Sometimes we're lucky enough to witness life's unthinkable moments. For South Florida man Brian Travers, a truly incredible slice of time in his life was captured for him to cherish, and for the whole world to enjoy and learn from.
Brian Travers gradually lost his ability to hear through his adult years because of a rare genetic disease called osteogenesis imperfecta, known as brittle bone disease. At the beginning in 2008, after a cerebral hemorrhage left Travers in a coma for three weeks, he couldn’t hear at all.
Travers relied exclusively on lip-reading, until a cochlear implant surgery allowed him to hear again.
How This South Florida Man’s Wife Made Him Cry at His Implant Surgery Appointment
At the appointment to activate his implants, Travers’s wife was wearing a window mask — a face covering with a clear plastic rectangle over the lips that Travers created and sold during the pandemic to protect people and allow others to read their lips.
She held her hands over the plastic rectangle of the mask and said: “Can you hear me? You’re not reading my lips, are you?”
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"It's kind of echoey but I can get it. Say it again," he tells her.
"I love you," she repeats.
Travers looks at her and cries. She leans over and comforts her in this overwhelming moment.
Erin Travers told the The Washington Post: "It’s almost like watching your child be born. All I’ve known is him deaf and struggling to hear. Just the pure joy on his face when he could hear me say ‘I love you’ is indescribable."
With the Ability to Hear, Travers Is Living a Brand New Life
It takes time for the brain to adjust but Travers loves hearing his wife and children. He hears unfamiliar sounds when he is outside that he has to relearn, and he said people sound “cartoonish." He still reads lips because it comes naturally to him, but he smiles when he can match what he sees to the words he hears.
Modern science has literally allowed the deaf to hear and the blind to see. But the marvels of such technology can be lost when we don't pause to witness moments like Travers breaking into tears with his wife. Let's work to appreciate the amazing elements of our modern day, and be grateful.
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