Device not only restores hearing, but connects to Bluetooth

(WJBK) - Dawn Leslie was standing in her kitchen talking to her husband when all of a sudden she couldn't hear out of her left ear. She had gone deaf.

Leslie had sudden sensorinureal hearing loss - a virus attacked the nerves of her inner ear. When normal hearing aids didn't work, she learned about Baha, or bone-anchored hearing aids.

"We make a little incision in the back of the skull. We drill down into the actual bone and put an implant," said Dr. Robert T. Standring, M.D., an ear, nose and throat specialist.

A complex sound processers then clips in and the user can hear.

"You're bypassing the ear bones and you're actually going straight to the inner ear and it's vibrating in tune or in frequency with normal sound and it's allowing your inner ear to hear," Dr. Standring said.

When Dawn first powered up the ear, doctors had one of her kids come over and talk to her.

"I wanted to cry because I felt like I was given back my ear," she said.

Not only does the device allow you to hear again, but it connects to Bluetooth. You can connect your phone to it and stream music - no need for headphones. With it, Dawn can hear better than the average person and, when you have seven kids, that's a necessity.

"When I lost my hearing, some of them thought they could get away with some stuff. So they'd be on my bad side and they would go back and forth. I don't even have to turn my head. But you know how we say we have eyes in the back of our head? I have an ear in the back of my head," she said.