I had my latest check up last week.
It’s been a while and I had a double appointment. One for audiology and one for speech and communication training.
“It’s your best test results ever!” my audiologist tells me. “You can now hear about 98% when listening to sentences and about 50% in single word distinctions.”
I am amazed as well.
I have not been keeping up on my progress for a long time and I was happy to hear that I’m doing well after about 2 years of getting the implant.
I have become so used to it and sometimes it feels easy. I wake up, put on my implant and go about my day.
It has also been hard and there days where I come home exhausted, rip of my implant and curl up in bed.
There are times where I just want to go back to the comfort of silence, after having to put up with the overwhelming input of sounds and vibrations.
I can now hear my name being called form another room and I can hear sentences clearer, but I do struggle with focusing on the other person’s voice against the white noise and noisy backgrounds, traveling all at once into the implant towards my brain.
It’s not that I regret getting the implant, I’m loving it and I am forever grateful for all the blessings and this journey.
But sometimes I can’t help but think I’ve been created to live in silence and I do enjoy the comfort of being alone no matter how lonely it might feel.
I can’t help but think that while the implant helps me to keep up in this noisy world, there are times where I actually find it harder to deal with the implant, than before with just my hearing aids.
Then I remember that the cochlear implant is just a tool to help me hear.
Although it does generate artificial sounds and I am picking up and hearing more than I ever could, It does not give me my hearing back.
I am, and will always be, someone with a hearing loss.
But my cochlear implant journey will continue, with its benefits and challenges, and I will never regret making the choice to get it.