Finally!
Just one day shy of four weeks after the surgery, I was activated today!
I have been excited and nervous about this, almost as bad as the surgery itself. What if it doesn’t work and the whole thing was for nothing? What if there’s some other problem no one noticed? What if I hate it so bad I can’t ever wear it? What if it’s so amazing my heart stops?
I first met with the surgeon for a quick follow up. I told him about the tenderness above my ear, and at first he agreed that it was probably due to my glasses. Fortunately he decided to double check. The epicenter of the problem was right above the arm of my glasses, and he found that a small piece of the stitches wasn’t dissolving! He was able to pull it out, and almost immediately that pain went away. What a relief.
He then said “my job now is to set your expectations all the way in the basement. It is not going to sound great when they first activate it.” I knew this. I’ve spent a ton of time chatting with people in the Cochlear Facebook group, so I know it is a long road. I’m ready.
Next I headed down the hall to the Audiologist office. I was surprised to see my Med El rep waiting for me as well! I can’t say enough about how great they both are, so I’m not even going to try. Just know they are both great.
The activation starts with a mapping. They plugged the device in to a computer and put it on my head. It took a couple tries to get it on there without falling. Turns out the magnet is quite a bit higher than I thought it was from feeling the bump under my skin. Also we went to a stronger magnet, which still wasn’t as secure as they like, so they are going to send me the next level.
She then went one by one through each electrode and played a tone, and asked me to tell her when it was “loud but not uncomfortable.” That is not as easy as it sounds. I kept thinking it was uncomfortable, but then deciding it was fine, and maybe a little more, but that is DEFINITELY uncomfortable. This is something I probably would have spent hours tweaking if I was just doing it myself.
She didn’t just start at the lowest frequency and move up, she bounced around to help reduce my response bias. Side note – I took quite a few hearing tests in the last year, and noticed this every time. If they went sequentially through frequencies, I would recognize the sound sooner than if it was random. I tested it out with some hearing test apps too. I don’t think it made a huge difference in my results, but not completely negligible either. Probably something that should be taken into consideration for all you Audiologists out there.
Anyhow, she went through each tone to find an appropriate level, and then the time was finally upon us. She counted “one, two, three” and hit the button. And the computer thought about it for several seconds. Just when I was starting to panic that it wasn’t going to work after all (even though I had just heard all the tones) there was suddenly SO. MUCH. SOUND.
None of the sound made any sense whatsoever, but I was grinning like an idiot under my mask. Let me remind you, it’s been nearly 2 decades since the last time I really heard anything more than tinnitus in my left ear. It was amazing! But I didn’t cry. Yet.
From here she did some fine tuning and set up the next four levels. Each one increases the max volume a little bit, so as I learn and adapt, I can move to the next level. I’ll go in for another mapping in about 2 weeks.
After that we went over basic care instructions, what was included in the package, and some paperwork. Easy.
I headed out and called my wife to tell her about it. She cried. I didn’t. After I hung up I turned on the radio. It was all nonsense noise as far as my left ear was concerned. But then, driving alone in my car, listening to nonsense music, I cried.
