I am a member of a couple of yahoo groups for cochlear implantees. There is one gal in one of these groups who is going to be activated today. She asked what it would be like so I thought I would give her my fresh in my mind first hand experience. So here it is…
Kare,
When you go through the electrode exercise, the aud. will be starting very low and be asking you how it is. Don’t even try to think if its too loud or too soft. Just think comfort. What is comfortable to you based on you hearing the aud. from like 5 feet away or even yourself because those will be the loudest (distance does matter). When you get out to the real world, you’ll eventually find they will be getting softer and you’ll eventually max out. The idea is to get yourself acclimated without getting blasted by a 150 db jet engine! When you go back on Friday, you’ll have a better sense of where you want to go.
And I don’t think you will be any more tired than you normally are. You know, since you will be driving at night, it may make sense NOT to wear the CIs because your brain will be doing alot of processing and perhaps, a little more than you might need in order to concentrate on driving. I think you’ll rather concentrate on the road and not the sounds. Ask you aud.
Hope this helps!
Sam
Anyway was another good day. You know, it sucks that I can’t tell you about a bad day because I really haven’t had one yet. And no, I am not being paid by Advanced Bionics to give such glowing reviews and I a still waiting for them to link my website to theirs. The good for today…had a meeting where the main speaker was talking like a nervous wreck….fast and in broken sentences. I got at least 75% of what he was saying even though I went solo, with the CI only instead of CI and HA. And more importantly, I am on program #3 and it seems to be more forgiven than #2. It was comfortable and the tinnitus was not as bad as it has been. It seems to be getting better and better. Maybe it is finally going away!!
Anyway, time to head out the door. Gotta go buy a winter coat for Dan…and they are 50% off! And yes mom, I’ll buy it a little big so he’ll have it next year!
Sam,
I took your advice and asked the audiologist about whether to wear the CIs as I drove home after the activation appointment. He said to keep them on, so I did. I turned on the CD player, but couldn’t hear the CD at all. I was able to distinguish that a turn signal makes a clicking sound, but other than that, it was just random noise to me. Even though an hour and a half drive is usually easily done without stopping, I pulled off the road halfway home and took a short walk in order to refresh myself.
Do you know how when your baby is placed in your arms for the first time, it’s love at first sight, with an instant bonding? I had a crazy hope that it would be like that with my implants. I have no love at first wearing. Everything is going well though. I hear sounds, the processors are comfortable, and I just need to work on my relationship with my CIs.
I really appreciate your website. Reading your posts gives me reason to believe that bonding with my CIs will happen in short time.
Karen…the bonding will take a while. I had the same reaction re: the turn signal. It was the first foreign sound I heard that has been around for a long time. I remember hearing it in the days of when my hearing was better so I was able to recognize it as if a long lost friend re-appeared.