Many who begin their investigation about cochlear implants are confused about the differences between cochlear implants and a device called a BAHA (Bone Anchored Hearing Assistance or Aid). They are under the impression that they can choose between these interchangeably.

The BAHA and the cochlear implant are designed for very different types of hearing loss and only the ENT or surgeon can make the determination based on a battery of tests.

I was fortunate to be introduced to Isabella Rodriguez, a recipient of a BAHA since the she was three months old. Her journey has been remarkable. She is amazing and explains the stages of her hearing loss and her decisions to make the best of her life. In fact, she is an inspiration and a prime example of an unstoppable dynamo.

I see nothing but a brilliant future for a very articulate and caring person. I am glad she took the time to talk with me.

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’ll meet recipients who face a hearing loss and their 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. Their joy of music disappeared. They explained 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 morning. This morning we’re talking to Isabella Rodriguez, who is a user of a BAHA, B-A-H-A, better known as a Bone Anchor Hearing Assistance or Bone Anchor Hearing Aid. It’s used for a different type of deafness, and I know when people come to our site, I’ve often seen confusion between using a BAHA and a cochlear implant. So, I’m going to let Isabella tell her story first about her journey, how she lost her hearing, and we’ll move on from there.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Good morning, Mr. Richard. Thank you so much for having me today. I’m Isabella Rodriguez. I’m 21 years old and I’m currently a senior at the University of Georgia. So, basically, my story starts the day I was born. I was born with conductive hearing loss, and I was born with microtia on my left side, which means absence of an ear. So, basically, when I was born, I was born without an ear on my left side, and I was born with bilateral atresia, which means absence of the ear canal. So, I was born without an ear canal on both sides, which is what resulted in the conductive hearing loss.

Starting at around three months, I started on a Baha Soft Band, and I wore that all the way up through high school until I got to college, and in May of 2021 I received the OCS surgery. It was a very easy, simple, and painless process, and I can now say that I love my OCS device. I wear it every single day. I wear it everywhere I go, and it benefits me in every single aspect of my life.

Richard:

Do you wear it on both sides? Two units or just one?

Isabella Rodriguez:

I just have it on one side, the left side that had the microtia, but I do plan on, eventually getting the second device on my right side.

Richard:

So, you went from the soft band for almost 20 years, and obviously it helped because your speech is excellent. Why did you wait so long to get a BAHA?

Isabella Rodriguez:

One of the biggest things was some other medical conditions. Once I was pretty much old enough to say that I did want to transition to surgery, because, like you said, I was doing so well just with the soft band at the time, it was just best for my parents to decide to just let me continue and we’ll see once I get older. And just some other health conditions popped up. I had arthritis, so I was on some medications that would’ve conflicted with surgery. So, once I was older, it was the best decision.

Richard:

Now, the Osia is a relatively new unit. Can you describe a little bit about the surgery? Why is it different from the traditional BAHA, which is a post? Tell us a little bit about that.

Isabella Rodriguez:

So, the Osia-2 is under Cochlear Americas, and the surgery was very simple, painless, quick. A little joke I like to say is that I was in and out of surgery and back home before some of my friends were even awake to start their day. It was over the summer, so I can give them some credit for that, they slept in, but I went in in the morning, talked to my ENT, my surgeon, and the next thing you know I was awake.

So the Osia, there’s an internal device and then an external device, and that internal device is placed underneath the skin and the muscle layers of your head, and they just place it right under and then they close you up. I can’t even see my scar. My surgeon did such a good job. She even braided my hair in surgery, so she didn’t have to shave any off at all, so I woke up with all my hair. It was amazing. As a girl in college, your hair was very important to you. I had a bandage on my left side for about 24 hours, but then in another three weeks I was activated.

I guess the biggest difference from the BAHA with the post, like you said, is that there’s nothing protruding from my skin, and I really like the idea of something being underneath the skin rather than protruding. There’s a little bit less of a risk for infection around the area and just the delicacy around the skin that you would get from that post, you don’t really get from the Osia.

