he was still able to conduct himself doing radio interviews. I’m saying to myself, “Wow, this is fantastic,” because I would assume that he couldn’t hear, maybe had difficulty hearing, but that definitely caught my attention.

Richard:
That’s a very interesting point. Rush discouraged me from getting it for years because he said that he couldn’t distinguish male and female voices. It gave me the excuse not to move ahead for many years. I would read his transcript. I couldn’t hear him on the radio. I found out later that his first implant was not entirely successful. They could only get maybe 10 or 11 electrodes. He was able to hear, but he couldn’t distinguish. The second one may have been more successful. It depends on which day of the week you caught that message. I do have another question for you, you chose Cochlear, why did you choose Cochlear Corporation over any other company, [crosstalk 00:14:57]?

Lou Ferrigno:
[inaudible 00:14:59] my friend did a lot of research and he thought that Cochlear was the best because his sister had it down and she wasn’t hearing that well. Of all the research she’s done, that’s why it convinced me because I never read much about Cochlear before. I know there were different companies, but then eventually I started to do research, reading that Cochlear is the best and it’s best [inaudible 00:15:20], it has a lot to do with the staff too, because if you have a poor audiologist It’s a team effort here because you’re putting your life in somebody’s hand. Cochlear to me, has this distinction because what he’s been through, because I want to be with the best.

Richard:
I have to tell you of all the interviews I’ve done, you’re the first person using the Kanso 2, it’s a relatively new device. Are you happy with it? What’s a pro or con? Is it retaining itself when you’re moving around a lot? When you exercise? Tell me a little bit about [crosstalk 00:15:52]?

Lou Ferrigno:
I’m happy that the only time the [inaudible 00:15:53] bumper to it, it would have [inaudible 00:15:55]. The only thing, I just hope in the future they make a little thinner, but right now, not a problem. I can train with it. I do everything, but sometime I’m getting off the plane, if I have to lean forward, if I hid it. What’s interesting is that people look at me and they said, “What is that?”

Lou Ferrigno:
I tell them what it is and we have a conversation about it instead of you [inaudible 00:16:12] having a hearing aid then they say, “I’m fine,” and just try to hide the situation. Because when I was young, I was telling her that when I was in my 20s, when I go to a discotheque, I wanted [inaudible 00:16:23] a girl more than anything. I was so shy. Sometime, we would hold each other, she would be kissing me. She would touch me here. I just kept turning my head. She thought maybe I had a twitching habit or something was wrong with me. She goes, “What’s wrong?” I said, “Nothing.” I kept turning my head the other way, because I felt that she found out I had a hearing aid, I’ll be rejected.

Richard:
Gosh, Lou, I appreciate your time. Do you have anything you would like to tell the listeners about your experience? Anything, message you’d like to give them before we sign off?

Lou Ferrigno:
I would say that they’ll have no more fear about it because there’s a movie that came out about cochlear implant. They made it look like a Frankenstein surgery, which it isn’t, because to me it was a minimum two hour surgery. I had maybe 5% pain and then it’s just cutting under the skin. It’s not like they have to cut your head open. Then once you have this implant in your head, they never have to go back [inaudible 00:17:15]. The only thing that changes is the [inaudible 00:17:18] process on the outside.

Richard:
It’s been a pleasure. I really do appreciate your time. I’m sure, as I said before, “People are going to listen to this and move forward.” You’ve done good work for society. Oh, you know one thing I found very interesting, you were an icon for the deaf community. Has anything changed since you got a cochlear implant? Have they been angry at you? Have you gotten negative feedback?

Lou Ferrigno:
No, because I do a lot of signing lately. I’ve done a lot of signing, the people come up, they say, “We’ve seen you being emotional about the cochlear.” They congratulate me. Then people also wearing hearing aid, sometimes they have bad hearing and they say, “Well, I’m thinking about doing it.” I haven’t received anything negative. I’ll be honest with you, I haven’t heard any negative comment. I’m sure they don’t want to make a negative comment to me because I’m not a little kid anymore.

Richard:
They wouldn’t survive five seconds. I got it. It’s okay. There’s always been a conflict between the deaf community and those who try to leave it by getting a cochlear implant and that conflict is diminishing with time. I was just curious about your own personal experience.

Lou Ferrigno:
Don’t get me wrong. I met people that need a cochlear implant, they don’t want to do it. I try to convince them. They’re just happy being deaf. That’s their choice. Life is about choice. Do you want to make that choice? Fine.

Richard:
I agree with you 100%. Lou, thank you so much for your time certainly.