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Switching on my hearing - William's cochlear implant story
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William with his head bandaged, in a hospital bed
William recovering after implant surgery
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November, after many years of thinking about it, he chose to have a
cochlear implant surgically fitted. The device was activated just
before Christmas and since then he has been learning how to interpret
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hereditary condition I've got - deafness. I chose to have a cochlear
implant.
I went under the knife in December. They cut behind my left ear,
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improvement in my hearing.
There are lots of reasons I wanted a cochlear implant but chief among
these was a deterioration in the little hearing I had been born with.
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receding from me.
Cochlear implants electrically stimulate the inner ear to create a
imulation of sound. It's not the same as hearing.
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The staff at the hospital tried their best to manage my expectations of
what an implant could bring me. They said that the best I could hope
for was to understand speech a little better, and to be able to
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expectations were spiralling beyond a reasonable level. Perhaps because
of that, the day they activated my implant was horrible.
"The switch on is usually the worst day of most people's lives." The
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After switching on all the channels and checking they were working,
they sent me home with the implant at a very low volume and with me
wondering if I'd done the right thing. It was the worst day of my life,
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all sound different to before.
Life with the implant is better than it was with the hearing aid, but
also worse. I'm struggling to understand people as I adjust, and learn
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a bit easier.
When people talk about a cochlear implant journey, it implies a
destination. I don't think the destination is as important as the