Richard:

Now, I’ve known other people who have gotten the BAHA and the post is a major issue with them, whether it’s infections or bleeding on the pillow, and when they switched to an Osia, those problems disappeared. So, I’m sure… You never faced the post, though. I have a question about music. How do you deal with music? Does it sound natural?

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah, I love music. I listen to music all the time when I walk around campus, when I’m working out. Music has always been there for me. I understand some people who lose their hearing later on in life, they lose their touch with music, but for me, I’ve been blessed enough to always been able to enjoy it. With the Osia, I can Bluetooth directly from my phone to my Osia, so another joke I like to make is that I never have to buy any AirPods or headphones, because now it streams directly into the Osia.

Richard:

You saved a little money there.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah.

Richard:

I’m going to be very, very curious if you go for a bilateral setup, because as I understand the BAHA or the Osia is working on vibrations, and I don’t understand quite how the left and the right are going to separate those vibrations, because they’re going to cross, unlike a cochlear implant where you’re going to two sides of the brain directly, there’s no real interference. So, I’ll be very curious. Now that brings me up to another point. Have you tried using the soft band on the other side?

Isabella Rodriguez:

I have not, no. I’ve grown up with using a device, some sort of hearing technology, on just the one side, so I have never personally been curious. Like I said, I do see myself in the future getting that second abuttment, and I’m sure that that’s something that my audiologist will help me with, in terms of the crossover. I know that there are a lot of different programmings that really try to combat that issue.

Richard:

I also am curious because you are among the younger people I’ve interviewed for my podcast. Can you tell me about growing up with the hearing loss and what school was like, what your friends were like? Was there bullying? Was there support? Tell me a little bit about your early life.

Isabella Rodriguez:

So, from as far back as I can remember, preschool, elementary school, even the first part of middle school, for me having the hearing loss was a cool thing. At show and tell I would always just pull off my hearing device to show the entire class. I loved answering questions. I wanted people to ask me questions. No one really cared. When you’re a kid, you just want someone to play with. You’re not really thinking about those other little things. Were they always in the back of my head? Yes. But were they in the back of other kids’ heads? No.

But once I started to get a little bit older, the girls started getting meaner. The bullying definitely did come up in high school. I was on the volleyball team for all four years. It was honestly a horrible experience. They were so mean, tried to use my hearing loss as the reason for our losses, as well as the coach. He would pull me out of the game and say, “Oh, I’m pulling you out because you can’t hear me when you’re on the court.” That was hard.

But as far as support, I have to give all the credit to my mom and my dad. They supported me and advocated for me so much throughout my school years, and I had support from a lot of my teachers that I’m truly blessed for, and that’s what I believe made me so successful going through school.

Richard:

So, you were in high school and that’s really when the troubles started?

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yes.

Richard:

Okay. The hormones kick in and everybody gets mean. I get it.

Isabella Rodriguez:

I guess so.

Richard:

So my question now is about you’re in college now. Tell me about how you chose where you went to school and how do you cope in the classroom? Are the professors supportive?

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah. Yeah. Actually, my college experience is a little bit unique and not only because I’ve been a college student through Covid 19, that was unique in itself, but my freshman and sophomore year I was a student at Gallaudet University in Washington DC, and I was on the volleyball team there, as well. Gallaudet University is a deaf university in Washington DC that caters to the deaf and hard of hearing community. All of my classes were instructed in American sign language. So, I actually went there a month early to have an immersive program in learning the language and learning the deaf culture. And honestly, that is where I gained 90% of my confidence in regards to my hearing loss, because, as I said, in high school I went from not really noticing a difference between other students to all those mean kids. The bullying really tore my confidence down, but I gained it all back in Gallaudet. And there having hearing loss, it doesn’t matter because everything is in American sign language.

I truly loved the school, but with Covid 19, I ended up transferring to the University of Georgia, and that’s when I really started to have to advocate for myself again. So, I reached out to the Disability Resource Center, set up interviews and meetings with my advisors there. They asked if I needed note taking, if I needed pre-recorded lectures. At the time during Covid, I did take all of that. I also asked for preferential seating in the classroom. But with the University of Georgia being as big as it is, you just walk into the classroom and you get to sit wherever you want. So, I would always choose to sit up at the front.

