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The following story is one person's experience with a cochlear implant. Your experience may be very different. Success with a cochlear implant is influenced by many factors including how long a person has had hearing loss, the age a person receives an implant, medical and anatomical factors and more. Please consult your cochlear implant professional and/or the Bionic Ear Association with questions.
People are often asking me questions about my cochlear implant and how I made the decisions involved. I'm always very excited to talk about it! So I decided to write my personal story in a question/answer format. I imagine that many of you who are reading this story have similar questions in your mind and maybe you will find it helpful to read about my thought processes and perspectives.
What major factors led you to choose cochlear implantation?
I knew or had met a number of people who had cochlear implants. The fact that some of them heard and understood speech better than others intrigued me. Some of these folks I knew before they got the cochlear implant so I could see first-hand the improvements. Those who had hearing histories similar to mine seemed to be hearing much better than they had when they had relied only on hearing aids. Although I knew I could not make direct comparisons about performance and didn't want to use other people's experiences to predict my own, learning about other people's experiences helped me to be optimistic about the outcome for myself.
What types of hearing struggles did you have before getting a cochlear implant?
During the two years prior to being implanted, my hearing loss progressed to profound. I became very frustrated with being unable to communicate with my family, friends and co-workers as I once had. I used to be a people-person; I enjoyed talking with and listening to people. I loved just getting to know someone I met. My hearing loss had always isolated me from people to some degree but, once it progressed to profound I couldn't communicate very well in even one-on-one ideal hearing situations such as in a quiet setting with no background noise. This led me to become frustrated and angry as a result of my hearing loss. I found myself avoiding opportunities to get together with my family and friends. This caused a lot of stress in my marriage; my husband has normal hearing and although he has always been very good about using the right ways to communicate with me, he seemed to be feeling more frustrated as well.
What can you do or do better now that you have a cochlear implant?
My ability to communicate in most situations I had trouble in or just couldn't communicate in before getting my cochlear implant has greatly improved. I no longer avoid situations that used to make me feel like an outsider because I couldn't follow conversations. I'm more apt to jump in and get involved. The progress I've made with learning to utilize my cochlear implant to the best of my abilities has had an incredible impact on my self esteem. I am able to enjoy being a people person again! I try to engage most everyone I meet now in conversation even if only for a few moments. It's almost like I don't want to ever again miss out on the opportunity to hear something someone has to say!
Communication with my family, friends, and coworkers has improved considerably, now that I can understand most of what everyone's saying! When I applied for the job I have now four years ago, I made sure everyone understood that I would not be able to help out with answering the office phone because of my hearing loss. After getting my cochlear implant, I worked hard to learn how to understand speech on the telephone. I now assist my coworkers with answering our office phones!
My husband and I do so much more with our families and friends socially now. We both enjoy entertaining in our home or meeting friends and family for dinner. When we do things like that now, I no longer feel "left out" because I can't follow the conversation; I participate as much as everyone else now, if not more! There really isn't much that I don't do now!