My Cochlear implant activation was on June 5 about 6 weeks ago. Since then a miraculous world has opened up for me. Last Wednesday I heard birds for the first time in twenty years. What a thrill to begin to hear their sweet music. There is a small meditation bell that gets rung at my meditation group when we do meditation walking outside. I heard it for the first time two weeks ago. Pleasure and recognition flowed through my body.
I was really lucky in that I could understand speech from the time my devise was activated. That is not true with every recipient. My surgeon and my audiologist are both very skillful. Everyone at Cochlear, where I got my devise, have been so supportive and helpful. The resources and the people they provide have been invaluable.
I have worked really hard doing hearing therapy every day. The gradually more difficult exercises are designed to teach me to hear with my devise better and better. I can now listen to podcasts. It is thrilling to me to be able to learn anything I want to as part of my hearing therapy. It is pleasing to be able to do two things at once while listening to a podcast. Before I had to have a video with captions and use lip reading. Certain sounds are still challenging to distinguish. S as in Sally and sh as in Shelley are still difficult. I think my progress is amazing and I am so grateful. I will continue to work hard practicing so that my remarkable brain can get as much support as I can give it in learning this new language.
The amount of energy I was devoting to trying to understand speech was exhausting for me. I am more relaxed with my clients because I am so much more confident that I will understand what they are saying. I think I am a better therapist now.
In the beginning everyone sounded like Minny Mouse. The sound was high pitched and mechanical. After a few weeks the pitch dropped and everyone sounded like Mickey Mouse. That was a big improvement. Recently some familiar people sound more like how I remembered them to sound. I am looking forward to that continuing to improve.
I went to a party for the first time yesterday and it was still very challenging to follow a conversation. I was glad that I could easily hear one person talking. My Cochlear implant doesn’t erase my hearing loss, however it has vastly improved my ability to move through my life and hear.
I have noticed that my identity is shifting. I have identified myself with my disability for most of my adult life. Every conversation I had I introduced my hearing challenges. I saw myself as a person with a disability. Now that doesn’t feel true. What feels true is I have challenged hearing and it doesn’t define who I am. I am forging a new identity based on the adventure that life has become.
A lot of creative energy has been freed up now that I’m not efforting to hear so much. I have been writing and drawing and singing more. I even sang a song that I wrote called “ We are all one” at an open Mic.
Music is my next frontier. It still sounds very much like someone clanging pots together. I want to begin listening to familiar music with printed lyrics to begin my music journey. I have heard that music is the biggest challenge to adjust to and is very doable with lots of practice. That is so encouraging.
I will close now. I appreciate being able to share my experience with all of you. Thank you for listening.
