talkin' about my CI
Today was kind of CI centered, without really being about my hearing at all.
First thing this morning I had my checkup, so I skipped breakfast and hopped over to the doctor's office - for definitions of "hopped over" that include "took a reasonably cumbersome detour because it's road work season in Minnesota.
After the usual preliminaries (height, weight, blood pressure, temp, etc etc) I waited for the doctor to arrive. When he did, we covered the checkup bit pretty quickly (I'm basically quite healthy) and then he started asking questions. Turns out I'm his first patient with a CI and he was very interested in the process and we talked for a while about the experience that I've been having. It makes sense that most people wouldn't have had any contact with the process - I think the current estimate is about 400,000 people worldwide have been implanted, and about half of those in the United States, so as a percentage of the population we're pretty miniscule. But it still felt a little surprising to me because he is, after all a medical professional. But CIs are a bit out of the mainstream, and honestly, I'd never even heard of otoneurology as a specialty till I met an otoneurologist - and I didn't actually spend that much time with her while I was conscious.
Then I went to work, and to a workshop that we'd scheduled for today to plan some projects that we need to address in the coming months. There were several people there from our corporate HQ, including one guy who was incredibly helpful to us four years ago when we were integrated (we went from being run as a subsidiary to being part of the parent company), but I'd never met him in person. Turns out he wears two hearing aids, and he asked me about the CI and we compared my remote to his phone app, which he can use to control his hearing aid volume.
It was kind of cool. People are interested and mostly really supportive. I seem to end up talking about the technology fairly often; the extent to which people want to understand can only help me adjust at work.
Without involving my audiologist or my surgeon or my ENT or even, really, my CI, a day like this does feel like a step in my CI journey. And I appreciate the support that I get from people, even the ones like KJ that I barely know.
People can be really nice.
First thing this morning I had my checkup, so I skipped breakfast and hopped over to the doctor's office - for definitions of "hopped over" that include "took a reasonably cumbersome detour because it's road work season in Minnesota.
After the usual preliminaries (height, weight, blood pressure, temp, etc etc) I waited for the doctor to arrive. When he did, we covered the checkup bit pretty quickly (I'm basically quite healthy) and then he started asking questions. Turns out I'm his first patient with a CI and he was very interested in the process and we talked for a while about the experience that I've been having. It makes sense that most people wouldn't have had any contact with the process - I think the current estimate is about 400,000 people worldwide have been implanted, and about half of those in the United States, so as a percentage of the population we're pretty miniscule. But it still felt a little surprising to me because he is, after all a medical professional. But CIs are a bit out of the mainstream, and honestly, I'd never even heard of otoneurology as a specialty till I met an otoneurologist - and I didn't actually spend that much time with her while I was conscious.
Then I went to work, and to a workshop that we'd scheduled for today to plan some projects that we need to address in the coming months. There were several people there from our corporate HQ, including one guy who was incredibly helpful to us four years ago when we were integrated (we went from being run as a subsidiary to being part of the parent company), but I'd never met him in person. Turns out he wears two hearing aids, and he asked me about the CI and we compared my remote to his phone app, which he can use to control his hearing aid volume.
It was kind of cool. People are interested and mostly really supportive. I seem to end up talking about the technology fairly often; the extent to which people want to understand can only help me adjust at work.
Without involving my audiologist or my surgeon or my ENT or even, really, my CI, a day like this does feel like a step in my CI journey. And I appreciate the support that I get from people, even the ones like KJ that I barely know.
People can be really nice.
Comments
Post a Comment