Activation Day

My sisters and I met with the CI Audiologist at 9:00 AM this morning.  I was fitted with the sound processor, and hooked up to the computer.  I first felt pulsing and then I heard the pulsing. It reminded me of something out of Star Trek and I said, "Beam me up, Scotty"!  My older sister turned to my younger sister and said our sister hears for the first time using a cochlear implant, and the most profound thing she says is "Beam me up, Scotty"!  I was just sitting there rather amazed at the technology.  It is NOT instantaneous hearing as in a hearing aid where one is fitted with a hearing aid and "ta-da"! You can "hear."

"Hearing" with a cochlear implant is very different. I am literally learning to hear all over again.  The CI Audiologist explained to me that I would hear a series of "beeps." She wanted to tell me what was tolerable.  We did that.  Then she said I am going to talk.  Well, when she mapped the sound processor for "speech," and started talking, her voice sounded like she was talking underwater.

The cochlear implant and sound processor are functioning as they should.  Everything is noisy but sounds like echoing to me.  I can hear car tires going "ta-click" over the roads, but the sound of cars going by almost sounds like a tunnel-like roaring. The sounds are not painful or overwhelming. It is just extremely different from what I am used to "hearing." My sisters and I went out to a Brazilian Steakhouse for dinner to celebrate Activation Day. I could understand the waiter, who helped with the menu choices.  The restaurant was noisy. 

The sounds are wild and crazy sounds to me, alright.  It is definitely taking time to get used to.  My younger sister brought some DVDs that her children had made movies for school projects, and I recognized the sound of music but not the lyrics or the song.

My younger sister had a very good description of the process: She said you know how a computer does pinging (which I cannot hear) to find a wireless network. I said yeah. She said, that is sort of what your brain is doing with a cochlear implant. I thought that was a very accurate description of what I am processing. I can have conversations with my sisters even though their speech sounds like echoing.  It is probably part lipreading and part hearing what passes for speech.

Activation Day is definitely a sensory experience.  It is a really strange sensory experience, but the process of hearing with a cochlear implant is going to take time. Tomorrow we meet with the CI Audiologist again for more "tweaking."