"You get to a point were if you are an implant candidate, you really just don’t have any hearing. They are really concerned when they decide to use an implant candidate. Because any residual hearing, they wipe it out. I knew I would do pretty well, just because I knew I was going to work hard and make sure I would do well. I was a little bit excited. I knew I would have better [hearing] than what I had."
Kristen Pagliuca was born May 27, 1975, in Massachusetts. She attended Emerson College and Suffolk University where she earned a master’s degree in Health Administration. Currently she is employed as a bank manager. In this interview she discusses growing with loss of hearing in a hearing family, going to school in mainstream classrooms, and the process of cochlear implants. Kristen reflects upon the experience she went through deciding to have surgery for cochlear implants and the book she wrote describing the operation and after effects for others going through the decision-making process.