I have serious hearing loss. I'm challenged if I don't have my hearing aids in.

If I were offered a cochlear implant today, I would prefer not to have one. But that's not a statement about hearing aids or cochlear implants. It's about who you are.

The hearing aids are very helpful for speech reading. Without the hearing aids, my voice becomes very loud, and I cannot control the quality of my voice.

I learned to speak first, and then to sign. I have never really known what it was like to hear, so I can't compare hearing aids to normal hearing.

You should know that I've been hearing-impaired, not quite since birth, but I've been wearing hearing aids since I was 13, so I'm very conscious of the difficulty of voice communication.

I grew up using hearing aids, and I had speech therapy and so forth, and that helped me to develop a passion for music and helped me to develop my drumming talents.