CI: One year anniversary

Today marks exactly one year after my CI activation. Wow, I can't believe a whole year has gone by already... it seemed like I got activated only weeks ago!!

Now, how do I feel about it? Good? Bad? Indifferent? I'd say I have mixed feelings, but more good than bad.

I'll start with what I don't like about CI. The CI lacks the deep bass that I've grown accustomed to with hearing aids, but I wear a hearing aid in the other ear so it's fine. Also, I hoped that I'd progress a little faster than I did with the CI, but it's going to be slow going because my hearing is only one year old, up against 29 years of deafness. Gonna take an old dog a little while longer to learn new tricks. I also have myself to blame because I hadn't been doing my listening exercises as consistently as I should. I mean, one can only sit at home and listen to repetitive phrases for so long... I'd fall asleep within five minutes of a listening exercise and most days I'd rather be doing something else. Like reading, working out, writing my autobiography, or hanging out with friends.

Now, the good? First off, I'm not going to say, "Oh wow my life has completely changed and opened a new chapter!" - because it hasn't, and I don't want to feed into the CI hype that seems to be going around these days. However... communication with hearing people has gotten much easier, particularly with those whose lips are difficult to read. When I used to understand maybe 30% or less via lipreading, that percentage has shot up to around 80% with the CI on - combined with lipreading (assuming, of course, the person doesn't have a strange accent). 80% sounds high, but as I've said before in my blog, you could understand all the words in a sentence except for that one important keyword. If you miss even one keyword, the sentence wouldn't make sense and you'd have to ask for a repeat anyway. However, rather than saying "what?" repeatedly, I've become accustomed to parroting back the parts I understood, and then asking for the words I missed.

For example, someone would say "so this weekend I went _____ with my sister near Austin."
I'd go "so in Austin, you did what with your sister?"
"Kayaking"
"Oh, kayaking, that sounds fun!"
"Right, it was fun! blah blah blah" and the conversation would continue without getting bogged down in non-understanding and the subsequent anxiety.

Even in groups, I'm able to catch some of the conversation. I'm not yet confident enough in group conversations to actually chip in whenever I wanted to - or even lead the group conversation, but I've come a very long way in one year. It used to be that group conversations were impossible. Now, it is possible. Difficult, but no longer impossible. That, in itself, is a HUGE leap in my book.

On paper, my speech comprehension may only show a marginal improvement, but I have felt a tangible improvement in the quality of life and communication with hearing people. It was only a couple of months ago when my CI's battery died on me and I had no backup, I quickly realized how much I rely on my CI. Still, noisy places, talkative groups, and unfamiliar accents pose very very stiff challenges for me, and will continue to do so for a long time.

In a nutshell, I had hoped I'd get a little more out of my CI, but my brain is always learning to understand sound and I have no regrets.