My world of silence was mercifully shattered. At age 11, my first cochlear implant (CI) brought out of the silence the sound of birds, the wind and the sea. Though I was born with a severe-to-profound hearing loss, I now began to hear leaves crackling underneath my feet, the turn signal in the car and other subtleties I could never perceive with my hearing aids or an FM system.
The Nucleus 22 CI I received in one ear at age 11 served me well. But five years ago, at the age of 19, I received my second implant, a Nucleus Freedom, which transformed this world of sound.
I knew it was a small machine of monstrous force as soon as the audiologist hooked me up to the device: sharp rapid sounds startled my brain. There was less space between the sounds; they immediately demanded recognition, interpretation. It took several weeks for me to learn to disentangle the knotted mass of noise. I was far more sensitive to high-pitched noises with the Freedom, and ordinary noises sounded higher than one would expect. Even the sound of the toilet flushing sounded like a little girl laughing. And the sound of an ambulance caused me to tremble.
But in time I learned to recognize and contextualize the various sounds. Already having an implant helped with this process my old CI "decoded" the overwhelming amount of sound entering my new CI. My audiologists disagreed on whether at least at first it was best to wear the Freedom alone, or to dive right in with both implants. I decided to do a bit of both, at times going without my Nucleus 22 processor. But once I was able to translate sounds from the Freedom, I preferred it like using DSL Internet connection after years of using dial-up. And yet I could not hear as well with the Freedom alone; somewhere along the way, the two implants began to work in tandem.
I still remember standing outside with my dad after Hurricane Wilma ripped through South Florida, just a month after my initial hook-up. We stood and waited as a car crawled up the street. "Close your eyes," he told me, as he turned me around so I would not know which direction I faced. I waited for a few seconds. Then I could hear the car growing louder in my left ear, and fainter, until my right ear could no longer hear it. I knew then that the car had approached from the left. Hearing the car, of course, was insignificant, but perceiving its location indicated that I had begun to hear directional sounds.
Several months later, when standing in the elevator, I was able to push the appropriate buttons after hearing a quickly-mumbled "Three, please," from the man standing on the right, and a "Seven, please" from the woman standing behind my left shoulder. I probably would not have been able to hear these requests as clearly with just one implant, for not only do bilateral implants help with directional sounds, they also help clarify noisy environments. I find myself able to follow conversations in restaurants better as well, as two implants help me process what I'm hearing. I am able, it seems, to tune out unnecessary background information, although at times I find myself overwhelmed particularly if my ears are not "equal" in terms of programming, volume, sensitivity levels and so on. If one implant is even slightly softer than the other, whatever sound enters it simply becomes added to the other one, resulting in an overload of information, instead of a better translation. I also find that my voice weakens in such situations, as two implants seem to help me more accurately gauge the volume of my voice in relation to my surroundings. Given that the Nucleus 3G (my first implant processor) will soon be obsolete, I look forward to upgrading to a Freedom in the next couple of months as my two ears will then match more closely.
Going bilateral has been an adventure, one that has brought its own joys and its own challenges. But I find it remarkable that two small devices deliver so much sound to my stone-deaf ears. I even enjoy going to the theater to see a British film (the British are notorious for being the hardest to lip-read), for I am able to understand much of what is being said. Operas also delight my ears, as does classical music, especially Beethoven or Mozart. I often joke that my bionic ears are sophisticated and narrow in terms of musical taste. Instead of listening to popular music, which does not quite sound right, I recite poetry and I can hear the mute air quiver, as it becomes alive and musical. Listening to the sound of a brook or a waterfall brings me similar delight.
All in all, it has been a long journey, but one that has led me from a night of silence to a dawn of sound.
Sarah McCulloch has a Master of Arts degree in English from the University of Vermont, where she taught as a Graduate Teaching Fellow for the last two years. She currently works as a freelance writer and editor and may be contacted via e-mail at smcculloch32@gmail.com.
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