ERMAHGERD SWERTCH ERN!

Still reeling from last night's Game of Thrones and the horribly early start (after 4 weeks off, 7am starts recede into distant memory), I presented myself at JCUH at 9'o'clock this morning. I was welcomed by a very nice audiologist called Jen, as well as another audiologist who was returning from maternity leave, and a medical student who turned out to have been at my operation. Jen explained what we were going to do; we would run through some tuning checks and then do the proper "switch on". The implant had already been checked at the operation so they knew it worked - this immediately relieved my small panic that it might not work at all! 

my Cochlear Nucleus 6 in all its beigey glory

Jen had a quick peek in my ear and put my new implant processor (Cochlear Nucleus 6) on my head. She tried a couple of different magnet strengths - sometimes they need to use a slightly stronger magnet at first if there is still some residual swelling from the surgery. Once everything was attached appropriately, she started to run through some tests of the electrodes - they were all on green on the computer screen. Then she said she would try me with some beeps, to help set the switch on volumes/input levels. I steeled myself for whatever I was about to hear..... and jumped in shock as this completely bizarre sensation arrived in my head. I can honestly only describe it as like the start of a migraine - very electrical, pulsing and definitely not sound. Not sound at all. Not even close. It was just a palpable sensation of there being something different.

Jen was clearly quite used to having people jumping out of their seats and was very nice and calming. She played it again for me and once I had calmed down I could tell that there were 2 tones going on. That beep was quite an odd low sound, and I found the high sounds a lot easier to distinguish (which is very unusual, normally with hearing aids and having pure tone audiometry I love the low sounds and the high ones give me tinnitus!) 

We moved through all the beeps and I said how many tones I could hear - 2, 3 or 4. By the end I could tell quite easily that there was a difference in the tones. After all that was done it was time for switch on! So I switched off my hearing aid and sat and waited. Jen fiddled with the mouse and then said, "How does that sound?" 

Again it wasn't really sound, it was a series of pulses that arrived in my brain and said we are here. It was an oddly physically thrilling sensation. A bit like that buzz you get after the first gin and tonic. I was rather taken aback by it all - I could tell people were speaking because their lips were moving, obviously, but I really couldn't tell if they were shouting or whispering or anything. Jen asked if I could tell any difference between the beeps when she talked and when David talked, and I found that I could actually, even though I couldn't explain what the difference was. With the higher noises, I felt that they were all coming through and sounding like tinnitus, except it was tinnitus that stopped when people stopped talking. 

At one point I looked down to find something on my phone and could tell that people were talking (NO idea what they were saying but I could still tell it was going on without looking)!

After a bit of chatting with that on, Jen turned it back off to do some more magical audiological fiddling. I switched my hearing aid back on and sat flabbergasted. She then switched the implant back on so I had the effect of both of them together - which was quite nice, just like my normal hearing but with an overlay of tinnitus. She let me keep my hearing aid in for the technical bit where she explained how to charge all the various bits of kit I now have. I was to go home with 4 programmes set on the processor. They are varying degrees of loudness as soon my brain will adapt to the input and I'll start to find it gets quieter - when that happens, I will switch up to programme 2, 3 and then 4. Ideally I should be on programme 4 by the time I come back next Monday for my tuning.

After a bit more chatting and checking that I was happy with the current sound levels, we were waved off. I popped to the loo where I spent a good deal longer than necessary playing with all the sounds in the loo - the door lock, the loo roll, the foot pedal bin - David was waiting outside laughing his head off at all the bangs emerging from within. I was particularly entranced to find that breathing in and out makes a very high whistling noise. I was probably blowing like a hippopotamus.

The car journey home afforded even more delights - I could hear pens tapping on the dashboard, the clicking of the car fan dial, the clink of the pound coins for the Tyne Tunnel (this one is my favourite, they sound so musically clinky!) By the time we got home I had decided that things were too quiet and had switched myself up to level 2, just in time to hear the indicator ticking as David indicated for the turn on to our street!! Aaaaah!! 

We spent another happy 5 minutes in the car playing with all the clicks and indicator noises and pound coins, then took Rhubarb out for a walk to Teasy Does It (our favourite café). On the way there I noticed I could hear my shoes scraping along the ground, and sticks snapping. Even leaves tearing! Left a trail of destruction like a stick insect on the way to the café. In the café I could hear the coffee being ground with the fancy hand grinders, and Lesley steaming the milk for the coffee! The plates and cutlery sounded really loud too. It's - again - really hard to describe, it's not sound per se but it is starting to become recognisable as sound. It's a bit like looking through a sheet of black paper with a few pinholes in it - a few little chinks of sound make their way through, but for the most part I feel like I have my hearing aids switched off and every now and then I get a "ping!" of noise. When people are talking I can only see their mouths moving and a seemingly disconnected tinnitus-like noise playing over the top. 

I'm very glad I didn't watch too many YouTube videos of people being switched on - if I'd expected to hear speech straightaway, I would have been really disappointed. I think for someone who has always been deaf, this is quite a normal reaction, as my brain has NEVER heard coffee being ground before and certainly never picked it out of a loud noisy environment! I can already tell that having the high frequencies is going to make life so much easier; I think all sound is going to be sharper, crisper and brighter. 

We walked to Morrisons to get some celebratory steak for dinner, and on the way there I was quite confused by how much quieter it was outside than when in the car or café. I think this was wind noise masking the higher sounds. When we were home again I started banging around on the saucepans with a wooden spoon and generally clinking all the things. I ran the tap to get some water and could tell when the tap was running, because it was one long sort of beepy high noise. David tried to get my attention just now and I just KNEW he had said "Roz, Roz" even while looking down.

Just typing now I can hear a little beep or high "chink" every time I bash the keys. I can hear my breath whistling in and out of my nose/mouth. My friend Andy from DELTA popped in and I found I could hold a conversation reasonably well, but again it was just lipreading with a sprinkling of beeps. I must admit this is more tiring than I thought it would be - I had gone up to level 3 by about 5pm - getting greedy! but typing this with background noise of people talking and Rhubarb letting off the occasional INTRUDER ALERT!! bark is actually quite tiring and starting to get on my nerves a bit. So I have gone back down to level 2 to see if it's any easier. There you go, not all sunshine and rainbows! 

Off to cook a steak and chips, boom boom. 

fetching new headgear

Love,
Cyborg
xx














P.S. Here is my switch-on video as promised, captioned by wonderful film-maker and husband. Not sure where the captions have gone on the embedded video below - if you need captions, open it in YouTube and select the cc option: