In all the excitement of planning and getting ready to receive a Cochlear Implant, I find my self unconsciously thinking in terms of the best result possible. It's easy to do - by the very nature of things, the people who are very active in online CI forums, active in publishing blogs, and active in sharing their stories are people who have had excellent results with their CIs. That makes sense - those kinds of people are motivated and happy to share their stories. You don't find many people sharing their "oh, it's OK, but not great" stories. Occasionally, I see some people who share their "it was not good at all" stories, but they are few and far between - let's be honest, I saw one such story, and that person was undergoing a revision surgery to replace an implant that didn't work for him.
Two things happened in the past few days that made me pause and tell myself that I need to keep my expectations reasonable. First, when I was talking to my Audiologist, Dr. G., about which accessories to order with the CI, I mentioned that I wanted the accessory that used bluetooth to connect to a mobile phone and stream that to the implant. Her reply was that she recommended we not pick that accessory until we knew how well I would do on the phone. Reality check - not all CI implantees will be able to use the phone. No huge worry there - I already cannot "use the phone" - although with the captioned phone, I do just fine. If I'm one of those people who cannot hear and understand over the phone with a CI - nothing to worry about, as I can carry on doing what I do now.
The other thing was that I came across this article on my Twitter feed. It was fascinating reading and talks about how, for one user, she could properly hear music if she had heard that music before with her "normal" hearing and could remember it. Things of which she had no auditory memory couldn't be heard as such.
So, just a reminder to myself, everyone's experience is different. I could be one of the people who have great results. I could just as easily be one of the people who are "just OK" or perhaps even one who has poor results. I need to have hopes for the best, but plan for something less.
Oh, I almost forgot... 19 days to go...
Two things happened in the past few days that made me pause and tell myself that I need to keep my expectations reasonable. First, when I was talking to my Audiologist, Dr. G., about which accessories to order with the CI, I mentioned that I wanted the accessory that used bluetooth to connect to a mobile phone and stream that to the implant. Her reply was that she recommended we not pick that accessory until we knew how well I would do on the phone. Reality check - not all CI implantees will be able to use the phone. No huge worry there - I already cannot "use the phone" - although with the captioned phone, I do just fine. If I'm one of those people who cannot hear and understand over the phone with a CI - nothing to worry about, as I can carry on doing what I do now.
The other thing was that I came across this article on my Twitter feed. It was fascinating reading and talks about how, for one user, she could properly hear music if she had heard that music before with her "normal" hearing and could remember it. Things of which she had no auditory memory couldn't be heard as such.
So, just a reminder to myself, everyone's experience is different. I could be one of the people who have great results. I could just as easily be one of the people who are "just OK" or perhaps even one who has poor results. I need to have hopes for the best, but plan for something less.
Oh, I almost forgot... 19 days to go...