Cricket star's implants hit hearing loss for six

Cricket legend Lance Cairns and granddaughter Isabel are the faces of hearing charities. Photo / Greg Bowker

After years of struggling to hear, former test cricketer Lance Cairns wondered if it was his fault when his 4-month-old granddaughter was found to be profoundly deaf.

But holding little Isabel in his batsman's arms on a family visit to the Auckland Domain yesterday, he grinned as if he were back in the 1970s and 80s hitting sixes off Aussie bowlers.

"I realise she is going to have a full life," said Cairns, who 18 months ago had a "second life-giving" operation - a cochlear implant, which has allowed him to hear clearly for the first time in 30 years.

Isabel will get cochlear implants this year, say her mother, Mel, and father, Chris, also a former international cricketer.

They look forward to her learning to listen and speak with help from a centre near their home in Canberra, Australia, that specialises in helping deaf children to talk.

There are different schools of thought about using implants compared with learning the official New Zealand sign language.

Proud grandfather Lance has no doubt about which one he prefers.

"Christopher realises the difference the implant has made for me," he said.

"After my implant operation, I was able to talk to him on the phone for the first time in 40 years.

"These things are just so good and it makes me annoyed that there are parents out there who won't let their kids have these."

Cairns recalls how from his early 20s his hearing deteriorated, eventually stopping him from not only talking on the phone but also taking part in group talks, hearing crowd applause and listening to music.

"Music is a big part of your life. Some of the sounds I'm hearing are still not right.

"But the technology is getting better and when Isabel's time comes to listen to music these things will be reasonably good for her to understand.

"When I learned she was deaf, I thought: Is this my fault?"

His surgeon explained that was possible but it was more than likely that both parents had a recessive gene called Connexin 26 that raised her chances of being born deaf.

However, any genetic link cannot be established until tests when a child is 12 months old.

Cairns and granddaughter "Izzy" also filmed a television advertisement for Loud Shirt Day at the weekend.

It will be shown from mid-August to support the September 16 fund-raiser for charities The Hearing House and Southern Cochlear Implant Paediatric Programme.

About 95 per cent of deaf children in New Zealand are born to hearing parents.

The charities provide free specialised therapy that children with implants or hearing aids need to help them interpret sound and then learn how to speak.

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