I can hear birds. Really well actually. I can hear their wings. I can hear tiny sounds outside that I didn’t know I was missing. I hear insects better (including cicadas but not sure this is a positive effect). I can hear water running through drains. I can hear a lot of the little sounds tucked into the background of everyday life that apparently everyone else has just been walking around hearing this whole time. And while I love hearing those sounds, I didn’t get a cochlear implant because I wanted to hear birds better. I wanted voices. I wanted music. And right now, those are still the things I’m waiting for.
Everything is still muffled. Voices have improved since activation, but they still don’t sound natural. Music is still…well, sort of music. My cochlear implant gives me an enormous amount of information that my hearing aid couldn’t give me anymore, but when I wear my CI and my hearing aid together, I’ve realized they’re doing two very different things. My left ear gives me the sound. My right ear gives me the pitch, timbre and naturalness that makes that sound make sense. Take away the right hearing aid and the information is still there on the left, but something important is missing from it. And that’s been an interesting realization.
There are moments when I wonder if I went through surgery, recovery, activation, mapping appointments and months of teaching my brain what all this new electrical information means…just so I could become exceptionally well-informed about the neighborhood bird population. That’s not entirely fair but it’s honest. And I think honesty matters when talking about cochlear implants. I don’t want people to think that getting a CI is all butterflies and roses. It has amazing benefits, but there are other things that are much harder to overcome. And, yes, this entire process is long and involved. The beginning was a massive jump. There were sounds almost immediately that I hadn’t heard in years or maybe ever. My brain suddenly received an avalanche of information it didn’t know what to do with. Every few days something changed. Something appeared. Something sounded different. Then the giant leaps became smaller ones. That’s apparently where I am now: the slow part.
I know that two months after activation is incredibly early in the life of a cochlear implant. I know my brain is still learning. I know mapping will continue to change. I know that the first enormous shift happens quickly and many of the refinements come slowly. Still, knowing that doesn’t magically make me patient, unfortunately.
At my mapping appointments, the direct stimulation through the implant can get LOUD. Believe me, there is no question that my auditory nerve and brain are capable of receiving a strong signal. But then I walk outside. I get on the train. I talk to someone. I play music. And suddenly that loudness feels painfully inadequate. I’ve started thinking much more about the difference between what happens during mapping and what happens in the actual world. During portions of mapping, stimulation is being delivered directly through the implant. In real life, sound has to enter through a microphone, be processed, translated into electrical information and then delivered within the range we’ve established. Those aren’t the same thing.
And I don’t want my audiologist to simply turn everything up until my brain waves a tiny white flag. I don’t want overstimulation. What I want to understand is whether we’re making the best use of the comfortable electrical range I already have. I don’t necessarily need a higher ceiling. I want to know whether we’re using the room underneath it. That’s something I want to explore more at my October mapping. October has also become important for another reason. There had been discussion about implanting my right ear as early as December. I’ve decided I probably won’t. Dr. David is willing to do the second surgery, but even he doesn’t want to set a date until after my October mapping. He wants to see how the mapping goes and, more importantly, how I’m doing. And I’m glad about that because right now, I’m not ready to give up what my right ear contributes. If my left cochlear implant eventually gives me the voices, pitch, timbre and music I’m hoping for, the decision may become much easier. But if it doesn’t? My right hearing aid is currently the thing that makes much of what I’m hearing through the left CI sound natural. And for me, that’s worth protecting. At the moment, I’m thinking next summer. That gives my left ear nearly a year to show me what it can do. It gives my brain time to learn. It gives us time to map and remap and tweak and test and probably make me listen to an unreasonable number of beeps. And then I’ll decide. Not based on what cochlear implants usually do. Not based on an average percentage improvement. Based on what mine does.
Until then, I’ll wear it every day. I’ll listen to voices even when they’re muffled. I’ll play music even when it doesn’t sound right. I’ll pay attention when something changes. And yes, I’ll listen to the birds. Maybe voices and music will catch up.
So for now, I will just keep on keeping on.
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