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May 29, 1982.

I was a newborn that day and too young to remember the moment for myself. But I've heard the story many times.

It was my brother's second birthday. Dustin had just been given with a set of headphones — the kind with the giant pads that cover the entire ear and block out competing sounds.

My mom, Therena, said she and my dad already had a nagging suspicion that Dustin might have hearing loss. Their fears were confirmed the moment the headphones were placed over his ears.

“He heard the music and got this huge smile and big wide eyes and a look of amazement on his face,” my mom said. “That's when we knew for sure.”

Shortly after that, Dustin was diagnosed with severe to profound hearing loss. In his left ear, he was virtually deaf. In his right ear, he could hear at about 80 decibels — the volume produced by a vacuum cleaner. An average person hears at 10 decibels — the rustle of a pile of leaves.

After his diagnosis, Dustin learned sign language for some of his basic needs and was fitted with a hearing aid. He started speech therapy and by the time he turned 4, he could finally talk.

Over the years, hearing aid technology unquestionably improved. Still, for Dustin, there were all too many frustrations and limitations. There was the week-long family vacation to the lake, when his hearing aid broke on the first day. For the rest of the week, he was effectively shut out from the cheerful banter, stuck in his own silent world.

Large group settings were also especially difficult.

“In those types of situations, all I can hear is a cacophony of sounds,” he said. “It's like I'm listening to a flock of seagulls. It's completely chaotic and I can't distinguish what anyone is saying because every sound is being amplified equally.”

Three months ago, Dustin found out about a new offering for the hearing impaired. The Food and Drug Administration had recently approved the Esteem — the world's first fully implantable hearing device. The technology was so new that at that time that only 400 people in the United States had undergone the surgery to have the device implanted.

After more research and communication with Envoy Medical — the company that developed the implant — Dustin learned he was an ideal candidate for the procedure. He had the surgery and was sent home to heal. Two weeks ago, he flew to San Jose to have the hearing implant turned on.

The result, according to my mom, was the second birthday headphone experience all over again — just in time for Christmas. There was that same look of wonder on Dustin's face. All of a sudden, he could hear things he had never heard before.

As they left the surgical center, Dustin turned to my mom and asked, “What's that sound? Is there a river here?” He had noticed the sound of cars rushing down the highway, something he had never been able to pick out.

“On the plane on the way home, I kept asking mom if I was talking really, really loud,” Dustin said. “She kept saying, 'No, I can barely hear you,' and I couldn't believe her. It sounded like I was shouting.”

Carl Geisz, U.S. sales manager for Envoy Medical, said the implantable hearing device works for people with sensorineural hearing loss — or about 85 percent of people who have a hearing impairment. Eligible candidates must have a baseline level of hearing and a certain word recognition score. Unfortunately, the surgery costs about $30,000 and isn't yet covered by insurance companies.

The surgery itself can take anywhere from four to seven hours. Surgeons make an incision just behind the ear, peel back part of the scalp, and attach a sensor to the small bones in the middle ear. A sound processor is also implanted behind the outer ear, under the skin. People who get the surgery can hold a small remote up to their head to adjust the device's volume or turn it off completely.

Geisz said the reason the technology works so well is that it uses the patient's eardrum as a natural microphone and the body’s natural anatomy to reduce background noise, distortion and feedback.

“It's a very different concept than a hearing aid,” he said. “Our outer ear and ear canal do a lot to channel sounds and help in distinguishing speech, and hearing aids bypass that. The response has really been overwhelming and there have been a lot of great stories already about how people's lives are being changed.”

For Dustin, the pain from the surgery was minimal. The procedure wasn't without its inconveniences though. After the surgery, it was necessary for him to be completely deaf for six weeks. Doctors are unable to turn the implantable hearing aid on until the swelling diminishes.

But because Dustin was completely deaf in his left ear and the hearing device wasn't turned on in his right ear, he began to experience auditory deprivation — similar to the phantom pains experienced by those who have had a limb amputated. Sometimes, he could hear a high-pitched buzzing. At other times, it sounded like a very loud, very out of tune orchestra was playing in his head.

“They were really not good at all,” he said with a laugh, recalling the sounds.

Even now that the hearing implant has been connected and turned on, Dustin still hasn't reached the level of hearing that will someday be possible. His body has to adjust to the new technology and learn how to hear in a new way.

Today, he can hear most sounds about as clearly as he could with his hearing aid. Some sounds, like the sound of his own voice, are much louder. Within the next few weeks, the expectation is that his hearing will improve by leaps and bounds. Because his body is still adjusting to the new technology the loudest he has been able to turn the implant on so far is a level three, even though it goes all the way up to a level 10.

Dustin doesn't yet know exactly how much his hearing will improve, but the two short weeks since the hearing implant was turned on have already given him hope for a brighter future. He no longer has to worry about losing a job because he didn't hear his alarm go off or sleeping through the warning call of a shrill fire alarm.

“People who aren't hearing impaired don't realize all the drawbacks of wearing a hearing aid,” Dustin said. “If you do something as little as smile really big, you get loud squealing feedback. You are always conscious of everything you do and every movement you make and how that might affect your hearing aid. From a vanity standpoint, it's also not very conducive to self confidence.”

Now, thanks to modern technology, many of those problems are non-issues. In many ways, my brother has been offered a new beginning, and that's the best Christmas gift yet.