My Cochlear Implant Sounds Like…

I am still not very far along in my sound recognition with the cochlear implant. I have been relying on it for a little over a week as my only source of hearing. Everyday, I notice a little improvement.

For now, the sounds are still like noise, but each noise is starting to have its owner. I am starting to recognize the source of each noise, which is very helpful.

This is what it sounds like right now

• My own voice is starting to appear to me, but it sounds like 4 or 5 voices talking together. To me, I am my own choir.
• The environment sounds like an orchestra before a performance, with each instrument being tuned and playing separately from the others, all of this happening at the same time, in a school cafeteria at lunch time.
• Voices sound like they are being accompanied by quartets of tubas and cellos.
• Every once in a while, I hear a loud sound that is just like the sound of shooting one of the wings off of a blue bird on level three of Phoenix for the Atari 2600.
• Everything is jumbled, inside out, upside down, multiplied, echoed, and then put through a badly tuned radio with a short on the volume knob, causing it to get louder and softer without warning.

My Tinnitus Sounds Like…

My recently deafened ear rings constantly, but it is not always the same sound. Here are some things that it sounds like.

• The computers in a 1970s science fiction movie.
• Jungle sounds, lots of monkeys and birds.
• A heavy steady rain.
• Ross playing the keyboard on Friends.
• A dial-up modem.
• A jet getting ready for takeoff.
• A coffee-maker brewing coffee.
• Elevator music rhythms played on wooden drums.
• Someone playing only the 8th octave of the piano, or the only the 1st.

Next post: what my cochlear implant sounds like.

Anxious for Meaningful Sound

I’ve been deaf again for 6 days. My cochlear implant has provided me with lots of noise to listen to and a few indicators as to what is going on around me, like footsteps and impact sounds.

My hearing test showed that I could barely register a couple of frequencies at 120db. That was it. My doctor told me to wear my hearing aid for a few hours each day to stimulate my ear a little more. I was wearing it when I got home yesterday, and my son got so excited when he saw me.

“You’re wearing your hearing aid!” I read his lips. “That means you can hear me again!”

“No, not yet.” I replied “Just a little tiny bit with my cochlear implant.”

He gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I love you, daddy.”

What a special boy I have.

What I Can Hear, Now

I have been wearing a cochlear implant on my left ear for a little over two months. Up to this point I’d been bi-modal. That is two modes of hearing, a CI on one side and a hearing aid on the other. My hearing aid provided my primary hearing and I had been learning to hear with the implant as an auxiliary.

I knew that one day the CI would become my primary hearing. I did not think it would be so fast. Maybe this is just temporary. What ever the case, this changes my rehab strategy.

During the first month (and mapping), I couldn’t hear anything with it, except rain on the roof and a barking dog. Neither sounded anything close to normal and both were as quiet as a whisper. Everything was set low, due to my sensitivity to the stimulation.

During the second month (and mapping),  I could hear lots of noise, but nothing “real.” The blanging clanging whistling sounds enveloped everything. I could, on occasion and using a direct connection between the processor and cell phone, recognize a song and follow it. Words still escaped me.

Now, I have lost my hearing in my aided ear. I am dependent on my CI for all sound input. It is still mostly unclear garble with some recognizable sounds coming out.

Here is what I can identify. I will add an asterisk* to things that sound almost “right.”

• Knocking on wood or glass*
• Clapping hands*
• Pretty much any impact sound
• My son’s toy train
• Running water
• The toilet flushing
• That someone is talking
• Bird’s chirping (Though I am having lots of jungle-sound tinnitus, so I never know if it is real or imagined. Pretty sure the monkeys aren’t.)
• I can identify some songs
• I can follow some speech for short periods of time when the corresponding text is in front of me.

I get about 30% of my wife’s words right when I get her say a word in a category three times. For example, if I give her the category fruit, she might say, “Banana, banana, banana” I understand the word about 3 times in every ten exercises.

From Hard of Hearing to Deaf

When I had my cochlear implant surgery last year, it wasn’t a pressing need, but it was needed. My hearing, was good enough that I didn’t need the implant for communication, yet. But the progressive and repeating nature of my hearing loss, meant that one day I would need to rely on a cochlear implant.

The hearing loss has up until now, come in ten year intervals. I expected to be in my early forties when it happened again. The cochlear implant, by then would be functioning well and my quality of life would not diminish at the onset of my deafness.

As it happens I’ve lost my hearing again, and I am only in my third month of learning to hear with a cochlear implant. The CI now provides the only sounds I hear, other than tinnitus. I had been working my hearing rehab so that the cochlear implant would assist my hearing. Now it is my hearing.

I will have several observations here soon. But here are a few things going through my mind.

1. My hearing in my non-implanted ear will likely come back. It has before.
2. That hearing won’t be as strong as it was before.
3. Because of my reliance on my CI for sound information, things will probably happen a little faster.
4. Even though I can not understand speech and most things sound like noisy whistles and clanging cymbals, it is better than no sound input.
5. I will have to quit giving English lessons, at least for a while.
6. I will not have to quit training people to do participatory Bible studies or Bible storying, nor will I need to quit any other ministries of being a missionary.
7. I now have a good excuse to not talk on the phone.
8. CI Program 4 is definitely the best one I have. Forget 1 through 3.
9. I am having melodic tinnitus. I am hearing short random melodies, like the sound a cell phone makes to warn that the battery is low. Another one sounds like coffee brewing. (Maybe it’s my cochlea draining?)
10. I am glad to have this blog as a place to talk about all this.
11. I expect this current hardship to be temporary.

May good will and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ be yours! – Steve

Learning to go Deaf

I subtitled this blog “Stephen’s experience learning to hear,” but I am learning so much more.

Today I went completely deaf again.

It’s my birthday today, my 36th.

Weird combination.

I will write up a good long post about it, but not now. I just wanted to post the news.

My Birthday

I turned 36 today. This year my birthday comes with new and significant challenges pushing my family and I into a deeper dependency upon God.