The Colors of Sound: Artist and UHealth Patient Contributes a New Painting to UHealth SoLé Mia
Miami artist and sudden-onset hearing loss patient Nicolle Cure installs new painting at UHealth SoLé Mia.
A longtime professional artist and marketing director, as well as a UHealth-University of Miami Health System patient, Nicolle Cure has used art and advocacy as a way to process her experiences with sudden sensorineural hearing loss (SSNHL).
Some of Cure’s work now will inspire and soothe patients who are on a similar journey.
Cure’s piece, a diptych painting titled “The Colors of Sound,” will be on permanent display at UHealth SoLé Mia, the new medical center in Aventura/North Miami.
“For me, this diptych is Nicolle before and after,” Cure said. “It’s like going full circle on this journey that began when I was a patient. I’m honored to exhibit a piece about my hearing loss in the same place where others embark on or continue their treatment.”
The Morning Everything Changed
One evening in August 2017, Cure came home from an evening out feeling “totally normal.” But the next morning when she woke up, she had completely lost hearing in one ear and was experiencing intense pressure on the right side of her head, along with facial numbness.
Emergency room physicians recommended that Cure see an ear specialist, as sudden hearing loss needs to be treated within 72 hours. When she called UHealth, she was assigned a team that included audiologists and a neurotologist (an ENT who specializes in ear disorders).
“Everyone there knew what I was going through, and I thought, ‘Okay, I’m in safe hands,’” she said.
After the initial onset of symptoms, Cure also developed tinnitus, pain hyperacusis (extreme sensitivity to everyday sounds that caused burning and stabbing pains in her ear) and terrible migraine episodes with intense cranial pressure that sent her frequently back to the emergency room. She was diagnosed with Ménière’s disease with bilateral endolymphatic hydrops and benign paroxysmal positional vertigo.
Cure’s team started her on a course of oral steroids and steroid injections of the inner ear. Later she started vestibular rehabilitation to help with the dizziness, along with tinnitus-retraining therapy and gradual sound desensitization. While Cure is still managing symptoms eight years later, the initial quick response likely helped save at least some of her hearing. She has regained about 30 percent of hearing in her ear.
Adrien Eshraghi, M.D., Cure’s main doctor and a professor of otolaryngology—head and neck surgery, neurosurgery, pediatrics and biomedical engineering at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, stresses the need for quick reaction to SSNHL.
“If somebody comes in with a recent, acute onset of tinnitus, we have to always think about the possibility of hearing loss,” said Dr. Eshraghi. “The patient needs to have a hearing test. And if hearing loss is associated with tinnitus, as it was in Nicolle’s case, it’s imperative that we start treatment as soon as possible.”
Art as Therapy
For the first year after she was diagnosed, Cure was largely confined to her house and on bed rest. Art became her line to sanity.
“I know it’s cliche to say, but art saved me,” she said. “It was hard. Some days it would be a blur that I couldn’t get out of, and I would just sit there all day feeling dizzy and confused. On the days I felt OK, I would go into my studio for just an hour. But even that gave me purpose.”
Before her hearing loss, Cure’s artistic style leaned toward surrealism. But afterward, her technique changed completely. Owing to frequent vertigo attacks, she could no longer physically stand in front of an easel. She adopted a more fluid, abstract style, working on the floor at her own pace.
“Working flat on canvas and paper with a water-rich staining technique became deeply calming. It gave me a sense of serenity I have carried with me ever since and always aim to share through my artwork,” she said.
Talking with her husband, a musician and sound engineer, about the results of her hearing tests sparked a fascination with sound waves and how her perception of them had become distorted.
“As he was talking, I’d imagine all these spikes and colors and frequencies, and that’s when I started the collection,” Cure said. “I call it ‘The Colors of Sound’ because the ink and water on canvas expands the same way sound does through the air. It just felt like a beautiful way to narrate something that wasn’t so beautiful at the moment.”
Art and Advocacy
For almost a year after the onset of SSNHL, Cure could barely leave the house except to go to therapy appointments.
Some may have enjoyed the break, but being confined at home made Cure restless. Painting didn’t feel like enough, so she created a new website to display her work and a blog where she detailed her experiences with hearing loss. She also began posting paintings from her new collection on social media, with hashtags related to SSNHL and Ménière’s.
She said, “I received messages from all over the world, and it became a domino effect of connection. Social media proved invaluable as a space to share my story, exchange experiences and learn from other patients. It made me feel understood and less alone during my worst days.”
The Hearing Health Foundation (HHF) in New York featured Cure’s story on its website and in its magazine as part of a campaign on Ménière’s disease. She has also contributed her time and artwork to the Vestibular Disorders Association (VeDA) in support of hearing-loss research initiatives.
“I collaborate with these organizations because, the more we share the message, the more familiar it becomes,” she explained. “People now widely recognize conditions like Alzheimer’s thanks to powerful public-awareness campaigns, but we’re not there yet with hearing loss. There is still so much to be done, and I hope to see the day in my lifetime when people can regain their hearing through revolutionary treatments.”
Tags: Department of Otolaryngology, Dr. Adrien Eshraghi, hearing, hearing loss, otolaryngology, tinnitus