 You start noticing that there is noise when you walk and there is noise when you wash your hands. You hear it again and it reminds you of how life is actually normal. It is these trivial sounds that become again part of your normal life. That reminds you how things are working normally for when you heard before. He was a very memorable patient and he was also our first patient that was implanted with a metal device. I really remember his story. I lost my hearing 30 years ago and I regained it back 20 years ago. I first saw him in 1996 but about 10 years prior to that he was traveling in Europe for work in Croatia which is where he is from originally. He was involved in a very severe motor vehicle accident with life threatening injuries. He was hospitalized and treated. Part of his treatment was with antibiotics. We know now that those antibiotics can affect the hearing organ causing significant damage. They were able to save his life but in the process he did lose most of his hearing. At that time we had this relatively new technology called cochlear implant. A cochlear implant is a device that bypasses the inner ear and directly stimulates the hearing nerve and allows people to hear and communicate again. That was a device that we considered for him and after a long time of evaluating and discussing the options he did decide to proceed with the cochlear implant. In those days we expected enhanced lip reading, perhaps identification of male or female voices and maybe some sound awareness and quiet. I never in my wildest dreams expected somebody would be able to have a full conversation with me even with the back turned to me occasionally with background noise. Technology has progressed tremendously over the last 20 years and so Mr. Zurga was our first person who was implanted with the MED-EL device which at that time was fairly new in the US. MED-EL is one of the oldest cochlear implant companies but it was new to the US at that time in the 1980s where we had patients who were losing their hearing or in a situation like Mr. Zurga and there was nothing we could do. There was really no medical treatment, hearing aids didn't help and so patients were left in a world of isolation. This technology has changed the world for these people and it's changed what my practice is. It's a significant part of my practice and it's my favorite part of my practice to be able to give people the gift of hearing. The first thing when I was switched on I was able to make a phone call to my mom. That was all very, very amazing. Mr. Zurga's processor has been replaced so before he came here he was using an old processor which was a large box that was worn on the body and now the appearance of the implants is so much different because the external device can even be just a disc that fits over the magnet that sits behind the ear or a small device that fits behind the ear. With MED-EL product we don't want to ever leave our patients behind and so whenever we come out with new external products we make it backwards compatible. So patients who were implanted 20 years ago can use the newest external technology today. So Mr. Zurga started with a body worn device that was the size of a bottle of cigarette box with a cable that went up behind his ear to now where he wears a device that's completely behind his ear with a small coil and battery life. We want to bring our patients forward.