Cochlear Implant Activation: Part 2

(Sorry no pictures this time. Otherwise I’ll never get this posted)

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was very happy with how far I had come in my first week after activation. By the time of my second appointment, the R2D2 sounds and random chirping had started to disappear, I felt like I was hearing about as well with the CI as I did with hearing aids (meaning I could hear voices but usually needed to speech read to understand what was said), and I was comfortable just wearing the CI without my hearing aid. Most environmental sounds were coming through louder and clearer than with hearing aids. The main thing that was different was that most voices sounded deeper and as if the speaker was hoarse. For example my daughters (ages 2 and 5) sounded like adolescent boys.

The audiologist was impressed with how much progress I had made and she was able to skip ahead one appointment. Apparently people at my level of hearing loss who have worn hearing aids most of their lives often have a much harder time getting used to the CI and the high tones. She gave me a new program that had more high pitches in it. With the new program, her voice sounded clearer and not so hoarse/deep, but she also sounded very sibilant (like her “s” sounds were very loud and sharp). She tinkered with the program and gave me something called “Clear Voice Low” which had more high pitches than before, but still not as much as the regular CI program. We did a tone test and I did much better than I did with hearing aids and was actually very close to normal hearing according to the audiogram.

After the appointment, I found it much easier to hear voices. I was able to get through a meeting at work with two people I hadn’t met before and only miss a few things. When I got home I was able to understand my wife and the kids much better. I’ve had a lot of trouble understanding my two year old since I had the surgery and had to rely on one hearing aid and it’s been frustrating for her (two year olds in general are not known for their patience). She often repeats herself with an exasperated “I SAID . . .” With the new program I understood much more of what she said.  The kids still sound a little like they’re gargling, especially if they are yelling or if I’m not focusing on them. But overall I feel like I’m understanding them much better and they sound less like adolescents with laryngitis.

My wife even tried saying some random words without me looking at her, and I was able to understand most of them. This is something I would never have been able to do with my hearing aids. In the car I asked my older daughter to say something in the backseat and was able to understand her.  I listened to a little NPR. It was still hard for me to understand, but sometimes I could pick up the thread and follow the story for a bit (especially when it was one of regular NPR voices speaking versus someone they were interviewing).

When we went to visit my wife’s cousins, I felt like I was following them much better than usual. I still have to focus on the speaker and speech read. And I still lose track of the conversation a lot.  But it was much easier for me to pick up the thread than it’s been in the past. One cousin in particular tends to talk fast and I felt like I was able to keep up with her better than usual which was great because she usually has something interesting to say.

Today I had a Skype call with my mother. My set-up for this is more complicated than a usual Skype call. First we call each other through Skype on the computer to get the video going. Then I mute the Skype/computer microphone and call my mother again through Hamilton caption service. The caption service places a call to our regular phones and then shows captions of what my mother says on my computer screen next to the Skype window. If all goes well my mother and I can see each other through Skype, hear each other on the phone, and the caption service helps me figure out what my mother is saying. This set up works better than anything else we’ve tried and gives her a chance to see her granddaughters. Unfortunately the captions often lag behind or get garbled. Sometimes they just stop for no apparent reason and I have to place the call again. So it can be frustrating when my mother says something that I don’t understand and I’m waiting a while for a caption that may or may not help.

Last week, the call went about as it usually did with hearing aids. Some stretches went ok, other stretches we got stuck as I tried to understand what my mother had said and the captions took a little break. Today there was a significant improvement where I only had to glance at the captions a few times during the call to figure out what she had said. I’m still not ready to try the call without captions, but it was a lot less frustrating than it usually was.

I’m also now a big fan of the Advanced Bionics T-Mic. One of their selling points to differentiate themselves from the other cochlear implant processors is that the processor for the microphone kind of hangs down so it’s actually right near the ear canal opening instead of being up behind your ear.  The main reason for this is so you can hold the phone to your ear normally instead of trying to find the microphone up on top of your ear. One of my challenges speaking on the phone with hearing aids is that I often had to hold phones in odd ways and often the phone ended up too far away from my mouth so the other person couldn’t hear me either. For this reason I often end up using the speakerphone function which is more convenient but often lower sound quality.

I was skeptical of the T-Mic but I found it did actually work quite well with both a regular phone and my iPhone and it felt very comfortable holding the phone against my ear. An additional bonus in this super cold snowy winter is the when I wear a hat that fits over my ears, the T-Mic actually hangs down below the hat so I can still hear pretty well.

It amazes me that in one and a half weeks I’m already hearing better than I have with hearing aids for almost 30 years. I feel incredibly lucky because I know the adjustment period is much harder for many people, and many don’t feel like they get any real improvement for months if ever. I imagine the rest of the process will be much more gradual but I’m looking forward to seeing what happens with the next program and I’m very glad now that I decided to get a cochlear implant.