Kate's Cochlear Implant WordPress.com Kate's Cochlear Implant A blog about my experience of being deaf and getting a cochlear implant. February 19, 2010 My final post? 7 months on Posted by Kate under About me, cochlear implant, deaf, hearing aids, hearing loss | Tags: after switch on, audiologist, audiology, cochlear implant, deafness, hearing aids | [49] Comments -- report. I know it has only been 7 months since I got the implant (7 months! is that all???! Can you believe it?) But already, I think I have reached the peak, and plateaued. The implant will not get any better or different now in my right ear. It has reached its’ ‘zenith’. -- Normal pjhone and TTY phone now sit on my desk together. It's goodbye TTY, hello normal phone since I had the implant. However, I keep the TTY on my desk just in case! Can't shake the feeling of -- deaf. So, as you can see – the cochlear implant actually did what I dreamt it would do – it allowed me to reconnect with the world on the phone -- So, if I am going to leave anyone with a word of advice, or perhaps a message to the deaf community, or maybe parents considering an implant – having been through this all before, having met so many people who’ve had implants, having talked to ENT surgeons, doctors, audiologists and researched online – it would be this: Kate’s Final View on Cochlear Implants Disclaimer, this is only my view, no one elses. You might think it’s -- its a clever, well-thought out comment. I’ll delete stoopid ones! hearing aid, except it is implanted in your head. just like hearing aids. To find out whether you are a good candidate, you need to see your cochlear implant specialist. A normal audiologist just won’t cut it – they just don’t know the -- years. implant after 5 years old seem to find it harder to adjust – maybe because of crucial years of language development have passed? Not ure. age of 5 years old seem to find their cochlear implant more useful. 20 per cent of the time you will not be using it (i.e. swimming, -- ign language and lip-reading to use with your family and friends. I am glad I got the implant. I am also glad I waited because it was an emotional ride. But I would do it all again, definitely. If I had a deaf child tomorrow, I would give it a cochlear implant before the age of 4, teach it sign language and show it how to lip-read. -- Here are my final test results for the 6 month test at the Sydney Cochlear Implant Centre – please note the disclaimer my audi asked that I include on my hearing aid result! -- running speech. Freedom Cochlear Implant hearing test result This is the test result for my Freedom Cochlear Implant, in my left ear. -- But I am going to hold off for a few years, only because the hearing aid balances out the sound of the cochlear implant, and makes everything sound ‘normal’. -- new blog: “Kate’s Second And Hopefully Final Cochlear Implant”! Who knows! -- hearing loss, Living with deafness | Tags: advocacy work, captioning, cost of cochlear implants, deafness, government support for cochlear implants | [5] Comments -- Looking back: The isolation of deafness and considering suicide Posted by Kate under About me, cochlear implant, deaf, hearing loss, Living with deafness | Tags: deafness | -- November 30, 2009 Listening to TV on plane flight with cochlear implant Posted by Kate under cochlear implant, deaf, hearing aids, Living with deafness | Tags: after switch on, cochlear implant, flying with cochlear implants, t-switch, telecoil | [19] Comments -- will be better than just being bored out of my mind. I held up the headphones to my hearing aid and cochlear implant and tried to follow the TV – I could hear it, but it was so static-ey and unclear, it was really disappointing. On a whim, I decided to try the ‘t-switch’ on both hearing aid and cochlear implant, which shuts out all the background noise, and only picks up the radio signals coming -- Wrapping my scraf around my head I managed to get the ear bud close enough to the cochlear implant microphone to be able to hear the audio for the TV/movies on the Virgin Blue flight. I sat like this for 5 -- Small obstacle was the fact that the headphones provided were ear-bud types. Now that is difficult for cochlear implantees, since the microphone for picking up sound is behind your ear, not in it! -- It’s been 4.5 months now Posted by Kate under About me, cochlear implant, deaf, Living with deafness | Tags: after switch on, cochlear implant, deafness, hearing aids | -- So it’s been four and a half months now since I got the cochlear implant in my right ear. I haven’t written an update in a while, because I haven’t felt