back to the deaf thing again
So yesterday I was talking (this being me, not actually talking, but online chat) with a friend, about whether I'd lost what hearing was left in my right ear with the surgery, and what that means.
The fact is I can't tell if I lost the residual hearing in my right ear. There was so little of it anyway that I haven't been able to hear anything on the right without a hearing aid for several years. And six or eight weeks ago my right hearing aid died. I didn't replace it, because why spend $3000 on something that will go away once I'm implanted?
But I won't know until Wednesday whether the pathetically small bit of hearing that remained has gone with the surgery. There's at least a 50% chance that it's gone. I think testing for that is part of the protocol in my two-hour appointment for mapping and activation, but I will ask when I arrive anyway.
Because my right ear has been bringing so little to the party I haven't really paid it any attention. Lose the residual hearing? How can I worry about something that I can't even detect? But my left ear, that's different.
Even my left ear, which is my "good" one, has slid into the "profoundly deaf" range according to my last test. With my hearing aid I can just about function one on one, but with background noise or crowded situations, or even in a meeting when two people are speaking at once....no chance that I'll hear.
And yet that's the one thing about this process that I am uncomfortable with. Operate on my head, take a power tool to my cranium and implant a little device that's going to remain in my head for the rest of my life? Cool beans. Have at it. Use of the processor - that wasn't even on my radar to think about, it's not that dissimilar physically to a hearing aid, except for the magnet that will be stuck on my head. But anyone who knows me knows that I don't care about being different. And I'm not into fancy hairstyles (to put it mildly). As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I'll probably get some of those stickers to play around with the magnet cover. Put my cat Katy on there for a day or two, maybe rotate some vacation pictures. I could go around with Stonehenge on my head!
But there's a reluctance to lose what little hearing I have in that left ear. On a practical basis I can only identify two real impacts on my life if I do:
First, I would have to wear the processors all the time. Now, I usually take out my hearing aids in the car when I leave work and only put them in again if R and I go out to dinner or something like that where there will be other people. He's used to talking to me, knows how loud he needs to be (actually, he's going to have to learn to dial that back!)
And second, it would also mean that at night when I'm not wearing them there's no chance at all that I would hear anything. Much of this is okay too, like the neighbor's barking dog when we leave the window open, or R snoring. But it also includes alarm clocks, or fire alarms. But the fact is that I don't hear my alarm clock now. I usually wake up before it goes off and turn it off before it wakes R because he's generally not getting up when I do. But once in a while if I'm particularly tired and sleep through to the buzzer, he has to wake me up to turn if off. My clock does have a higher volume setting but after it went off once, and after I peeled R off the ceiling he agreed that he'd rather wake up to a more moderate sound and then wake me up rather than the louder buzzer which nearly brought on a cardiac event. So the only real danger is things like fire alarms. OK if they're tests (I had to go around with a sign on my back saying "I'm Dead" after a fire alarm test at work twenty years ago....just didn't hear it) but not so okay if it's a real fire.
But fires are not a common occurrence, so I'm not really sure what I'd be missing, on a practical basis. And about the only way I'd decide NOT to go bilateral is if activation on Wednesday is a complete failure. But neither my surgeon nor my audiologist have ever seen that happen, so I doubt it will happen with me either. So once I get a couple of months of rehab behind me, I'm going to schedule another surgery. I've heard from so many people that being bilateral can bring hearing function that approaches what hearing people have.
It's just so hard to let go of what you've got in order to take that jump. It's been on my mind all along. It's more or less voluntarily making the change from hard of hearing to deaf, but only when I don't have processors on. With them? If I do my rehab right and nothing else goes wrong, this could be astounding.
But I still can't stop thinking about it.
The fact is I can't tell if I lost the residual hearing in my right ear. There was so little of it anyway that I haven't been able to hear anything on the right without a hearing aid for several years. And six or eight weeks ago my right hearing aid died. I didn't replace it, because why spend $3000 on something that will go away once I'm implanted?
But I won't know until Wednesday whether the pathetically small bit of hearing that remained has gone with the surgery. There's at least a 50% chance that it's gone. I think testing for that is part of the protocol in my two-hour appointment for mapping and activation, but I will ask when I arrive anyway.
Because my right ear has been bringing so little to the party I haven't really paid it any attention. Lose the residual hearing? How can I worry about something that I can't even detect? But my left ear, that's different.
Even my left ear, which is my "good" one, has slid into the "profoundly deaf" range according to my last test. With my hearing aid I can just about function one on one, but with background noise or crowded situations, or even in a meeting when two people are speaking at once....no chance that I'll hear.
And yet that's the one thing about this process that I am uncomfortable with. Operate on my head, take a power tool to my cranium and implant a little device that's going to remain in my head for the rest of my life? Cool beans. Have at it. Use of the processor - that wasn't even on my radar to think about, it's not that dissimilar physically to a hearing aid, except for the magnet that will be stuck on my head. But anyone who knows me knows that I don't care about being different. And I'm not into fancy hairstyles (to put it mildly). As I mentioned a couple of posts back, I'll probably get some of those stickers to play around with the magnet cover. Put my cat Katy on there for a day or two, maybe rotate some vacation pictures. I could go around with Stonehenge on my head!
But there's a reluctance to lose what little hearing I have in that left ear. On a practical basis I can only identify two real impacts on my life if I do:
First, I would have to wear the processors all the time. Now, I usually take out my hearing aids in the car when I leave work and only put them in again if R and I go out to dinner or something like that where there will be other people. He's used to talking to me, knows how loud he needs to be (actually, he's going to have to learn to dial that back!)
And second, it would also mean that at night when I'm not wearing them there's no chance at all that I would hear anything. Much of this is okay too, like the neighbor's barking dog when we leave the window open, or R snoring. But it also includes alarm clocks, or fire alarms. But the fact is that I don't hear my alarm clock now. I usually wake up before it goes off and turn it off before it wakes R because he's generally not getting up when I do. But once in a while if I'm particularly tired and sleep through to the buzzer, he has to wake me up to turn if off. My clock does have a higher volume setting but after it went off once, and after I peeled R off the ceiling he agreed that he'd rather wake up to a more moderate sound and then wake me up rather than the louder buzzer which nearly brought on a cardiac event. So the only real danger is things like fire alarms. OK if they're tests (I had to go around with a sign on my back saying "I'm Dead" after a fire alarm test at work twenty years ago....just didn't hear it) but not so okay if it's a real fire.
But fires are not a common occurrence, so I'm not really sure what I'd be missing, on a practical basis. And about the only way I'd decide NOT to go bilateral is if activation on Wednesday is a complete failure. But neither my surgeon nor my audiologist have ever seen that happen, so I doubt it will happen with me either. So once I get a couple of months of rehab behind me, I'm going to schedule another surgery. I've heard from so many people that being bilateral can bring hearing function that approaches what hearing people have.
It's just so hard to let go of what you've got in order to take that jump. It's been on my mind all along. It's more or less voluntarily making the change from hard of hearing to deaf, but only when I don't have processors on. With them? If I do my rehab right and nothing else goes wrong, this could be astounding.
But I still can't stop thinking about it.
Maybe look into what completely deaf people (without aids or implants) do? They have a backup system at work, I know - someone to make sure they know what's going on in case of a fire alarm.
ReplyDeleteAt work I wouldn't worry, we have headcount coordinators (actually, I'm one) who make sure everyone is safe. I truly can't think of an instance where it would be an issue other than a hotel fire and they're not so common that it will drive my actions.
ReplyDelete