Danny Sanborn suffers from a disease that causes brain tumors. To remove the tumors, doctors had to sacrifice his auditory nerve.
"Before I had the tumors, I had hearing, but as soon as they took the tumors out, I didn't have any," he said.
A cochlear implant wasn't an option, so surgeons used an auditory brain stem implant to restore certain sounds.
"We are bypassing the auditory nerve to directly stimulate the next level of sound processing in the brain," said Dr. Daniel Lee of Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary.
Twenty-one electrodes are placed on the bundle of nerves that sit on the brain stem, the lower part of the brain.
"The electrodes provide electrical current. It stimulates those nerves that are responsible for continuing a signal of sound to the rest of the brain," said Dr. Lee.
A tiny microphone is positioned by the ear. It picks up sounds and digitally transmits them to a decoding chip placed under the skin. The chip stimulates the electrodes, allowing the patient to hear sounds.
It doesn't restore complete hearing, but Danny's now able to hear the phone, an alarm clock and his best friend.
While the device can restore some hearing, it can't restore a patient's balance that is damaged by the tumors.
Up to one in 25,000 Americans suffer from the condition that causes hearing loss like Danny's.
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