Every year on February 25, advocates for hearing health use International Cochlear Implant Day to celebrate the medical advances and technology that make cochlear implants effective for people with severe or profound hearing loss. Behind the global observance are countless personal stories of adaptation, resilience, and the profound emotional transformation that comes with regaining access to the world of sound. Among those voices is Teri Breier, a Los Angeles-based communications professional who received her cochlear implant in March 2025, exactly four decades after acquiring her first pair of hearing aids.
For Breier, taking the leap at age 60 came after eight years of knowing she medically qualified for the device. Now, looking back on nearly a year of dramatically improved hearing, effortless communication, and renewed human connection through this life-changing technology, she often asks herself a simple question: why didn’t she do it sooner? The answer, she reflects, is that she simply wasn’t ready until the moment arrived. After a lifetime of depending on increasingly powerful hearing aids to navigate the slow, progressive creep of hearing loss, she had long operated under the assumption that a more advanced non-surgical option would always be just around the corner.
Hearing Loss in School
Breier’s relationship with hearing loss began early, diagnosed with mild sensorineural hearing loss during a routine school screening in first grade. It was 1971, an era long before universal newborn hearing exams and before the passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, which eventually evolved into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1990. At the time, aside from routine monitoring, no medical intervention was prescribed, and no one ever mentioned classroom accommodations for students facing sensory challenges.
Throughout her elementary, junior high, and high school years, Breier relied on instinct, quietly choosing to sit near the front of every classroom to ensure she wouldn’t miss vital instructions. Although she managed to perform well academically, she increasingly struggled to understand her teachers and keep pace with casual conversations among her classmates. By the time she reached age 16, her hearing loss had progressed from mild to moderate. At that vulnerable age, however, she felt entirely unwilling to accept the social label of being "the girl with the hearing aids."
College and Career with Hearing Aids
As a college freshman, despite the challenging acoustics of large lecture halls, Breier followed coursework well enough to maintain her grades. However, upon returning to Los Angeles that summer, her grandmother insisted that she finally obtain hearing aids. Looking back, Breier regards that intervention as a turning point, noting that wearing the devices made an immense difference in her ability to learn, understand, communicate, and connect meaningfully with her peers.
Nevertheless, the heavy burden of social stigma persisted. For the first three decades of her career spanning journalism, advertising, and marketing, she actively concealed her invisible disability from colleagues and employers, terrified of perceived shame. She eventually stepped away from the corporate world to establish her own business as a freelance copywriting consultant, seeking greater control over her professional environment.
As her hearing loss continued to worsen over time, maintaining the illusion became increasingly exhausting. Bluffing her way through professional tasks, daily life, and her beloved hobby of choral singing grew nearly impossible. Plagued by deep embarrassment whenever she misunderstood someone or inadvertently sang out of tune, she eventually stopped participating in choir, pulled back from social gatherings, and slipped into a pattern of isolation.
The Support and Influence of HLAA
A major turning point arrived in 2015 when Breier discovered the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). By that time, she had completed extensive personal healing work, built up her self-confidence, and reached a point where she was ready to "own" her hearing loss openly. She quickly became involved in leadership roles across two consecutive HLAA chapters, where she formed close friendships with other cochlear implant recipients. Almost without exception, those peers told her that getting a cochlear implant was the single best decision they had ever made.
Breier initiated the medical qualification process for a cochlear implant in 2017, but ultimately decided not to proceed at that time. She was still managing to "get by," and she harbored deep-seated fears about losing her remaining residual hearing and her enduring enjoyment of music. She also worried whether she could sustain her freelance business through the extended downtime required for surgical recovery and aural rehabilitation. Despite delaying the surgery, she remained deeply committed to the HLAA community, attending annual national conventions and volunteering for the Long Beach Walk4Hearing.
In 2023, Breier joined the staff of the HLAA, a professional milestone that allowed her to make a tangible difference for individuals with hearing loss across the United States. Collaborating on a daily basis with colleagues who wore cochlear implants provided the final push she needed, motivating her to take definitive action and stop missing out on the vibrant world around her.
Her First Year with a Cochlear Implant
Fortunately, Breier was able to understand speech from the very first moment of her cochlear implant activation day in April 2025. Every sound and syllable was initially overlaid by frustrating robotic whistles and echoes as her brain struggled to interpret the new digital signals. Through consistent, dedicated aural rehabilitation practices, those distracting noises entirely dissipated within three months.
Since that milestone, Breier has successfully recaptured high-frequency sounds she had not experienced since her twenties. She finds herself rediscovering—and occasionally feeling mildly annoyed by—the everyday sound of birds singing outside her window. She can now effortlessly understand songs and commercials playing on her car radio and conduct phone conversations without relying on captions. Reflecting on her ongoing journey, she recently marked another major step by being elected president of the HLAA Los Angeles Chapter, feeling as though an entirely new world has opened up to her. Above all, she feels like her authentic self again, actively participating in conversations, relationships, and daily life.
At present, Breier remains bimodal, wearing a traditional hearing aid in one ear and her cochlear implant in the other, while she considers the timing for a second implant. Every day, she remains profoundly grateful for the technology that restored her connection to sound, and especially for the role models within the HLAA who illuminated the path forward.
