This story is from January 3, 2016

Born without ears, boy hears after operation

In a medical miracle like development Deep Patel, who was born without external ears, is set to enjoy beauty of sounds after he recently under went a unique medical surgery -bone bridge -which has been conducted in Gujarat for the first time.
Born without ears, boy hears after operation

AHMEDABAD : In a medical miracle like development Deep Patel, who was born without external ears, is set to enjoy beauty of sounds after he recently under went a unique medical surgery -bone bridge -which has been conducted in Gujarat for the first time.
This is the third of its kind of surgery in India whe re device is planted on a pati ent born without ears.
Deep 21, a resident of Vastral area underwent bone bridge sur gery at Civil Hospital on De cember 23 in which a device was placed in his skull and another in hairline that cat ches sound waves and suppli es it to brain.
Earlier, the youth under went cosmetic surgery a year ago where an artificial ear was put in his skull. However, it could not help him as he did not have middle ear which has three bones that vibrate to generate sound.
Dr Rajesh Vishwakarma, senior ENT surgeon at the Civil Hospital, said, “Deep suffered from conductive hearing loss, which occurs when there is a problem in transmitting sound waves anywhere along the route through the outer ear, tympanic membrane (eardrum), or middle ear. The patient didn't have external and cochlea, which is the auditory portion of the inner ear. It is a spiralshaped cavity in the bony labyrinth.“

Deep could only hear loud and high decibel sounds due to vibration in skull bones which supplies sounds to hearing nerves of the brain. In bone bridge surgery , a device is implanted inside the patient's skull and another microphone-like device in the hairline. “The device inside the hairline catches the sound wave and directly supplies these waves to another device and this helps the boy to hear properly ,“ explained Dr Vishwakarma.
Deep was taken to the Civil Hospital last month where his surgery was performed. After the successful surgery , Deep has been discharged.
Deep, who has completed BE (Electrical), happily said, “Now, I'll be able to hear even gossips of my friends and family members.“ He said his life was quite difficult as he had to ask his teachers to repeat sentences . “When I went for a job interview, I had to ask the interviewer to repeat the questions as I couldn't hear them properly ,“ he said.
Deep, though not a musiclover, now wants to listen to each and every sound of the universe.
End of Article
FOLLOW US ON SOCIAL MEDIA