If you look at the title closely, you’ll see BIG standing out. It means Buffalo Implant Group and last night was my first meeting. The highlight of the evening was meeting Tina Childress who is bilateral meaning she has implants in both ears. Tina was the presenter of the evening on the topic of bilateral implantation. Tina is a deaf audiologist with Advanced Bionics and yes…there is such a thing as a deaf audiologist! And she did a wonderful job bragging about her two beautiful children! And she did Welcome to Sam Spritzer’s Web Site proud…I introduced myself to her and her response….”The Internet Celebrity!!” The next time you are in town, I’ll treat you to the world famous Anchor Bar

It was a very interesting and thorough presentation. I was able to hear and understand despite sitting in the middle of the room, about 30 feet from the presenter who was also ‘signing’ at the same time, and in the midst of doing that, her hands frequently waved in front of her mouth. Now that is not as bad as it sounds, so don’t think otherwise but the true test was I was able to follow the presentation without having to strain to hear and read lips. Usually, in situations like that I miss out a lot but not this time.

The discussion itself gave me a lot of ideas to consider in deciding to get my left ear implanted. Barring anything unforeseen, I think I would like to do it in December of this year. Compelling reasons are:

– Stereo sound-right now everything sounds mono because only one ear is functioning.
– What would you rather have, a regular TV or a wide-screen HDTV?
– It will be easier for the brain to figure out where sound is coming from.
– If one ear is good enough, two has to be better!
– Localization-with two implants, it’s easier to determine the source of sounds especially warning signals like a siren.

After the presentation, the discussion was open to all those who attended and it was interesting to see the mix of folks – from those with bilateral implants to those with an implant and hearing aid to those with an implant alone to implantees-to-be to parents of children with implants to a whole back of the room gang of future audiologists (students) and of course, one of my audiologists, Joanne, was there. It was interesting to hear some of the stories and with some, you couldn’t tell they had an implant. Each and every person had a unique experience of their own. And, I think the most frequently discussed “non-implant” topic was Medicare. Guess I need not worry about that for another “more than 10 years!”

In the meanwhile, I feel I have settled into a comfort zone. I am now able to handle conversations 10 feet or more away without difficulty. Husky male voices, which were a problem before the last mapping session, are now more understandable. Sentence recognition without lip-reading is still difficult but that will take time…and in some cases, even 6 months would be considered pretty fast. The tinnitus is not as bad as it was primarily because the CI does a good job masking it.

So that is the story of the BIGgers. The next meeting is May 15th so I will be looking forward to that one!