Cochlear implant changed Adrian Rowlands’ life - he could hear the grandkids

Possibly the greatest honours former Hawke’s Bay Unicorns rugby league giant Adrian Rowlands had as a footballer was winning rugby union’s Madison Trophy with Hastings club side Tamatea in 1982, and crossing codes to play NRL side Manly Warringah Sea Eagles in front of a 12,500-strong home crowd 10 years later.

Some might include seeing Tohu Harris emerge from youngsters he coached in Hastings to become an NRL champion and captain of both the Warriors and the Kiwis.

But there was another moment on Friday, as the 62-year-old was told that the story of how he regained his hearing would assist on International Cochlear Implant Day on Sunday – the anniversary of the first implant in 1957.

“I’m honoured,” Rowlands said at his Flaxmere home, and then - as if grabbing the ball and launching his giant frame at the opposition, just like match invitation team coach Ken Laban told him to on that day at Hastings’ Nelson Park on January 25, 1992 - it was straight into action.

“Tell those Māori boys around Flaxmere … If you think you’ve got a hearing problem, get it checked out,” he said, in his way of addressing everyone. “Get it done.”

It was not long before playing the NRL pre-season game against Manly that Rowlands realised his hearing wasn’t what it should be. Years of diving, working at the Tomoana Freezing works where he started at age 15, and the King’s Cross nightclubs in Sydney, where he almost broke into NRL footy, had collectively taken a toll.

He got it checked and wore a hearing aid for the first time.

Laban looked at him and said: “You don’t play with your ears. Just get the ball and do your job.”

But as the years moved on it became obvious what little hearing he had left was on borrowed time. Rowlands struggled to hear the seven kids, the grandkids, and the nieces and nephews.

About 2018 an audiologist gave him the news and put him on to three specialists at Hutt Hospital, and just as with football selection, he was determined the perfect candidate for the position – to get an implant.

A cochlear implant is a surgically-implanted electronic device that restores hearing for those with profound hearing loss.

Again he put his head down, had the surgery, sat out a month waiting for the surgery to heal and headed back to the specialist for switch-on.

“Boom!” he says, describing the moment.

The new kick in his step is still obvious six years later. He had “never been a phones man” but he found, with the Bluetooth, he was able to hear the young ones, and said: “To hear their voices, to hear the children singing, playing, laughing and crying! It is the most beautiful sound.

“If ‘Arthur’ hadn’t got me,” he says, frustrated by a five-year, ongoing wait for knee surgery after the onset of arthritis, “I’d probably still be playing. I’d be working.”

International Cochlear Implant Day is about encouraging people who have hearing difficulties to get help and if they qualify for a cochlear implant, it can restore their hearing.

“People can be complacent and put up with hearing loss, but there is help available – so it’s a push to seek assistance from an audiologist,” said a spokesperson for the Southern Cochlear Implant Programme.

Each year the programme is funded by the Government to provide implants for 60 profoundly deaf adults and 23 profoundly deaf children, chief executive Neil Heslop said.

The programme is one of only two cochlear implant providers in Aotearoa. It is a charity funded by Whaikaha – Ministry of Disabled People to provide public cochlear implant services to children and adults.

Most people on the adult waiting list were not born deaf – they lost their hearing as adults. The onset of total and permanent deafness can happen to anyone at any point.

Doug Laing is a senior reporter based in Napier with Hawke’s Bay Today, and has 50 years of journalism experience in news gathering, including breaking news, sports, local events, issues, and personalities.