DALLAS - Johnny Widener's world is silent.
"I just think about how in the last year, he hasn't heard my voice or the children's voices," said Stacy Widener, Johnny's wife.
Widener has been losing his hearing since he was five, and a year ago, he went completely deaf.
"Sometimes the conversation with my family is hard because I have to read lips, so if we're talking in a group, it's hard to catch conversations," Widener said.
But he took his disability and funneled into to good: creating a ministry in Ghana, reaching out to people hard of hearing.
"Especially in a country like Ghana, a lot of people consider deaf people as outcasts," he said.
That good is coming full circle, as doctors from Forest Park Medical Center pitch in to give Johnny a true gift; With surgery, Dr. Bob Peters puts a cochlear implant in Widener's head, behind his ear.
Two weeks later, it's time to activate the device, and therefore his hearing.
At the Dallas Ear Institute, the moment has arrived, and it's overwhelming.
Widener goes from nothing - to hearing mechanically - in seconds.
"[Do I] wanna see if I can hear my own voice? A little, yeah," Widener said.
By adjusting the levels up and down, Widener finds the sweet spot. But it takes time.
"Now it's maybe a little too loud," Widener said. "It kind of makes me dizzy."
"Can you hear my voice now?" his wife asked. "Do I sound loud?"
"It's different," Johnny said.
"I have a new voice!" his wife explained
Although she doesn't sound the way he may remember, the device brings new freedom to his life.
"I can't wait to go on a date Friday night and go to the movies," Stacy said.
And they did. Their first movie together, appropriately titled "Courageous."
E-mail sslater@wfaa.com
