Turning points: June06 - Jeannie

Life can change with the strength to overcome addiction, the courage to travel through life alone, the conviction to make the world a better place, or the determination to succeed on your own terms.

Jennie Brand-Miller, 54, is a professor of human nutrition at the University of Sydney and co-author of The Low GI Diet series of books. As a teenager she discovered she had a hearing problem, which worsened as she got older, but her life changed when she had a cochlear implant.

“As far as anyone knew, I had normal hearing when I was a child. It wasn’t until one day when I was a teenager and had friends over that one of them said, ‘Your mother’s calling you’, and I thought, ‘Well, if she’s calling me why can’t I hear her?’. I said something to my parents and they got my hearing tested. It was found that my hearing was not as good as it should be. In fact, it was bad enough for the doctors to say that I should have a hearing aid.

“As far as anyone knew, I had normal hearing when I was a child. It wasn’t until one day when I was a teenager and had friends over that one of them said, ‘Your mother’s calling you’, and I thought, ‘Well, if she’s calling me why can’t I hear her?’. I said something to my parents and they got my hearing tested. It was found that my hearing was not as good as it should be. In fact, it was bad enough for the doctors to say that I should have a hearing aid.

“I was thirteen or fourteen at the time and just completely rejected the hearing aid. I had one and I think I wrapped it up in a tissue and somehow it got thrown out – that happened a couple of times – my poor parents!

“I went through university knowing I was saying ‘I beg your pardon’ a lot – my friends used to tease me about it in a nice way. By the time I finished my PhD and was offered a job lecturing at the University of Sydney, I knew I had to do something about my hearing so I got two very strong hearing aids. But the ear, nose and throat specialist I went to told me: “You’re in the wrong job; you shouldn’t be doing it.” He made it really clear that I should get out of my job because of my hearing problem. I personally couldn’t have imagined a better job – it was in nutrition, teaching what I loved, and I was really looking forward to doing it. His words were really hurtful and they sort of played on my mind for the next twenty or thirty years; that I wasn’t good enough for the job I loved.

“I knew I wasn’t hearing my students’ questions as well as a normal hearing person would. I told people I was hearing impaired and asked them to speak up. As time went on though, I had to ask my students to write their questions down on paper and send them up to the front.

“In 1988 I lost all hearing in one ear quite suddenly – I still don’t really know why. It coincided with having a root canal done on the same side, but doctors said that couldn’t be the reason. It made everything twice as hard. When you’ve only got one side of hearing you can’t tell where noises are coming from and when you’re in a crowded situation it’s almost impossible to hear. By this time I was about thirty-six years old and I continually fought this feeling that people would think me stupid. There were conversations that I would have with people in noisy environments or with people who mumbled or who had a beard and I just couldn’t hear a word they’d say. I’d come out of meetings feeling absolutely, completely mortified.

“Then I heard about cochlear implants. There had been stories in the papers about them and how people who had them sounded like Donald Duck. I thought they couldn’t be any good so I didn’t do anything about it. But a friend, who was also hearing impaired, decided to get one. And her bravery made me brave. It was also kind of a last resort; by this stage I was even having trouble with a one-on-one conversation in a really quiet room.

“So I had the operation but I didn’t have incredible expectations. I knew that the ear where they put the implant had been deaf for ten years and I knew it wouldn’t sound too good to begin with. The doctors told me – warned me – before I had the cochlear implant that this would happen. After I had the operation though, very gradually over a period of six months, words became clearer and clearer. Sounds I hadn’t heard in a long time, like rain, sounded really beautiful. Birds sounded beautiful. I started to be able to hear on the phone – the phone is an instrument of torture for the hearing impaired, and just ringing a taxi or taking down a name and address had been impossible for me before. After the implant I couldn’t believe I was hearing all these numbers – I could tell the difference between five and nine! Everything took off from there.

“I have two children: one eighteen years old and one twenty-two years old. My daughter may have the same condition as me so we’re watching her carefully at the moment.
“I was forty-six years old when the cochlear implant was done. It absolutely changed my life. It meant that with the research I was doing on the Glycemic Index [for The New Glucose Revolution books] that I could stand up in front of thousands of people at a conference and feel confident, that I could speak properly, that I wouldn’t sound funny, that I would be able to answer questions. It made such a huge difference.”

The glycemic index
The glycemic index (GI) is a way of measuring the effect carbohydrates have on our blood glucose levels. High GI foods break down quickly, spiking blood sugar levels, while low GI foods break down slowly, releasing glucose gradually into the body’s blood stream. Professor Jennie Brand-Miller had studied and researched the glycemic indices of different foods for more than 25 years before co-authoring the first of The New Glucose Revolution series of books. The books guide people through how to eat well, lose weight and maintain control over their blood sugar levels, and have now sold more than three million copies worldwide.

“I’ve been studying the glycemic index since 1981,” says Jennie.

“I have a vision that lifestyle intervention is the way for Australia to cope with its obesity epidemic. There are so many good reasons to adopt a healthier lifestyle, not only because it will help prevent obesity, diabetes and heart disease, but because it helps prevent depression and mental problems, osteoporosis and arthritis.

“It’s not just about weight; it’s about living well so we can all enjoy our old age. Instead of waiting for things like diabetes or heart disease to develop and then treating them, with a healthy lifestyle we can stop them in their tracks. Lifestyle intervention is cheap and it’s effective. It just hits so many different conditions.”

 

Words: By Karen Spresser and Josephine Brouard. Photography: Andrew Lehmann.  Styling: Nicholas Sholl. Hair & make-up: Jay Jay Rauwenhoff.