Linda Kerner didn't set out to be ground-breaking.

The St. Joseph woman simply wanted her hearing back - something a traditional cochlear implant could accomplish, if only she were a good candidate for one. But the fact that she wasn't a good candidate opened the door for Ms. Kerner to become the first person in the United States to receive a version of the device that might benefit not only her but also many others with hearing loss.

"It's sort of a serendipity" that receiving a traditional cochlear implant wasn't an option for her, says Dr. Charles Luetje, a neurotologist with Midwest Ear Institute in Kansas City, Mo., and the principal investigator of an FDA study of the William House hybrid cochlear implant, which Ms. Kerner received on April 23. "If it works like we think it will, it has the potential to open up possibilities for a lot of people."

Ms. Kerner began wearing a hearing aid in 1990, when she was 39 years old, and her hearing has gradually decreased since then to the point that she can no longer hear high-frequency sounds. But because her low-frequency, or residual, hearing remains and traditional cochlear implants can damage that, receiving a traditional implant wasn't a wise option for her.

The hybrid cochlear implant, however, contains a single electrode rather than multiple electrodes and is placed only 6 millimeters into the ear rather than 10 to 20 millimeters in, creating much less risk of damaging the inner ear structures responsible for residual hearing. And in addition to being less risky, the hybrid implant also is less expensive.

Ms. Kerner will return to Midwest Ear Institute on May 14 to be fitted with a hearing aid that will work with her implant, which is in her right ear. If everything works as intended, the hearing aid will drive sound waves and the implant's electrode will stimulate the nerves leading into the inner ear, where Ms. Kerner still has low-frequency hearing. Through this stimulation, the implant will work with her residual hearing to restore the high-frequency hearing she's lost.

And if for some reason it doesn't work, Ms. Kerner will still maintain the hearing she had before - which is an assurance cochlear implant recipients before her haven't had.

"There's a lot of fear going into it, because in the past, you've always been giving something up in hopes of getting something more," says Denise Kerns of St. Joseph, a friend of Ms. Kerner who herself has cochlear implants in each ear. Although Ms. Kerns has complete hearing with her implants, none of it is natural, because the 5 to 10 percent residual hearing she had before her procedures was damaged by them.

Ms. Kerns will be with Ms. Kerner when she returns to Midwest Ear Institute this month to receive her new hearing aid and find out if the procedure was a success, and she won't be the only guest in attendance. Dr. House, the creator of Ms. Kerner's implant and one of Dr. Luetje's mentors, will come from Oregon to see his implant put to use for the first time, and if it works, the success will validate something he's believed for decades.

"Dr. House always felt we could use a single, short electrode, so as to not damage residual hearing," Dr. Luetje says, also noting that in 1984, Dr. House's implant was the first device of its kind to obtain FDA approval but that all surgeons switched to multi-electrode implants in the mid-'80s, at first using them only in totally deaf patients and later using a modified version in patients with some residual hearing.

If the hybrid cochlear implant is successful for Ms. Kerner, there are probably several million people like her, many of them with noise-induced partial hearing loss from being around loud equipment or other damaging sound, who could also have their hearing restored with the implant. And for Ms. Kerner, who dedicates much of her time to volunteering and looks forward to the enhanced interaction with others her implant might provide, this possibility is one of the best parts of her ground-breaking procedure.

"I can't believe I'm the first one," she says. "If it could help other people, that would be great. I just feel really, really blessed, because I've asked the Lord to heal my hearing, and maybe this is how he's doing it."

Lifestyles reporter Erin Wisdom can be reached at ewisdom@npgco.com.