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My Cochlear Implant - a journal
Hearing Loss | Last Active: Jul 22, 2023 | Replies (159)Comment receiving replies
Time for an update. I just changed the dry brick in my instrument dryer, so I know it’s been about two months.
How things have changed! In this Covid-19 world, we are living in our 28’ RV. We got the house on the market and it sold in four days - we’re just waiting for closing now. We had planned to go west to the family and to find a new home. All of that is put on hold since RV travel is restricted by private and state campground closures. With my kidney transplant, I’m vulnerable and our ages put us in that category anyway!
I am SO GRATEFUL I had a cochlear implant! Beyond grateful. Without the incredible improvement in hearing, isolation would be torture for me. I talk on Zoom with family and friends, big groups of us. Barb and I have started the Mindfulness based meditation, MSBR, eight week class. I meditate with my eyes closed, listening to someone guide me through.
Barb complains that I talk so softly now she can’t hear me! I am still doing aural rehabilitation - even though my university based cochlear audiologist is no longer working.
With hope, things will return to ‘normal’ in the next year or so. With hope, we will all be here to comment and connect. With hope you are finding good in your situation. Hang in there, y’all.
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@lizzy102 I was remiss in joining this conversation until now but I have just read through all of it. I want to thank you for journaling your whole experience so well. It's exactly what a person who is considering a CI needs -- the pros and the cons. I know I will refer back to it if/when the time comes that I do qualify for a CI.
I am not quite to the point where I qualify for a CI but I know I am not too far from it. My hearing has degraded quite a bit in the last few years and my word recognition has really decreased. This seems to have happened since I had a liver transplant in 09.2016. I have read that there is some possibility that those things could be related - hearing loss and immunosuppressants. If so it's not a common side-effect but a less frequent one. It can be very discouraging and depressing to be in a group and not understand much at all of what is being said, even when speaking directly to one individual. The background noise intrudes too much. My family, particularly my son, try to accommodate my loss, and the couple we spend most of our social time with are very accommodating. She, coincidentally, had a deaf aunt and was a teacher of deaf children so they both have dealt with hearing loss.
I know that you cannot wear a CI in the water. I go to water aerobic classes regularly and wear my hearing aids -- my head remains above water, but there have been a couple of occasions when I slipped and my hearing aids were briefly submerged. They were not damaged by that brief submersion. Would that be so also for a CI?
Thanks again for such an informative journal of your experiences.
JK