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By NICHOLAS DETTMANNndettmann@conleynet.com262-306-5043

TOWN OF ADDISON — JonHaldemann’s telephone rang andrang and rang.

Frightened and nervous —almost reluctant — he picked it up.

It was a struggle for more than 25 years.

“Either when I was talking onthe phone, I couldn’t get the phonein the right spot to hear peoplebecause the microphone was abovethe ear I had to have the phone in aweird position,” he said. “I couldn’tjust stick it onto my ear.

“A lot of times if I got in theright spot, it would cause a squeal.... I absolutely dreaded talking onthe phone.”

Innovative technology now hashim comfortable on the phone and in life, called the Baha 5SuperPower Sound Processor.

It is the first super-power boneconduction solution with smart,direct-to-device wireless technolo-gy for patients.

Cochlear Ltd. of Centennial,Colorado, the company thatdesigned the technology,announced in March the innova-tion had received clearance fromthe U.S. Food and DrugAdministration.

“It means that the people whoneed it most can now benefit from adevice that not only provides theamplification they need, but theability to connect wirelessly to theirfavorite electronic devices, includ-ing smartphones and TVs,” saidTony Manna, North America presi-dent of Cochlear Ltd.

Technology on his phone helpsHaldemann control the volumebased on his surroundings. InMarch, about 50 people in theUnited States and Europe had beenfitted for it, including Haldemann.He was alerted to the project yearsearlier.

“I hear more now than I didbefore,” Haldemann said.

About two years ago, Haldemannbecame the first person inWisconsin to get the Baha AttractSystem, a bone conduction hearingsystem designed to leave the skinintact. It uses a magnetic connec-tion to attract the sound processorto the implant in the head, sendingsound to the inner ear without any-thing breaking the skin.

His hearing improved, but aproblem lingered.

“My hearing loss was so great, Ihad it cranked up so much that itwas squealing,” Haldemann said.“It didn’t matter to me I couldn’thear it, but everybody else aroundme could hear the feedback.”

It was like putting a microphonein front of a speaker. Thus, it was a struggle to find a balance — a balance to where he could hear andit not being annoying to those

around him.On June 23, Cochlear’s Baha 5

SuperPower Sound Processor wasreleased. Haldemann got his sixweeks before then.

“I’ve always been the guy thatsaid, ‘Hey, if you want to try some-thing, try it on me,’” Haldemannsaid.

He added, as a bird chirped froma nearby tree, he always knew hewas hearing something. He just did-n’t know what it was.

❑ ❑ ❑Haldemann struggled with hear-

ing since he was a preteen. The tip-ping point came when he was inhigh school.

Sitting in class — college prepalgebra — as a freshman at SlingerHigh School, he began to think peo-ple were playing tricks on him.

“I couldn’t hear anybody,”Haldemann recalled. “It was likeeverybody was whispering.”

Doing what he thought was theright thing, his teacher asked him aquestion.

“I couldn’t hear anything so Iwas like, ‘Sure,’” Haldemann said.

The whole class cracked up.“That I heard,” he said, adding

the teacher got mad. “She asked meanother question and I said, ‘Uhhuh.’

“I had no idea what she was say-ing. I couldn’t read her lips becauseI had no practice in reading lips.”

Haldemann was taken into thehallway. He knew he was in trouble

because he could see the teacher’slips moving and the facial expressions.

Problem was he had no idea why.“After about 30 seconds of chew-

ing me out, she looks at me andstops, she gets real close and shegoes, ‘Can you hear anything I’msaying?’” Haldemann said. “I said,‘No.’”

That was the first timeHaldemann realized there was aproblem. The same went for othersaround him.

“It was like it finally went overthe tipping point,” Haldemann said.

He went to the office and that’swhen Haldemann’s life went a dif-ferent direction.

❑ ❑ ❑In one of his first doctor visits,

Haldemann’s doctor thought it wasfluid buildup in the ears.

Haldemann’s mother was a med-ical transcriptionist and knew of adoctor she thought could helpthrough a series of several exams.He suggested a stapedectomy.

At 15 years old, Haldemann hadthe stapedectomy, a surgical proce-dure of the middle ear performed inorder to improve hearing.

“I had hearing aids until I wasabout 28 or 29 (years old) when lasersurgery came around,” Haldemannsaid. “I was set up for laser surgery,went in, they opened my ear up andsaid, ‘Wow. That’s really bad.’ Andthey closed it back up.”

Haldemann added, “I have the

worst case of otosclerosis any ofthe doctors have ever seen.”

According to the NationalInstitute of Deafness and OtherCommunication Disorders, otoscle-rosis is caused by abnormal boneremodeling in the middle ear.Abnormal remodeling — or inHaldemann’s case, a calciumbuildup — disrupts the ability forsound to travel from the middle ear to the inner ear. Otosclerosisaffects more than three millionAmericans.

Over the years, he’s had severalprocedures on both ears and hear-ing aids to try to help him. Theresults were temporary. Six to eightweeks after the stapedectomy, hishearing faded.

“I still needed hearing aids,”Haldemann said, adding the changewas like “flipping a switch.”

Because of high costs and lack ofinsurance support, Haldemannspent much of his teenager yearswith one hearing aid and getting byas best he could with the muffledhearing in the ear that didn’t havethe aid.

In the 1980s, hearing aids were$800 to $1,000 each. According to arecent survey published by theHearing Review, the average priceof a mid-level pair of aids isbetween $4,000 and $4,500.

In college, he learned aboutDivision Vocational Rehab thathelped finance hearing aids everythree years while in the program.

But once out of college, it wasback to cash out-of-pocket.

Since then, he’s done hours ofresearch to find the best possibleaid to fit his budget.

“I was a master at making myhearing aids last,” Haldemann said.

On average, hearing aids lastthree to five years. Haldemannstretched them five to seven years.

❑ ❑ ❑What’s the hearing like now?Well, it depends on which way

one looks at it. Haldemann has asense of humor about it.

“There’s now things that I hearthat are annoying because I’m notused to hearing them,” he said.

Among those things are conver-sations or cars come down thestreet before they pass the house.

“We have loud typers at work, which never used to botherme,” said Haldemann, a systemsadministrator for Batteries Plus Bulbs.

“It’s a lot of little things I neverknew I was hearing,” he added.

However, he wouldn’t want it theother way. Frankly, he’s tired of thealternative.

“Now I feel like I’m not stressedout because I can’t hear,”Haldemann said.

His wife of 20 years, Wendy, alsohas a sense of humor about herhusband’s hearing.

“You also have selective hear-ing,” she joked, looking at him.“He still has that.”

The difference for Addison man is audible

John Ehlke/Daily News

Jonathan Haldmann saddles his 3-year-old Pony of the Americas horse on his farm Wednesday afternoon in the town of Addison.Haldmann wears two hearing aids. He said without them he would be “profoundly deaf.”