Connecting the sounds: A journey from hearing loss to hope
Patient Story
Treena Greenwood walked into Dr. Maky Hafidh’s office at Waterloo Regional Health Network (WRHN) and saw the pile of test results on the ENT specialist’s desk.
Images from a recent MRI, reports from various audiology tests – tangible symbols of the steps taken to discover why Treena was losing her hearing in her 40s.
Sitting opposite Dr. Hafidh, Treena anxiously braced herself for the diagnosis. All it took to alleviate her stress were four little words.
“I can fix this,” he told her.
“I just burst into tears right there,” Treena says, her voice shaking as she recalls the conversation. “He was telling me: ‘I can make your hearing better than you were born with.’
“And he did.”
Can you speak up?
Treena was in her 30s when she noticed the first signs of hearing loss.
But, as a busy working mom, she brushed away the symptoms, avoiding a hearing test out of fear of what it might reveal.
When she developed tinnitus (ringing in the ears) more than a decade later, she finally sought help from the Arnold Hearing Centre in Kitchener.
“They said: ‘There’s really something wrong here. You need to see a specialist,’” Treena says. “So they sent me to Dr. Hafidh, and it changed my entire life.”
Audible relief
Tests showed Treena had a disease called otosclerosis, likely inherited from the birth mother she never knew as a child of adoption.
With otosclerosis, abnormal growth in the middle-ear cavity prevents the ear bones from vibrating normally when sound waves hit.
Hearing in Treena’s left ear was down to 30 per cent, and 65 in her right.
“If I hadn’t met Dr. Hafidh when I did, those numbers would have kept plummeting and my quality of life would continue to suffer,” Treena says.
A quick surgery, involving only two tiny incisions, left Treena with what she describes as “bionic hearing.”
She didn’t know what she was missing – until she heard it.
The change was immediate. I couldn’t believe how loud everything was. For so many years, I didn’t realize how much I couldn’t hear.
The dog in the distance
Recently, the ENT program at WRHN @ Queen’s Blvd., (formerly St. Mary’s General Hospital) received a new nerve monitoring system, allowing Dr. Hafidh to treat more cases like Treena’s safely and effectively.
Community donations funded the replacement machine, just as they cover the cost of most equipment across the Hospital sites.
The impact of donor generosity isn’t lost on Treena.
Unwinding on her porch after a long day, she hears excited voices of children playing and sharp barks from dogs in the distance – sounds her husband doesn’t even pick up on. It fills her with gratitude.
“How lucky are we to have an ENT specialist like Dr. Hafidh right here in town; to have the equipment I needed for surgery; to have the diagnostics that solved this riddle for me,” Treena says.
I went on a journey to get my hearing back, and I’m thankful for every step.
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