It's not letting me add the captions to the video so I watched it and wrote down what I said, so here is the captions
sorry everyone.
Hi everyone
Um, I'm making this video right now to talk about ci. Because basically no one really knows about them or what they're like. And and people I guess just assume that they're like hearing aids. In a way they are but they give sound a lot more detail. Yeah it's just way different.
Um. I had hearing aids in both of my ears from kindergarten to about grade 6. I was told I was eligible for cochlear implant which I'm actually grateful for because I guess if you were born deaf you have a much lower chance of being eligible.
Um. For the surgery. But I wasn't born deaf. To this day I don't know what exactly happened. But me and my mom think it might have just been an illness that I had, and it killed my ear nerves or whatever. Um *chuckles* so yes I got a surgery in april of 2004 I think at Ottawa Children's hospital of Eastern Ontario.
It lasted about 5-6 hours and then I had to stay overnight in the hospital for two nights with my mom. And then I was off school for about two weeks and I couldn't even move or walk really, and I mean my brother carried me around and my dad.. stuff. It was horrible. Horrible. Because I was so sick and so dizzy. Um. But yeah what they did was they had to shave off some of the hair under the ear. Like, I used to have this plastic baggie of my hair 'cuz they gave it for me to keep which is kinda weird but I probably do have it sitting around somewhere. But um, they had to shave so they could cut my head open. And they put a circular metal part. I'm trying to find pictures to show you guys cuz I don't know the names of them really.
But the circular part they put inside my head and it connects to the metal.. metal part whatever, I'll show you a picture. Um. And it connects to this that I wear everyday.
And the scar was pretty long and disgusting. It was about this long. And um, it um, my hairline developed over it, so um, for all you people who like looking at scars, there's nothing to see here. So um. Yeah, after the surgery I was a mess. I had this big afro on my head. Um that material, I forgot what it's called, I think it stayed or something. They wrapped that all around my head. And um. Yeah and I was for a week. So it looked ridiculous.But it taped on my head all the way around my neck and it was so painful ripping it off. Oh I have pictures. But basically it was like, I'll show you guys right now. They put it like this. The CI. The metal part is under on my hair I'll show you. *shows CI* This connects to the metal part inside my head. Feels so weird. Yeah I'll show you a picture right here.
[Photo on computer screen]
It's kinda weird to.. I don't know how to describe what it does on the inside. I really have no idea how it works. Like I never paid attention to anything they told me *laugh* but take a look. [Picture] and it's kinda big but thankfully I'm a girl and my hair grows over it and they can't see it. Unless I wear my hair up, I never wear my hair up unless I have a band over it so that people can't see it. It's so big and attracts so much attention from people and I don't like that, so, you'll hardly see me with my hair up with no band on. So um. Sorry *heh*
So yeah um. On another note, yeah, um, there was this video on youtube I saw that there was this little boy, I'm not sure how it works but he was like this little baby, a toddler, and um it showed him getting a CI turned on after the surgery. And it was such a cute video and I loved watching it because, like, it reminded me of when I got mine turned on and it was honestly the best experience that I've ever had. Like, I've had hearing aids basically my whole life up until that part where I got the surgery. So I've always been able to hear. But, never like this. So like, I had to - when I went to get turned on I was going up to the hospital every week and then it became every two weeks for testing and stuff to make sure it was actually um benefiting me.
And - but - I remember the day I got turned it on. Um. I went to the cafeteria for lunch. Um my break from testing and I could hear SOO many things like the microwave beeping and um and like just weird things when you're cooking the little sounds you make like chopping onions and stuff and peeling oranges. Like all those weird little sounds like little things that you don't realize or big things like, like, I've never been able to hear stuff like that. And the birds chirping outside, and heels clicking down the hallway which is actually one of the most annoying sounds ever now. But back then it was the greatest because I've never been able to hear that right. So um, yeah. I don't think people realize how much of a change it is after you get the surgery done, but it was actually one of the best blessings that I have.
Um. Yea I just wanted to make this video to talk about this because I was going to have (__??)
Whenever I say after this, however it comes out of my mouth, like honestly only a small portion of my friends, or people who know, know that I have a hearing problem. Because I don't bother telling people, unless they notice or ask about it because I'm scared of being judged. And some people would say that's crazy but from experiences, um, I know there is some people out there that have no heart at all. And they make fun of people like me. And um when I was younger I did get teased a lot, all the time. But now I'm older so I learned to deal with it more. But it still really really hurts deep down inside because honestly everyone's fighting some kind of battle or will some point in their life and the last thing they need is someone teasing them to make it worse. So um, yeah. I just got like, make sure people have an understanding what CIs do and how they affect people like me.
Um. So to the parents of the little boy in the video that I'm about right now, thank you for putting that up because it's one of the cutest things I've ever seen and I'm sure it put smiles on a lot of people's faces including mine. So um anyway thank you for everyone that watched this, I appreciate it seeing that you did wasted about 10 minutes of your life on me. *giggles* so um, I'll sign off right now. Thanks again. Bye everyone.
