Thursday, July 18, 2013

Second Cochlear Implant

I know a lot of you thought :start southern dialect: I done lost my mind :end southern dialect: when I made the decision to get a second cochlear implant.  For over a year since the first CI was activated, I had a completely miserable time.  I had at least two major depressions during the adjustment period, one of which was so severe that I wasn't sure I would make it out alive.  Did I really want to go through that again?  Really?  Really, really??  Who but a crazy person would want to do that?  Erm.  Ummmm.

Here is why I decided to do it anyway.

1.  My goals, especially better understanding of human speech without needing to read lips, are nowhere close to being met, and research shows that two CI's are always more beneficial than one.

2.  I'm better prepared for what I will be facing after the implant is activated.  Nothing, I mean nothing, prepared me for what it would be like after the first one.

3.  The second CI is in my right ear, which is my "good" ear.  Some of you may remember me having to decide which ear to implant.  It was a bigger decision than most people realize.  If a person has a less severe hearing loss in one ear, that ear will almost always do better with a cochlear implant.

Here's a hearing loss lesson for you, starring me (and the hearing banana)- 

The loss in my left ear is in the profound range.  That is one step up from completely deaf.  See the chart below and let me introduce you to the magnificence of the hearing banana!  :applause:



It shows what sounds you may be able to hear at what level of loss.  My left ear's loss is in the profound range.  It is close to the very bottom of the decibel chart.  In fact, the only thing I can "hear" in my left ear (besides certain beeps being fed to that ear via an audiologist's sound machine) is incredibly loud music, and even then only if I am right next to the source, like a huge speaker and my ear is practically pressed against it.  

In fact, the first time I ever heard anything in my left ear, outside of the audiologist's booth, was at a bar.  I was about 22 years old.  I was sitting right next to an amp for a live band.  It didn't even register as a real, recognizable sound, but as a high-pitched tingling sensation.  

I was so excited, though, because it was about 18 years after my hearing loss occurred and I had never registered any sound in that ear before in the real world.  I was hoping that my hearing was coming back!  Nope.  I guess I had just never been in that situation before.  

All those loud, drunken fraternity parties at JMU and no awareness of sound in my left ear.  Huh.

Anyway, this is why I have never worn a hearing aid in my left ear.  The loss is too profound for a hearing aid to be beneficial.  

Moving on to the other ear.

My right ear is in the severe-profound range.  Without a hearing aid, there are some noises in the severe range that register with me, but most don't, and some sounds in the profound range I can hear, but many I cannot.  You see above that pianos and telephone rings are noises that people with a severe hearing loss may hear.  I can't hear those.  

In fact, the only sounds that I can consistently hear without my hearing aid are big, deep sounds like thunder and trains, and even then it depends on my proximity to the sound.

That is how quiet my world is without auditory amplification.  Which, I won't lie, can be kinda nice sometimes.

I've always had to have the most powerful hearing aid on the market.  The last one I had was called the "Sumo."

Sumo image from The Sporting Life.

Nevertheless, a hearing aid was greatly beneficial to me.  It put me somewhere in the mild-moderate range.  I can hear most sounds illustrated in the glorious hearing banana in those ranges.  Recognizing these sounds without a visual cue, however, that's a whole 'nother cup of soup.  

I hear much, much, much more than I recognize.  That is what so many hearing people fail to grasp.  How, for a deaf person using amplification devices, hearing sounds is so much easier than recognizing sounds.

Soooo, there you have it.  My left ear is my "bad" ear, and my right ear is my "good" ear.  A cochlear implant performed on an ear that had some access to sound before the implant will give better results than one performed on an ear with less or no access to sound.  Ergo, a cochlear implant in my right ear should be more successful.

At this point you might be wanting to slap me upside the head and ask me, "Why didn't you choose the right ear in the first place, you moron?!?"  Welllll, with CI surgery, you risk losing your residual hearing!  I was too scared to risk losing what hearing I did have on the chance that the surgery was not successful.

This time the good ear is done.  Because my brain has been receiving sound from that auditory nerve for 40 years, especially with a hearing aid, it is more likely to adapt well to the auditory input from the cochlear implant.

Why get CI surgery at all?  If my hearing aid is the hearing aid equivalent of a sumo wrestler, cochlear implants are like, well, King Kong.  Or a T-rex.  I'll go with King Kong.  Don't you think that T-rexes look kind of silly with those little, dangling arms?