Here Is a Wonderful Video of a 40-Year-Old Deaf Woman Hearing for the First Time


Joanne Milne was born deaf and began to go blind in her 20s due to a rare genetic disorder called Usher Syndrome. Last month, at the age of 40, she underwent surgery to have cochlear implants installed. This video of her hearing for the first time in her entire life is the reason I can’t get any work done this morning.

“It might be a bit overwhelming at first,” the doctor warns before turning them on. That’s an understatement.

“Hearing things for the first time is so emotional from the ping of a light switch to running water. I can’t stop crying and I can already foresee how it’s going to be life changing,” Joanne says.

Her friends made her a playlist with one song for every year of her life. The first one she heard was John Lennon’s “Imagine.”

Anyway, this is beautiful and amazing and, to be honest, I don’t even like that stupid John Lennon song but I want to listen to it right now on repeat for an hour.

Happy Friday.

(via Gawker )

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate