When Courtney Duke found out her newborn daughter Ireland was hard of hearing, she didn't know what to think. 

"Right after labour they did a newborn hearing test and she didn't pass in one ear but we didn't think much of it because they tell you it could just be water in the ear," Duke said. "We didn't find out until a couple months later until they did several more tests."

"That shock and devastation happened when they did tell me, it was sort of like a nightmare, actually." 

Thanks to Manitoba's Surgical Hearing Implant Program at Health Sciences Centre and Children's Hospital of Manitoba, doctors told Duke and her husband, Will Gault, that Ireland was eligible for a cochlear implant. She would be the youngest person in Manitoba to receive one at 10-months-old. 

A cochlear implant is a small electronic device that provides a sense of sound by directly stimulating the auditory nerve, according to HSC. 

At 13-months-old now, Ireland is doing well with her hearing and doctors say she is improving every day.

"Now I call her name and she turns her head and she babbles with me," Duke said. "We dance together and we get to play and interact with sound and it won't be long before she's talking." 

"This is incredible technology and I'm so ecstatic we get to be part of it." 

HSC says studies show with early identification and subsequent treatment, children like Ireland can have limited to no difficulty hearing and speaking similarly to their peers by the time they begin school. 

Dr. Jordan Hochman is the Director of the Surgical Hearing Program at HSC and says the procedure is long for patients. 

"I'm getting my life back."

"There's a number of tests that need to be done on the front end," Dr. Hochman said. "We need to establish whether the patient's hearing can be rehabilitated, look at their anatomy and then they have to go through the surgical undertaking." 

"Then the real work begins when the patient receives their rehabilitation with the audiologist." 

Dr. Hochman says the surgery is the same for an infant like Ireland as it would be for an adult like Winston Smith, a Navy veteran who lost his hearing later in life. 

"It's only been there for a month but I'm hearing things that I haven't heard in years and trying to recognize what sounds are is my biggest challenge right now," Smith said at HSC today. "I'm getting my life back. I'm enjoying it again. I'm not hiding from people and no longer not taking part in activities because I couldn't hear what was going on." 

People gathered at HSC today to mark National Speech and Hearing Month and to celebrate Ireland and Winston's stories. 

Since the cochlear implant program began in Manitoba in 2011, a total of 242 people of all ages have received cochlear implants.