And with the Osia system I get this thing called a mini-mic. It’s part of my Disability Resource Center accommodations. But the teachers, the professors, have to wear them if I give it to them. So, at the start of every class, I come in about three to five minutes early, and I place it on their desk and they know that if they want to walk around the class they need to wear it, or if they’re going to just stay at one spot to teach the class that they can just leave it on the podium or on their desk.

Richard:

Now that’s interesting, because I have spoken to or mentored college students before, and when a professor is uncooperative, and it happens from time to time, their resentful of having to make accommodations, did you experience that at all?

Isabella Rodriguez:

Personally? No. I think we’ve come a long way just as a society to be more accepting of people with certain conditions maybe need a little more extra help here and there. So, I’ve been very lucky. Again, I’ve been taught from a young age to advocate for myself and to be very straightforward with what I need to be successful. Because for me, I don’t play around with my education. I want everything to be accommodated to me because I need them. So, I do try to advocate the best I can for myself.

Richard:

Do you use anything like speech-to-text apps when you’re in the classroom? Do they work for you?

Isabella Rodriguez:

I personally don’t use those, no. The mini-mic is really helpful for me, because it’s that direct streaming into the Osia, so I can hear the teacher’s voice as if I could hear them through AirPods or anything like that.

Richard:

So, you’re very lucky you live in an age where they’re accommodating disabilities. When I went to school, I graduated almost 50 years ago, trust me, there was nothing like that. My next question, it has to do with the decibel differences. Do you think there are going to be differences on each side of your head if you got a second one? Have they talk to you about that?

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah, so there is more of a higher degree of loss in the left ear, which is the ear that is already implanted, rather than the right side. So, there is a difference of decibels between the two ears they have talked about. I would actually get a better gain, even though I can hear a little bit better out of the right side, if I were to get that second device. As I said before, that is 100% something that I would talk to my audiologist about in as far as the programming and setting everything up goes.

Richard:

This has been very, very interesting, and I’m sure it’s going to be very helpful to people who want to know the difference between the BAHA and the cochlear. The fact that you’re basically missing the outer and the middle ear is a problem, which is why the BAHA is required in your case. If people want to reach out to you who are candidates, do you have any problem with that?

Isabella Rodriguez:

I would love that.

Richard:

Good. You’re like me. We help. We feel better by helping people move forward.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yes.

Richard:

What are you studying, by the way?

Isabella Rodriguez:

I’m studying audiology.

Richard:

Good. Great.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Surprising enough. I just finished my fall semester of my senior year in undergrad, so I’m in the process of applying to my graduate programs.

Richard:

Are you going to be doing graduate programs in Georgia or are you looking at other places?

Isabella Rodriguez:

So, that’s the crazy thing. There are no audiology graduate programs in the State of Georgia. I’m very lucky to be attending the University of Georgia, but I’m not very lucky of being an in-state student in Georgia, because I’ll have to pay out of state tuition next year for wherever I decide to go.

Richard:

I think you’ll come on down to Florida. I think we have plenty of graduate studies in audiology down here.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah.

Richard:

The University of Miami would be fabulous for you.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Yeah, [inaudible 00:15:25].

Richard:

All right, before we close the interview, is there anything you would like to tell the audience about your background, about the future, about anything at all? The floor is all yours.

Isabella Rodriguez:

I guess my biggest lesson out of all of this is that you get to choose your own identity and you get to choose how you carry yourself in life, and although hearing loss is something that sets you apart, it sets you apart in the uniquest way. You get this whole new perspective on life that everyone else will never understand. It’s such a small community, and it’s important to find comfort and confidence in the small community that you now belong in. And to always hold your head up high and just remember that there’s nothing that you can’t do that someone with typical hearing can. There’s so much technology, there’s so much support, there’s so much information out there to help everyone involved.

Richard:

Isabella, I have to tell you, you are amazing.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Thank you.

Richard:

I really appreciate your time. If you move forward with the second side, we’d love to keep track of how you’re doing, whether you do it or not. Thank you so much for your time today.

Isabella Rodriguez:

Thank you.