Getting Closer to Understanding My Own Voice

I still don’t understand speech. If I am watching subtitles, I can kind of follow along. When I am lip-reading, the sound helps a little, sometimes. If someone is talking but I can’t see their face, there is no chance I will understand.

Last night, however, in the dark, while I was telling my son a bed time story, I could hear my voice and it sounded kind of funny. It was a voice though.

I am surprised, actually, at how these past couple of weeks have been sounding. When I was eleven years old and had gone suddenly deaf, I heard sounds similar to these when my hearing started coming back.

First, my voice was the sound of multiple voices that didn’t really come across very well. That was happening to me last week.

Then, there was a funny sounding voice that reminded me of a man inhaling helium. When I was eleven, I laughed at the sound of my own voice, probably to the point of being annoying to my family. That was the voice I heard my story in last night.

I wonder why it is this way?

The cochlear implant is still much different sounding than that natural hearing, much more garbled and noisy, but there is something about trying to hear speech that brings back memories.

I look forward to hearing again soon.

• Cochlear implant active for 95 days, now.
• Deaf again for 18 days, now.