On Sept. 26 at Massachusetts General Hospital's Eye & Ear Infirmary, 14-year-old Jacob Waring will undergo a cochlea implant to repair hearing loss in his right ear. Given that he has no hearing in his left ear, for the next five weeks Waring will be totally deaf -- a condition close to what he already is experiencing. Then, back at Mass General, they will turn the implant onto low volume.

"I'm excited, but nervous," Waring said Tuesday, just prior to soccer practice. "I'm really more worried about how my mother will handle it."

For four years, Dana Waring has sought the cochlea implant, only to be told that Jacob's hearing loss was not profound enough to warrant the procedure.

As audiologist Amanda L. Samoluk of the Warren Center in Bangor explained it, there is a risk to a cochlea implant. The procedure completely destroys the ear implanted.

Also, doctors want to be sure the family has the right expectations. For Jacob Waring, that would be perhaps a slight improvement from recent years, when he had a certain amount of hearing in his right ear.

Up to now, Dana Waring has handled all this well.

Trips to Boston have been expensive for the single mother who holds two jobs, but the support system has been there for her. The Rev. Mark Tanner and his wife, Deb, of the Federated Church, the American Legion and employer Skowhegan Fleuriste are among those who have helped with expenses. And the staff at Skowhegan Area Middle School has made every accommodation possible, Dana Waring says.

Disappointment, however, resurfaced five years ago. Despite an audiogram that showed more hearing loss in her son's right ear, doctors insisted Jacob Waring was not a candidate for a cochlea implant.

"All I know is that I kept fighting for it," Dana Waring said. "I kept seeing a big difference in him, and his speech has started to change."

Undaunted, Waring returned to the infirmary for a second opinion in January. In the past, she had sought the implant for the "dead" left ear.

"They wouldn't implant the left ear because it had gone so long without sound," she explained.

In July, Waring went to Boston yet again, with a new battle plan. By this time, Jacob's hearing had slipped dramatically, to the point where he was virtually deaf. He had always helped himself through sign language, but now the handicap was also affecting his speech.

At school, speech transliterator Kathy Warburg uses an amplifier to repeat questions to him.

"He could only hear sounds and not words," Waring said. "So we went back again. Tests showed he had a great loss in his right ear just from January's appointment, and it was a go."

Waring said she wants others who have hearing loss to know about Jacob's story, in the hope it will help them.

"We are extremely excited and feel fortunate, I can tell you that," she said. "I kind of just want people to know this story."

Jacob, who talks with a smile, was diagnosed with hearing loss at 18 months. His outgoing personality, his mother said, shows how much he wants to be socially accepted.

"He's got a great attitude," she said. "What he lacks in hearing he's made up with his heart."

But Jacob knows it's time for this big moment.

"I'm having a hard time with my homework, and missing information," he said. "It gets confusing. Soccer cools my mind down. I take my anger out on the ball."

Dana Waring and her elder son, Justin, 23, are anxious for the change.

"He'll hear things that he possibly didn't before, like a dog barking in the distance, or rain falling," she said.

By Larry Grard