Someone posed a question about how many studies had been done on the effectiveness of cochlear implants. I thought back to a time when I was diagnosed as being deaf - hard of hearing, actually, by today's standards, and thought about being deaf TODAY.
Back then the options were few. One either wore hearing aids or didn't. My first hearing aid was a body hearing aid - worn with a harness, a battery, a cord with a button and an ear mold made of glass. The cord attached to the hearing aid, and the ear mold was fitted to the ear.
Picture today's cochlear implant sound processor - the cabling and the headpiece. The headpiece with the magnet is about the size of the button attached to the body hearing aid cord of long ago.
You either were taught to speak, lipread, fitted with a hearing aid, accompanied with auditory training. The other option was to learn sign language. You went to a state school for the Deaf or a private school for the Deaf, that is, if you had the money to pay for it.
I first wore a body aid with a harness, later clipped the body aid inside the center of my bra. Later, behind the ear hearing aids were finally powerful enough to allow me to wear them. My deafness also progressed to the point that I was profoundly deaf and hearing aids were no longer effective, especially when it came to speech discrimination.
One year and four months after my first CI surgery and activation, I am hearing sounds which were not even possible for me with hearing aids.
Hearing is no longer the exhausting experience it once was. I can sit in a meeting and hear every participant speak as if that person were sitting right next to me.
My world is noisy. It is about to become noisier. I am scheduled for surgery on Leap Year Day. I will be listening to the sounds of Spring with two cochlear implants, in both ears.
There are sounds which I don't like to hear. One in particular is listening to someone chewing and snapping gum as that person chews. I can hear the gum snapping as the person bites down on the piece of gum on the OTHER side of the wall. Another is listening to someone type on a computer keyboard in the same room while I am trying to concentrate on my own work.
When I was a hearing aid user, there was no way I could hear someone chewing gum on the other side of the wall, let alone hear the keys on a computer keyboard clicking as someone types. That's how effective cochlear implants are to me, studies or no studies!
I know over time, my brain will learn to tune out the annoying sounds. I just never thought as a cochlear implant user that I would welcome SILENCE.
What irony!
The difference between hearing aids and cochlear implants is just HUGE. "Life Changing" is SUCH an understatement.
I am still amazed at how deaf I am when I remove the cochlear implant sound processor at night before I go to bed.
Someone who is a cochlear implant user like myself, recently posted about what a great time it was to be deaf. I completely understood what she meant. There are so many options now for deaf people.
In spite of my now noisy world, gum chewing and all, Hearing is such a gift.
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