Someone who had been late-deafened recently commented that he never thought he would be hearing as well as he has been with a cochlear implant when first implanted a couple of years ago.
When I was first implanted in October, 2010, I knew intellectually that a cochlear implant was going to be "life changing."
I think the biggest shock for me, as someone who has lived with deafness for a very long time, was how limiting hearing aids really are. Seriously.
I hear far better with bilateral cochlear implants than I ever did with hearing aids.
By November, 2011, I wanted more. I qualified for bilateral CI's in April, 2010, after testing within the physical limits of the audiometer, but my health insurance would only pay for one cochlear implant per calendar year. My CI audiologist thought I was ready for a second cochlear implant, and my response was an enthusiastic "YES"!
After nearly a year of bilateral hearing, OMG, how time flies!! I have better directionality of sound. I am getting better at discerning where sounds are located.
I definitely hear high frequencies. I can hear hydraulic hammering three townhouses away as workers replace a roof and roof shingles from INSIDE my home office. I can hear cars and traffic approaching blocks away before I even SEE the car, truck, emergency vehicle.
I am getting better at understanding speech without the aid of captioning. I still use it on the phone and television to "cue" me in.
I also have observed that there are a lot of "hearing" people who are actually hard of hearing and do not realize it. We live in a very noisy world, and there are people who are slowly losing their hearing due to noise exposure - whether it is environmental noise, or long-term wearing of MP-3 Players, iPhones, iPod Classic, or iPod Touch. We have a generation of people who are slowly going deaf over time.
My world has expanded beyond my wildest imagination. I have made so many new friends, and continue to expand my social network of friends. As some friends have moved away and or in the process of moving on, others make my acquaintance. I have friends of all ages. I have two jobs: one that is my so-called "day job," and my second job, which is volunteering as a mentor to people who are just starting their hearing journey with a cochlear implant or two.
I hope to improve my speech discrimination to the point where I can have a quality conversation on my iPhone without captioning.
I would like to learn to read music, and to play a musical instrument such as the piano and the guitar.
I would like to learn to sing and to carry a tune.
The fact that I can even HEAR on a cell phone, let alone hear birds, is still stunning to me.
How does one adequately explain hearing with hearing aids vs. hearing with cochlear implants is like watching a black and white television vs. a color tv?
My world is no longer quiet, except for when I take off my cochlear implant processors to recharge the batteries and to sleep.
I chose to hear with cochlear implants once I learned hearing aids were no longer helping me understand speech.
I am pretty happy as a bilateral cochlear implant recipient, and I continue to reap the benefits of the cochlear implant technology.
William F. House, M.D., who invented cochlear implants, died December 7, 2012, at the age of 89 in California.
I am thankful to Dr. House for his invention. Hearing with cochlear implants has indeed been life-changing for me, and for countless others.
EVERYTHING has a sound. How amazing is that?
