But now, after having a cochlear implant fitted, her life has been transformed.

For the first time she can hear her husband and her children – something she never thought would be possible.

After undergoing the life-changing surgery, husband James Lutes captured the emotional moment her implant was switched on.

James uploaded a video, which has been viewed more than five million times, and explained how when he first met Cora she could hear but her hearing deteriorated until she was completely deaf.

He said: “My wife lost her hearing when she was two and a half years old, doctors told her family she would never be able to talk”.

“She was able to hear for a while with hearing aids”.

“When I met her she was still able to hear, but after I joined the Navy she slowly got worse and lost her hearing completely and doctors said surgery was the only option.”

In the video, Cora can be seen talking to a doctor about how voices sound “squeaky” and are hard to interpret.

The doctor explains that as she has been deaf for so long, it will take her brain a while to begin to distinguish voices and sounds again.Then, in a heartwarming moment, James speaks to his wife for the first time.

He asks: “How’s my voice sound”?

“What do you think?”

Beaming, Cora laughs and says it sounds “loud”!

“It’s amazing,” she says, before bursting into tears, overcome with joy at her ability to hear.

After sharing her experience online, Cora took to Facebook to share her story and to thank well-wishers.

She wrote that she was thankful to her husband to “cover everything for me, to have the best for what I needed to hear my son’s voice”.

Now, Cora wants to help others who are thinking of having a cochlear implant and plans to work with deaf children who are having problems in school.

A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted electronic device that provides a sense of sound to a person with profound hearing loss.

It works by stimulating the hearing nerves, which sends messages to the brain allowing it to decipher sound.

There are over 250,000 users worldwide.

Source: ANDREA DOWNEY
Image credit: James Lutes