Heehee, I miss that show. Too bad they don't air that show anymore, at least not on free TV (I can't afford cable). I dunno if they even have it at Hulu.com.
But yeah, DareDevel, I agree, you're right...no HAs nor CIs will ever give you perfect hearing. Technology is awesome, and it does get more awesome and more awesome, but DeafDude has to realize that there are always going to be limits even with the best technology out there even 100 years later in the future from now and that's not limited to just HAs and CIs...I'm talking about all kinds of technology used to help people with all kinds of medical problems...none of those technology are perfect. The best HAs or even the best CIs ever will never ever come to the same kind of hearing as a person with perfect normal hearing. And even if they gave you 0 dB hearing, you will still miss some sounds at some frequencies because technology is not the same as natural hearing. You are still always going to miss some sounds. I am not a scientist nor a electronics geek so I don't know about everything that is inside a HA or a CI, but I do know that they do not have the SAME things as a NATURAL normal ear, with all the things inside a person's natural ear (eardrums, hair cells, cochlea, auditory nerve, etc...) They use different things (technology inside CI or HA) as "substitutes" to make it possible to hear, but they are not the same, they are not the perfect substitutes, but they do quite well, just not perfect in any way. They can give you the ability to hear many things, but most certainly not EVERYTHING. That's just not possible. It does make up for the many important sounds you miss when you have a hearing loss, but not ALL the important sounds. Just a lot...but not all of them. I have a CI, but I do NOT hear everything, I do NOT hear 100%. I know some of the other CIers can hear birds singing, but I can't hear birds singing at least not yet even with my average of 24dB threshold. Maybe it's the frequency. I don't know. Maybe I need a new map again. But that sound is not really that important to me anyway, it'd be great if I could hear it, but if I don't, that's fine. I don't worry so much about it. Plus take in the fact that I never had good hearing ever since I was a baby/little toddler when a bad case of chicken pox took away my hearing. But, I'm quite content anyway because most of the sounds I cannot hear with my CI, they are not really that important to me. I don't worry so much about them. I can hear a wide range of important sounds with my CI including voices already, and it's quite good for me, in my opinion. And sometimes, I will not hear a sound that I can actually usually hear with my CI, only because I am not paying attention, or because I am too distracted that I don't notice it and I automatically tune it out...like someone passing gas, or because I got a new MAP and it wasn't a good one...that does happen. I can hear people pass gas, but most of the time I am not paying attention to that kind of thing. If I stop and listen, I will hear it. But if I am doing things like talking, reading on the computer, watching TV, whatnot, I'll miss it, because I'm too distracted. Someone with natural normal hearing with no hearing loss will NOT miss a fart even if they are too distracted, unless they are in a very noisy environment, even a moderately HOH person can usually hear it, but because technology is not perfect, I miss it if I do not listen for it. I can hear many things easily like people going up and down the stairs outside (because of the metal parts on the stairs), the garbage truck, I can even hear a semi truck coming up behind me from two blocks away. Ceiling and floor fans, TV, the computer fan whirring, music, the regular landline phone ringing (gosh I hate that sound! I've since turned off the ringer!), lots of music, door knocks, people talking and people coughing (coughing is such a harsh sound and I hate that sound), paper rustling, the toilet flushing (that sound is overwhelming), plastic bags rustling (that's a unpleasant and annoying sound, just ugh), the clicks I hear when I turn a table lamp on or off (where I turn that little black knob to turn the lamp off, it makes clicking noises with every turn), women in 3-inch-high heels walking (interesting sound, one of the first sounds I heard right after my CI activation appointment), their heels hitting the floor, the smacks I hear when people sign (no wonder why some hearing people say we are being loud when we sign!), sometimes I can hear myself pee, sometimes not. If I listen for it I will hear my cat meow (real soft sound), I am not sure about the dogs though because the dog my neighbor has, he never barks (I wonder if he had been debarked before my neighbor got him?
