Regarding the CI issue. If you are serious about wanting to consider this, go to a CI hospital to get tested and evaluated. There tends to be some negativism among some hearing healthcare professionals about CIs working for older people. My CI was done in the ear that had gone unaided since diagnosis in the 1960s until I had the surgery in 2005. I had heard nothing in that ear for decades. Now it's my 'good ear'. There are 4 people in our HLAA chapter here who had CI surgery in their mid 80s. They are all doing very well. A lot does depend on a person's health status and willingness to work with the new way of hearing. I was one of the lucky ones who didn't have to work that hard at rehab. Perhaps because an HLAA friend I had great respect for told me to rehab that unaided ear prior to surgery. I had an old back up hearing aid with a strong telecoil that I had fit to that poorer ear and listened to audiobooks via telecoil for a year prior to having surgery. It worked for me. No wonder I'm such a strong believer in telecoils! Without the telecoils that hearing aid did nothing for that ear prior to CI surgery.