The evaluation on November 13,2009
It seem like it was yesterday, and I was getting the evaluation for the first implant and that time has flown by so fast that it's hard to believe it only been 10 months ago. I have been doing a lot of thinking in the last two weeks about how my hearing has been doing the last 10 months. But the last two months been struggling on hearing and understanding what people are saying and I know something had to be wrong with my hearing in my right ear, and knowing deep inside something was really wrong with my hearing. Now, my left ear has been doing pretty good in the listening room practices and exercise.
It was scoring at 86% in quiet and 76% when background noise was going on as I was doing the replacement test. On Friday the 13Th, I went for my hearing test evaluation to see if I qualify for the second implant. When I got there, she asked how I was doing on my hearing with the hearing aid alone. And told her that I was really struggling to understand what somebody was saying. And then I had to look at them to lip read.
She said okay, let's do a test and see where you stand on your hearing in your right ear and see how well you do with CI ear by itself. And then we will talk about it. So she put me in testing both and hook me up she told me to push the button when I hear sounds and when they beeped without a hearing aid or CI in.
Then she came back in and told me to put CI back in, and she said I'm going to test you to see how well you can hear the sounds that are coming out of the speaker. I said okay, so she tested me, and then she came back in and told me to put the hearing aid back in, and then she was going to play a man's voice, and he is going to say sentences with background noise, and and she wanted me to repeat what I heard or not to say anything if I didn't understand it.
Ater all the testing was done she told me how I was doing and showed me the chart where my hearing stood. She said it was good news, and I qualify for the second implant and the bad news was that I had lost all my hearing, but 5%. But she said that I would lose that percentage when I have the surgery done and she said it was not much to lose. The other good news was that my left ear in low tones was ranging in the mild hearing loss and that my high frequencies could be better, but we can work on it. She also said once we get the surgery done I can come back to get activated that we would work on balancing the ears to where I could understand everything and that she was going to contact the insurance company and give her report to them .Then we would have to wait for the letter to come back, She told me to come back on Tuesday, November 17 at 11:30 AM to see the surgeon.
After all of this, I've come to realize that this is a blessing from the Lord to give me this wonderful technology to hear again and to help others like me. And to help professionals such as nurses, doctors learn how to communicate with us when we are in the hospital, offices, clinics. This wonderful technology is letting me help others with their upcoming surgeries and their research for the best Cochlear Implant that is right for them. Thank you Advance Bionics for giving me my hearing back.
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