♬♬♬
When I first heard about it, they asked me in audiology if I'd be willing to do something
like that and I said yeah! Anything's better than what I've got.
So yeah, I've been looking forward to it.
The inner ear has hair cells which can become damaged with aging, genetics, noise exposure.
And once those hair cells become damaged, you can't regrow them or replace them.
It just progressively got worse over 10-15 years. It just kept getting worse and worse.
Often times you can put a hearing aid on a patient, which will amplify the sound and help them out.
Once you get to a certain point, where there's a certain amount of damage to the cochlea,
the hearing aids no longer provide great benefit for the patient at that point.
The hearing aids just amplify all the other noises and the background noises.
So it makes it so I can't distinguish what anybody's saying.
I had two hearing aids and finally my left ear got so bad
that the hearing aid was not affective. So I quit wearing it.
At that point, a Cochlear implant is something that we would look at.
It bypasses those damaged hair cells and directly stimulates the auditory nerve.
We have an internal piece that is implanted by the surgeon that goes down, threaded into the cochlea, the electrode.
And then you have a magnet that's placed under the skin.
And then you have an external processor that's placed on the outside that transmits the sound
electronically and directly stimulates that auditory nerve to provide some awareness
that they may not receive with a hearing aid.
Basically it was an outpatient operation. And I went in and they prepped me for the operation.
And, uh, the next thing I knew, I was done. (laughter)
There is still that expectation that my life's going back to when I was 10 years old.
So...But very good responses from a lot of them. They understand that's it going to be alot of work.
There's a little bit of a surprise that hey this sounds different. This is what I'm expericing.
I realize it's going to take several adjustments to get it to that point.
I'm going to have to keep coming back until we get it programmed right.
And then as we get farther and farther out, we see better and better outcomes.
And I think their expectation's shift as they realize what they are getting into.
Even within that first week.
I can go to church now and I can understand what they are saying, but before I couldn't.
I can hear all those cars and stuff, yeah.
Yeah!
Yes!
Right!
♬ ♬ ♬
When we first activate it, sounds very different and that electrical signal takes a little while for
your brain to kind of sort out what's coming in.
Is it sounding more like speech now on that right side?
Yes!
Good! Okay. Pretty balanced between the two? Sounding pretty good?
Seems like it is. Yes!
Okay...Perfect!
I can hear everything that I couldn't hear before. And sometimes at home...ah....
I have to get up and go see what I'm hearing because I don't recognize it.
So then I find out what it is.
I can hear the cars going by. People wave at me.
And I didn't really know how bad it was until I got the implant.
And I think, well I really had it bad with those hearing aids.
The background sounds are not near the problem that they were with hearing aids.
(Wind blowing) I can hear the wind and the trees.
As it picks up, I can hear the flag over there blowing too.
It sounds more natural than anything I've heard for a long time.
I'm amazed! I'm really pleased with it!
♬ ♬ ♬