It's a go! I have a surgery date!

I’m have profound nerve deafness no hearing in right maybe 25 % or less in the left. Hearing aids wont help me
 
Mssecgo said:
I’m have profound nerve deafness no hearing in right maybe 25 % or less in the left. Hearing aids wont help me. Yeah I’m really curious how your surgery progresses as you come into the hearing world. A new language?? Ill be following your progress , really anxious to see how you like it.
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@stephaniep , learning to hear again - actually to understand what you're hearing - is because you're now going to hear sounds created by electronic pulses (from the implant), rather than sounds directly from their sources. Plus when your hearing was diminishing your brain was no longer hearing many frequencies (look up the speech banana), so your brain needs to get used to hearing those frequencies again.

Our ears don't hear/understand sounds, it's our brains. Our ears just receive and send the sounds to our brain.

I was one of the lucky ones who had a "rock star" activation in that I was able to understand speech (not at 100%, but enough) from the time the audi activated my processor. I still haven't reached 100% in the booth tests, but both ears are way better than they were with HAs by the time I qualified for CIs.

I remember the first week after being activated I was standing at the kitchen sink running water and heard a buzzing sound. I told my brain that the noise it was hearing was the water running and instantly the buzz sound changed to the sound of water running. My brain needed to be reminded what water running from a faucet sounded like. The same is true with speech.

The first thing your audi does (at least I think all audis do this) is run a test to make sure all electrodes are working - you will hear beeps for each of them. Then s/he will "play" beeps at different frequencies and you will let him/her know how comfortable those beeps are (0-10) with 6 being Comfortable. Then she will "activate" you and start talking and you'll actually hear and understand her voice, though it will probably sound like either Mickey Mouse or Darth Vadar, or you will just hear his/her voice as beeps and buzzes. Don't be discouraged if you can't understand speech. It will come with rehab.

This is not a one and done process. The first year you should have a lot of appts to tweak things, then if things are going well, those appts will spread out to where you may only have to go once a year - if you don't feel you need adjustments or changes to your programs.
 
LoveBlue, thanks for explaining, I'm starting to grasp it, I'm so excited, it will be interesting to see what will happen? My first 2 activation appts start at end of April. Will I still hear what I heard with my hearing Aid in the other ear once my CI is activated? It's not much, but better than not hearing at all. At first, I don't want anyone to mess with balancing until I know what is going to happen with the cochlear?.
 
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Mssecgo, that's how I was, my hearing loss was progressive, but near the end, the rest of my hearing went quickly, too quickly, some of it within months? I could hear some sound with Hearing Aids, but could not make out a conversation. My Audiologist gave me the near strongest mold HA's which did not work for me? When I took them out, my world was and is totally silent except for the tinnitus noise. I was and am still profoundly deaf until I get activated. I have to communicate by text? I could not make out my last 3 hearing booth and speech tests? They went south as they say! That is when my Audiologist referred me to a Hearing and Speech Clinic. I passed with flying colors for a cochlear implant. A year prior my Audiologist had referred me to an ENT who told me not to come back until I had lost all my hearing and she said "then we will talk about Cochlear Implants". I found out later that it is now better to consider cochlear implants when you still do have a little bit of hearing left, not when you have lost it all. because your chances of CI success are increased? Too, it's better if you can be a part of it and hear at least some of the process of getting a CI? Getting CI's are a very personal choice, find out absolutely everything you can on the subject. If you go in that direction, I wish you all the best for a very successful implant so you can hear better again.
 
stephaniep said:
LoveBlue, thanks for explaining, I'm starting to grasp it, I'm so excited, it will be interesting to see what will happen? My first 2 activation appts start at end of April. Will I still hear what I heard with my hearing Aid in the other ear once my CI is activated? It's not much, but better than not hearing at all. At first, I don't want anyone to mess with balancing until I know what is going to happen with the cochlear?.
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Your CI will not affect the sounds your other ear hears. What it will do is become the dominate ear. Meaning you'll probably notice you're hearing more on the CI side than you are on the HA side because your CI hearing will be much better (and louder) than the HA side.
 
LoL, I hope so, since I cannot hear hardly anything but sounds through my R side, but sounds are better than nothing. I am hoping the CI's wil allow me to understand speech so I can communicate and understand what is being said.
 
I wasn't told, but I think I have stitches as well as the staples I had removed last week? There's these hard little black threads sticking up that I can feel? I have to go back to the surgeon in a week to have the packing removed, but I told the nurse I don't see any packing and she said that sometimes it is planted in deeper where you can't see it? Also, I was led to believe it would be a little incision but starting at the bottom of my ear and going up into the scalp, it's over 5 inches long. The bump which I assume is the implanted magnet is elongated from the top of my ear into the scalp by about 3 inches. Does this sound about normal to those who had this surgery?
 
I do not have a CI but I've see photos of other people CI surgery sites. Some have a large incision like you described. It could be just individual differences like any other surgery or once he open up he had to choose a different spot for the placement of the magnet.
 
Thanks zephren. I am not alone. I still have some scabbing going on, but some areas are not falling off , but poke up feeling very dry and hard and I can still feel a burn at times.. I assume that it is still healing in these areas.
 
It went surprisingly good. It was a day surgery, came home the same day, was quite alert, had some bleeding at surgical site but that was a short and temporary. thing. Had a longer incision than expected but that was normal for this surgeon, I have been activated last week and I'm wearing the CI now and doing quite well. It takes time, but I am pleased so far.
 
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