The big day has finally arrived! November 18th was the day when I connected the speech processor to my Cochlear Implant and turned it on for the first time. My parents came for a visit and were able to accompany Josephine, our young daughter, and I to the clinic. With everything else that's been going on, I didn't have much time to build up an excitement level or anything in advance, although I was a bit restless and didn't sleep that well the night before. The 2.5 hour trip from home to the clinic was a drizzly, rainy one, but otherwise uneventful. We arrived at the clinic right on time.
I didn't have my usual Audiologist for this activation appointment, because Dr C, the surgeon, wanted an activation day when she was in the office too, so I had Dr. Sally for the activation. My parents and daughter waited in the waiting room and Josephine came to join me in Dr. Sally's office. The speech processor was already plugged in to the computer and waiting to be "installed" on my head. The magnet gave a satisfying "thunk," just as I had imagined it would, as it joined up with the magnet in my skull. I could tell right away that the magnet was too strong - it felt pretty tight, so Dr. S eventually changed it for a weaker one.
I didn't have my usual Audiologist for this activation appointment, because Dr C, the surgeon, wanted an activation day when she was in the office too, so I had Dr. Sally for the activation. My parents and daughter waited in the waiting room and Josephine came to join me in Dr. Sally's office. The speech processor was already plugged in to the computer and waiting to be "installed" on my head. The magnet gave a satisfying "thunk," just as I had imagined it would, as it joined up with the magnet in my skull. I could tell right away that the magnet was too strong - it felt pretty tight, so Dr. S eventually changed it for a weaker one.
Once the computer recognized my implant and did some brief testing, it was time to start the programming. Dr. S gave me a picture that had a sliding scale from "I heard it" through "soft," "medium," "comfortably loud," and "loud." As the computer played beeps of different frequencies through the implant, I pointed to where I perceived the loudness to be. Everything sounded "just fine" to me during this part of the session. Beeps sounded like, well "beeps." I heard the different frequencies. My excitement level started to build - this was starting to look like it would be a great activation. After we were done with all of the beeps, Dr. S said she was going to turn on the speech processor. A side note here - Dr. S really knows how to talk so that it's easy for one to lipread - I understood everything she was telling me.
It's been switched on! Oh my goodness me - this was the craziest bunch of noise I had ever heard in my life. Beeps, squeals, and other nonsensical sounds. What is all this noise? My brain struggled to make any sense of things. I could see that Dr. S and Josephine were talking, but this sounded nothing like speech at all. Everything (speech, noise, etc) sounded exactly the same. High pitched beeping, squeals... My mind flashed back to those old movies where someone was trying to tune in a shortwave radio and there were those high-pitched squealing noises as they spun through the dial. I didn't know what to make of it. Dr. S turned off the implant for a few moments to let me rest. I think she made a small change or two - she certainly turned down the volume - without that, I could see getting a headache in about 2 minutes. It was overwhelming.
Once my brain had calmed down a bit, we did some experimentation. As Dr. S talked to me and I watched her lips, I was able to start to make some sense out of the speech sounds. Mind you, it sounded NOTHING like what I remembered speech to sound like - I told Dr. S that she sounded like a mouse on helium (not that I've ever heard a mouse on helium before). I could tell that there would be a lot of work ahead - no problem there, I expected that going in, but I didn't realize how crazy everything would sound. Everyone's activation experience is different - no matter how much reading and talking to other CI recipients I had done, nothing could really have prepared me for this. As I look back, the best advice that I got was from Greg White, the Cochlear Engagement Manager, who told me to just sit back and take it all in. Dr. S explained to Josephine and I how my brain was going into overdrive and the "fight or flight" mechanism was pumping full speed... I could certainly feel my heart pounding.
After my parents and daughter came in for a few minutes to see how it was going, Dr. S started going through the contents of the "suitcase" full of stuff. Manuals, documentation, batteries, cables, storage boxes, remote controls - so many goodies to go through later. Other than to notice that one accessory seemed to be missing (Dr. G, my AuD had used the "plus one" option to allow me to pick that accessory later on), I put the suitcase out of my mind. There was too much sound - that's being gracious, it was NOISE - going through my head. I had to take off the speech processor once or twice to rest. I noticed that I could "hear" Dr. Sally using the scroll wheel on her mouse as she did various things on the computer - that was encouraging; I would never have heard that before.
Dr. Sally showed me how to use the remote control and gave me some words of advice - wear the processor as much as comfortable. I could tell right then and there that I wouldn't be wearing it all the time - at least not right away. It was just too much noise. As long as I was lipreading and there wasn't a lot of background noise going on, I could still start to make sense of the sounds, but there was no way to understand speech without lipreading. There were times that I just HAD to take the darn thing off - a rainstorm on the way home; hammer pounding as we did some work back at home. Sensory overload! One thing I did notice is that I could hear the beeps and squeals that corresponded with really quite or faraway sounds - that was something that was very encouraging - once I have re-trained my brain, I know I'm going to be hearing much much better than I ever was with a hearing aid.
Now, here I am writing this post on day 2. I can clearly hear the beep-like noises as my fingers press the keys on the keyboard. When the furnace comes on, I can hear some noise corresponding to that. I spent about 20 minutes watching "Blues Clues" on the television with the captioning turned on - that was very helpful - simple words, not a lot of background noise; it really helped me focus in on the speech. I could tell the difference between Joe, the host, and the child who talks in the background about the clues. That 20 minutes was very encouraging. I will need to find quiet time every day (hard with all of the activity going on) to do things like this as part of my "rehab."
For now, I know I have work ahead of me. I'm thankful to be activated, as annoying as all of this noise is, because it means I now have things to do aside from waiting - I am now fully on the road to joining the hearing world again...