The sound of joy: Savannah woman able to hear fully for first time in a decade

BLUFFTON, SC (WTOC) - Tuesday was a day that has been a long time coming for Carolyn Walls.

“About ten years, I’ve been going to different doctors and they’ve been telling me that I need them, but it was about $4-thousand and I really couldn’t afford it,” says Walls.

What she needs is hearing aids.

See Carolyn is completely deaf in one ear and partially deaf in the other, which is what brought her to Hearing Life in Bluffton.

“We put together a treatment plan that she just couldn’t afford,” said Hearing Specialist Michael Baumann.

Another dead end, or so it seemed.

Because after meeting Carolyn just once Michael knew he had to do something.

“She has such a good heart and has been helping people for so long and there’s times when she is struggling,” Baumann says.

So, he nominated her for a chance to receive free hearing aids from the National Campaign for Better Hearing.

But even then, Carolyn didn’t get her hopes up.

“I prayed about it, first thing, I prayed about it. If it was for me God would give it to me, if it wasn’t for me, I’d keep going until God worked it out for me.”

But this time, it was for her.

On what she thought was a routine checkup Tuesday she received the thing she’d been waiting for for so long, hearing aids.

“Coming in clear?” asked Baumann?

“Really great!” Walls replied.

“I just wanted to bust out and cry. That I can hear your words plainly and not ask, ‘what was that?’ I just wanted to bust out and cry,” continued Walls.

For Michael, moments like this make it all worth it.

“I know if I do my job right, it’s not just the person in front of me, the person in front of me is going to reach more people.”

Which is exactly what Carolyn plans on doing.

“When I can hear things, I can help people better. This is a lesson to me that, somebody gave me a blessing, so I need to keep giving God blessings over and over and over.”

While she adjusts to her new hearing aids, there’s one thing she’s looking forward to hearing most…

“My pastor preaching, my praise team singing and praising God. To get in there and sit on the pew and hear everything he’s saying and every song so clearly…that’s the most exciting thing to me.”

For more information on the National Campaign for Better Hearing click here.

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