Hi Paul,
yes my hearing is way gone in my bad ear......... I lost almost all of it after my very first drop attack..I lost all of my low tones  immediatley after that first attack, everyone sounded like chipmunks.as in "alvin and the chipmunks"... I was advised by my dr. to have the laby. because most if not all of the hearing was already gone.. I was told if I had viable hearing then I should consider vns... So basically  my choices were gutting of the ear or clipping the balance nerve.... I was also told the vns was a much riskier surgery because of the invasiveness of it and where the cutting would be going on, so close to the brain I believe is what I was told. also I ran the risk of them hitting the facial nerve that could cause paralysis in my face... (permanent) and if that isn't scary enough it would have involved 72 hours in ICU............Looking back now neither one of the choices were good, cause I still deal with all the symptoms of Meniere's......But a 98% success rate to get my life back seemed like good odds to me...... I fell into the 2%............ That's the long and the short of it........ Too bad I came out on the short end of it, OH WELL, I'm still here!!