), so I will have to try that out with another dog to find out (I do not have dogs of my own). I can hear other people on VP even the other people talking and doing things in the background when I have the VCO feature enabled - I enable it sometimes just for the hell of it, and the list of other sounds I can hear goes on and on. But of course there are a few things I know I will never hear, but it does not bother me. It's not really a huge deal to me. It's not that important. I got what I wanted, and I am happy with that. I'm not going to obsess with accomplishing perfect hearing audiograms. It's really not that important to me. My audiologist do not adjust our audiograms to make 25 dB reflect 0 dB like I've heard of other audiologists doing (or is it the other way around? Well, you know what I mean), and I like it that way because it makes so much more sense and is more accurate. I do not want to be misled into thinking I can actually hear 0 dB with my CI when it is really just silence for even a person with perfect normal hearing and that I could really hear at 25 dB not 0 dB.
I do not know why some audiologists adjust their audiograms to make the 25 dB reflect 0 dB (or the other way around), because I would consider those audiograms to be inaccurate. I would think 0 dB is silence, I think. I'd have to ask my CI audiologist and have her clarify some things about this. There are noises at 20 dB and less, and I can hear as low as 20 dB, depending on the frequency being used and the noise being made. I mean, silence is no sound, so how can anyone with perfect normal hearing hear silence? I mean, if you do not hear any sounds, it means you hear nothing, and that's silence for you. I would prefer for my audiogram to show me what decibels at what frequencies I actually can hear actual sounds at and actually can't hear actual sounds at, rather than be misled into thinking I can actually hear 0 dB which would be total silence for a person with perfect normal hearing, right? I'm not hearing. I'm Deaf and I have a CI. CI is not perfect, and I wouldn't want to be misled into thinking my CI is perfect and into thinking I can actually hear like a person with perfect normal hearing. I am 100% deaf without the CI turned on, and with the CI turned on I hear somewhat like a moderate HOH person according to the audiogram, but not exactly like one. I would not say mild, because there are still some sounds that even a mild HOH person can hear even without a HA person that I cannot hear even with the CI and even with the CI-aided audiogram I have. Besides, I am NOT HOH. I am Deaf. I hope I am making sense here.
I just wish DeafDude would realize that there is no way in hell he will ever hear 0 dB with a HA or even a CI because having a hearing loss suggests that some of the hair cells or other parts of the ear has been damaged or is missing or whatever therefore he is never going to hear perfectly even with the world's most powerful HAs. No HA nor CI can replace damaged hair cells or other missing or damaged parts of the ear. It's just not the same. He seems so obsessed with being able to hear like a person with perfect hearing. He needs to come to terms with the fact that he does have a hearing loss and that once your hearing has been damaged you can't get it back to the same way it was with a HA or a CI. DeafDude, you're d/Deaf. You need to accept that. Even if you are oral. I have no issues with you being oral. You can be oral if you want, that is fine. But what you need to do is to accept being d/Deaf. Your hearing loss. You're deaf. Get used to it. It's not really that bad. We're not saying you need to learn ASL or stuff. You don't have to. You can learn ASL if you want to. But, us ADers here, we've accepted being d/Deaf. We've come to terms with it. You can, too. It's not the worst thing in the world. And you claim that you hear quite well with your HAs already, so why the obsession with 0 dB? I don't think there are very many HEARING people that actually can hear at 0 dB. I would think that 0 dB is silence anyway for a person with perfect hearing. What kind of thing can make a very quiet sound at 0 dB anyway? I would think that as long as you can hear all the speech sounds and the actual important environmental sounds (babies and kids crying, ambulances, traffic, the noises your car makes when something is wrong with it, talking, hearing a domestic dispute going on in the next apartment, knocks om the door, phone ringing. etc, anything that you feel is important to you in knowing what is going on around yourself) you will be fine, and even without any of them you will be fine. You can adjust. There are many Deaf people with absolutely NO hearing at all that do just fine and they function just fine in life even without HAs nor CIs. Hearing ants walking on the floor is really not that important, is it? If so, you're certainly obsessed. And I am not saying that to be rude, that isn't my intention, but to make you aware that you're making this a much bigger thing than it really is. You're making your quest in getting the ability to have good hearing with HAs a huge mountain out of a molehill. And I am not saying that to offend you, DeafDude. It's just that this is what it seems like to me right now.
I used to wonder if philosophers who pondered that question ever thought about deafness.