like -- So… yes. It is amazing. I am still profoundly deaf when I take off my cochlear implant and hearing aid, but now I can actually hear stuff when I have them on. -- hortlisted! As for other stuff happening with the cochlear implant – I was over at my friend Georgia’s house the other week, having an ‘infrared sauna’. -- back in tiny letters it said: “Do not use this sauna if you have an implant i.e. pace maker or silicon.” And I was like “WHAAAAAAAAT!!!!!??” slapped my hand over my ear, and -- with Cochlear Ltd later – they said that according to their information from engineers etc, infrared shouldn’t affect cochlear implants (nor hould any other sauna – good to know!). Yay for cochlear implants. Such a new invention, it’s like being the first person to walk on the moon or something. You just don’t know what -- October 19, 2009 Is a cochlear implant really that good? Posted by Kate under cochlear implant, deaf, Living with deafness | Tags: after switch on, cochlear implant, cochlear implant surgery | [92] Comments -- And I think it’s a really valid comment. I was extremely suspicious of anyone that told me a cochlear implant was good before I had one, and for good reason. It’s just hard to -- a different experience. I decided to get an implant after I saw a deaf woman I know who had two cochlear implants talking on the phone. That’s when I thought, oh well, it might work – and if it doesn’t, I havent lost anything. After I was booked in for this surgery, I started this blog because I thought everyone would think that an implant was a miracle cure, and think I would be ‘fixed’ once I had it, and I knew it wasn’t going to -- was what it was going to be like. Perhaps my optimism about the implant has come from the fact that I really didn’t expect it to be that good. -- friends the other night in a pub in Perth. We were discussing each other’s cochlear implants (there were three of us there who had just recently had one in the past year.) -- It was not really blog mention worthy. So, what other things suck about cochlear implants? because I really have been too complimentary to them, haven’t I? -- guaranteed to work as well as the first one, because removing the implant damages in the inner structure of the ear, i.e. the cochlea. So that is something that is in the back of my mind a lot -- Sometimes I can hear TV, other times I can’t. It’s not consistent. As for Cochlear Ltd being the best cochlear implant company, I don’t know about that anymore. I mainly support them because they are -- From the research I have done, it sounds like Med-El would be a good cochlear implant – it apparently has a slimmer electrode, which goes deeper into the cochlea, and gives you more spectrum of sound, and therefore makes speech and sound more natural. I am seriously considering getting a Med-El for my second implant. But who knows! So there you go… And what’s the answer to the million dollar question? Is the cochlear implant really that good? Well, the answer is …. for ome, yes. For others, no. It’s as simple as that. Everyone’s different, and that is probably the most frustrating thing about a cochlear implant ever. There is absolutely no guarantee about how it’s going to work. -- It’s scary. And that’s why whenever you meet someone who’s had a cochlear implant, or the parent of a child with an implant (because they’ve had to make the same decision!) you should think about the difficult decision they -- October 14, 2009 Using the telephone with a cochlear implant Posted by Kate under cochlear implant, deaf, hearing loss, Living with deafness | Tags: after switch on, cochlear implant, hearing aids | This is an interesting one. -- find that I can’t always hear what people are saying really clearly. No matter what program on the implant I use, it’s not always clear. Some days I can hear, other days I can’t. Some people I can hear, other -- way deaf people use the telephone, and therefore communicate. It’s also brilliant for practicing listening with my cochlear implant. If you are interested in reading more about captioned telephony in -- profoundly deaf. In 2009, at age 29, I started this blog about getting my first cochlear implant. More. Implant’ uicide January 6, 2010 -- About me advocacy work after switch on audiologist audiology captioning cochlea hair cells cochlear implant cochlear implant urgery cost of cochlear implants deafness ENT Surgery flying with cochlear implants government support for cochlear implants hearing aids recovery surgeons switch on t-switch telecoil -- Follow Follow “Kate's Cochlear Implant” Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.