Batting The Old School Hearing Aids Away With Phonak-Naida Link CROS

In the brightest time of the year, give wings to all your aspirations and dreams. Nothing can stop you, and you must know that! For all this festive zeal and optimism, the motivational element in me expresses its sincere gratitude to my newfound friend, Harsh Tilwani.

The cricket fanatic is no less than Kohli on the fields. You should see. However, he wasn’t so amazing earlier. He was born hearing impaired, and initially wore hearing aids till he turned __ . Due to financial constraints, his family could only get him a unilateral implant at the time. He’s using a Naida CI-Q90 at present. In the left year, he sometimes (I’d rather say rarely) wore a hearing aid, but usually left it bare due to uneasiness. He never used his hearing aid for longer than 20 minutes, because not hearing at all seemed more comfortable than the nightmarish sounds, which ‘the torture machine’ gave him. Hence, the only sound he perceived was from the right ear.

“Harsh begged me not to get him another hearing aid, because he was tired of experimenting with them. I promised him this was the last he’d ever try. All his experiences with the torture machines (a.k.a. Hearing Aids) had been really bad...well, until this one. Naida Link CROS- by Phonak is a hearing aid for the people who have a profound hearing loss in both their ears, but have a unilateral implant,” avers Jaishree Tilwani, his mother.

The wireless audio transmitter called ‘Naida Link CROS,’ is an invention for all the hearing impaired, unilateral cochlear implant candidates from Advanced Bionics who are not making the use of their opposite ear, as of now and for some reason can’t go for a Bilateral Implantation.

Until the previous session, every teacher who taught him gave us the same review- A very pleasant young gentleman, doesn’t cause mischief, followed by a few more adjectives like attentive, sharp and helpful. But his left ear somewhat hampered his academic performance. He would hear less, and miss half of the things being taught in the classroom.

Usually he’s a confident little chap, and making friends has never been difficult for him. Sometimes, his inability to follow the conversation and ask his friends to repeat what they said embarassed him, so he held back from asking. Every physical disability brings its own psychological consequences.

He started off playing with some of our neighbours’ kids, and gradually ended up in the school cricket team. But still, his inability to hear from one of his ears disturbed his game and perturbed him as a player. His friends in the neighborhood as well as in school, encouraged and helped him throughout. Yet he somehow couldn’t keep pace with the other players’ game.

In his own words, he hears louder and clearer. Both his ears are equally good now. Even in noisy settings, he is able to distinguish between the noises in the background, and voice of the person he is talking to. Phonak-Naida Link CROS has really brought about major (* like really big*) changes in his life. His new zeal, and the confidence it has presented him with does not go unnoticed. His classmates and friends come up to him, and ask him if he has got a new hearing machine or something. He academic performance has improved significantly, and so has his agility in the cricket field.