Living with a Cochlear Implant

What a year it has been!  Here I am on the verge of 2008, reflecting on the year behind me and thinking ahead.   First off, I am sitting here by myself listening to Simon and Garfunkle singing "Sounds of Silence"...just harmonizing away and filling my eyes with tears.  The reason why the tears?   Kind of funny....many moons ago when I was a CI candidate (2001-2002) I was doing all this research online and reading eveything I could get my hands on.  I ran across an AB users blog and she had "Sounds of Silence" playing as her theme song.  I remember wondering if I would ever hear it again.  Apparently she was doing well with her CI and enjoying it.  All I had at that time was silence...music was a vacant memory and a distant dream.   I knew I was going to get a CI, but didn't have much hope that I would have speech, never mind glorious music!  

I am sitting here almost six years later bathed in the sound of music on a daily basis.  I am not only hearing music, I am hearing it with beautiful clarity and quality.  It's not exactly what I had when I had normal hearing, it's very close...but you know, it's actually appreciated more now.   I took it for granted growing up, it was a part of my life and I owned it.  I was wrong, we can't own anything with any certainty. 

I became a grandmother on December 10th!  My gorgeous daughter gave me a grandson.  Little Avery Blaze arrived after a grueling 108 hours of labor and ended up being delivered via C-section anyway!   He is just a precious bundle wrapped up in warm cotton and smelling the sweet smell those newborns have.   I heard him cry.  I am so used to my CI now that it seemed so natural and normal.  I didn't reflect on it or sit and cry myself..I giggled at how loud he was and immediately put him on my non CI shoulder!  

I never heard my daughter when she was growing up, I was the "deaf" mom.  I did great, but every day I woke up wondering what unexpected crisis I was going to have because I couldn't hear.   I didn't want Tara to grow up thinking back and saying to herself "If my mom had been able to hear"...how life might have been.    I knocked myself out being as normal as I could be.....and a lot of time I "passed" for a hearing person...well, because I really was a hearing person, I just couldn't hear! 

Grandmotherhood is going to be vastly different.  I will be able to hear him growing up and get to experience all the things I missed the first time around.   I hope he sings and plays a musical instrument and is in school plays.  I have no doubt he is quite bright, the family (at least on my side lol) is filled with analytical minds and artistic souls.  We are just filled with enough Irish craziness to flush out some of the heavy stuff!   

I have a new man in my life, his name is Brian.  We met on my cochlear implant list about three years ago.  It's been fun developing a relationship based on respect and friendship.  We have spent a lot of time together over the last year and have determined we have what it takes to co-habitate!    We spent a lot of time zeroing in on where we wanted to live.  As I mentioned in my last post we had centered on Carlsbad CA.  One of my daughter's friends and her husband plan to move to Carlsbad, CA at some point.  Never been there before, but checked it out online and Brian and I liked what we saw!    It's a very nice, laid back, beach community near San Diego.   We found our house after a LOT of searching and I will be ready to move in in about a week!! 

What I am going to really enjoy is being in an artsy type of community...looking forward to setting up a new art studio and painting again!   I am an abstract watercolorist..studied with some good people and hope to continue that in Carlsbad.   There are also a lot of concerts and plays.....can you imagine living somewhere they have concerts within a block of your house?   We are going to be living in what is called the "La Costa" area and it has an amazing library with an art gallery and also a concert auditorium!   Whoo!!

I will be changing medical insurance when I move and will sink my old HMO down to the deep blue sea and kiss it goodbye!   I have been working on trying to get another CI in other ear since Spring.  It's been like knocking your head against a brick wall!   HMO's are not the friend of CI users!!    I am listening to Wilson Picketts "Mustang Sally"(Best of Wilson Pickett)  by the way lol!!   Hopefully I will succeed with my new medical plan where the old one fizzled out.   I have heard rave reviews from everyone I  know who has taken the plunge and gone bilateral.  I have the most amazing music with one CI, but know full well I have "head shadow effect" from only hearing on one side.   We have two ears, they should both be operational! 

Enough already....I shared all the good stuff.  I am grateful that AB (and Leo) dreamed up Fidelity 120 for us and look forward to being able to march down the yellow brick road in CI hearing!    Got to give it up for the folks at AB...I am so glad that Leo and the gang didn't decide they wanted to own a pizza place instead of going to school forever to learn what they know.  They are changing lives on a daily basis.   It's the quality of CI hearing that gives us a quality of life we never dreamed of. 

Happy New Year to everyone reading this.....more to come!!  

Love Deb