Its one week before activation day

This is the week leading up to my activation day. In other words, "the switch on" is soon to occur. On January 16th I will return to the hospital where I will be presented with my new processor that looks like a behind-the-ear hearing aid. The processor will rest behind my ear. On the processor is a short wire followed by a magnetic transmitter that will attach itself to the skull above my ear. The whole of two units (inner and outer) are in place and ready for switch-on. The audiologist will begin approximately two hours of programming into the computer. Somewhere along the way, it will be hooked up to my new device and activated. I am told I may hear noise, what possibly may sound like helium. I may hear static, or I may understand a word, possibly Mickey Mouse style. The Audiologist will talk to me, as well as others who are there to accompany me. I may not understand any words without lipreading. With time, it should improve. It takes hard work and practice. Each experience is unique for the CI user. I suspect my ear will go through an adjustment (and possibly an ordeal) after a period of hibernation. The audiologist has made a plan that I will return on the immediate days following the activation for re-adjustment or a boost in volume as the brain adjusts within 24 hours and is ready for improvements.

Since surgery, my right ear canal has now been liberated from a lifetime of wearing an earmold! It has been exposed in unexpected ways. The most significant is one of air moving into my ear. In the bitter cold it feels barren and unprotected. It protests with an mild ache. For 43years, my earmold had been an insulation of warmth day after day, sporadically bringing raw sores or infection from bacteria buildup. Sometimes the ear wax or moisture clogs the tube in the mold. That is now "No More!" as I will not require an earmold for the processor to work. The path of sound will not travel in the ear canal as before, but rather it will go through the external processor, up to the transmitter on my skull, activated by the computer chip with an array into the cochlea to (finally) where the auditory nerve sends messages to the brain. This will bypass all the damaged parts of the ear, (in my case, the cochlea with its weakened or missing scilia, also known as hair cells, that are responsible for sending information by soundwave to the auditory nerve.)

How timely it is that I have learned to knit hats in recent months and now wear my first couple of hats to protect my 'new ear.'

I am still experiencing new sounds traveling into the ear and tell myself I've had a "CI moment" but I thought "CI moments" were supposed to happen after its been activated with the processor. I am delighted by the residual hearing that I have in the operated ear and am quite alarmed that it is louder than I've ever known it to be. Yesterday's weather brought a downpour of rain. As I opened the front door to go somewhere, I was swept by the sound in my right ear; I heard the rain pelting down! I turned off the hearing aid. I closed and opened the door. I heard the difference in the unaided ear. In the car I was touched with emotion hearing the rain fall on the car. I anticipate that I will hear a fuller sound with my processor.

At the preschool where I work, I could hear the squeals or cries from the children, the musical bells that the children rang, a wooden rolling pin fall onto the hard floor. Wearing the hearing aid on the other ear was somewhat a nuisance because it is amplified noise and does not balance out sound when worn alone. I did better with it turned down a notch. As it is the first week back at work, I was overwhelmed by the one aided experience and felt exhausted at the end of each day.

I heard my daughter drop an item many feet away while we were shopping in Safeway. That was a surprise as it gave me a sensation of depth in hearing, rather than amplification. In the following moments, I realized in my aided ear, I am only hearing noise, likely a mix of refrigeration, fans and fluorescent noise. On the other side of my head, a slumbering quiet interrupted by a crash to which I turned towards and saw my daughter picking up the product off the floor.With hearing aids, there is too much going into my aids and I cannot distinguish the different sounds.

I wrote to my audiologist asking about my enhanced residual hearing. He prompted me several times in the past to be prepared that I would likely lose all residual hearing as a result of cochlear implant insertion. Upon hearing my experience, he states:

My interpretation is that your surgery was relatively atraumatic (i.e., un-traumatic to your cochlea). In other words, the surgery caused relatively little damage to the remaining structures in the cochlea (which is good!). Sometimes, when there is residual hearing after the surgery, the hearing at some frequencies is actually a little better than it was before surgery. This is probably due to a part of the electrode touching the basilar membrane, and causing some changes in the properties of the traveling wave, or the hydromechanics of the movements in the cochlea. It is my guess that the initial part of the traveling wave, between the oval window and the region where an electrode is touching the membrane, may be amplified, or increased in amplitude. Not sure if that makes any sense to you. Easier to explain in person, with a diagram. At any rate, it all sounds favorable.