Maggie Gleason’s favorite sound in the world was hearing her dad say her name for the first time ever.
Gleason, 14, was born without cochleas, the snail-shaped bones inside the ear that enable hearing. And without an auditory nerve, Gleason wasn’t even a contender for a cochlear implant.
Her fate completely changed with one scientific advancement: the auditory brain stem implant (ABI). The device avoids the ear completely, as it’s implanted directly on the brainstem. It changes sounds into electrical impulses, which travel through the skin to the brain.
Gleason’s 10-hour surgery took place at Ohio’s University Hospitals Case Medical Center last September and the device was tested for the first time three months later.
“Maggie, can you hear me?” her father asked her during the testing.
She nodded, making her family emotional.
“It was never something I ever thought we would see or that she would ever experience,” her sister Katie Gleason says in the video.
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