If not for a cochlear implant, the 16-year-old incoming junior at Cullman High School wouldn't have been able to even think about getting a cell phone and being able to hear who was on the other end. Luckily for him, the technology that wasn't available 37 years ago for Fairview's Tim Hesterley -- who The Cullman Times will follow through his cochlear implant process --was available nine years ago. Heath was 7 when he received his first cochlear implant to restore hearing lost when he was just a baby.

Heath's grandmother Sue Turney, the mother of Heath's father the late Keith Turney, said they don't know exactly what caused Heath's hearing loss. They noticed when he was about 8 months old that he wasn't reacting to sounds like he had before.

She said they carried Heath to the Shea Ear Clinic in Memphis, Tenn., to see what options were available. The doctors there recommended he receive the implant. At the time, Turney said her son and Heath's mother, Chantel Shewbart, were uncertain of what direction to take. They consulted with another physician who said they shouldn't consider the implant because he still had some hearing.

They decided to go ahead with the surgery, but shortly after, Heath's father died, so the surgery was put off.

Since the surgey had been delayed, Heath Turney was given hearing aids.

His grandmother said she can still remember the day when Heath was 11 months old and had just received a hearing aid. "He couldn't hear anything before that," she said. After the hearing aid was in place, she said she took him outside to the porch. It was raining and she said she could see the amazement in his face that he could hear the raindrops.

About nine years ago, Heath Turney finally received the cochlear implant.

Though the inner components of a cochlear implant are supposed to be permanent, Heath had to have his replaced about two years after it was installed. He and his older brother Matthew, now 20, were "roughhousing and jarred it loose," his grandmother said.

Because he was so young when he first received hearing aids and when the implant was installed, Heath said he doesn't really remember not being able to hear. He said his classmates don't treat him any differently because of his implant. They accept is as a part of him.

Because of hearing problems, Heath's speech was slower to develop, but it has improved, Turney said.

"He could talk really good if he would slow down," his grandmother said.

By Gail Crutchfield, The Cullman Times