The Cochlear Implant Journey 2017

It's officially the last day of 2017. What a year it has been.

On the 14th November 2016 I went for surgery for a Cochlear Implant. On the 16th February 2017 I was activated and became a Unilateral Cochlear Implant user. It was a really hard few months I have to be honest and it wasn't until 3 months later that speech actually made sense. Everyone has their own journey to take when undergoing Cochlear Implantation, for some it may be instant (this generally tends to be adults who had hearing beforehand), yet for others take months or even years.

One thing I found that really helped me when I was struggling was NOT to look at social media. NOT to google how long it takes to hear again because you will come across success stories that make you feel stupid. You must remember, everyone is individual, our brains are individual and we do not have remote controls to adjust our understanding of sound. That is what it comes down to at the end of the day, your own interpretation of the sound and how your brain makes sense of that. There is no right or wrong, there is only you, your Cochlear Implant and you.

 It takes a lot of work. It isn't easy. There aren't any shortcuts either (trust me, I looked). But I can tell you 100% that it is worth it.

 In August 2017 I became Bimodal, wearing a hearing aid in the left ear and a speech processor (the external part of the Cochlear Implant) on the right. This was another journey which also required more work. Some have told me it was easy, put it on and go, others have said they hate it and refuse to wear the hearing aid, finding they get by with just one speech processor. I let it all get to me. I wasn't clever enough or fast enough. But does it really matter how fast or slow you are? All that really matters that you reach your final destination. I have to say though, I don't believe there really is a final destination with Cochlear Implants. What exactly are you aiming for? To hear like a hearing person? Then you're looking in the wrong place.  However, if you're looking for a chance to access sound and speech then you're in the right zone.

On the 31st December, I am sat here reflecting on the year of my Cochlear Implant. I went for a run this morning and I ran past a gentleman who kept a steady pace throughout. It took me a few kilometers to realise he was keeping up with me. I wondered how I did not know this, surely I would be able to hear his footsteps or his breathing. I concentrated, listening hard and I could hear something. I couldn't tell you exactly what it was, whether it was his breathing, the paper number cards pinned to his t-shirt rustling in the wind or perhaps it was neither, perhaps it was a bird. The point is that 10 months later I'm still learning more everyday. I don't aspire to be a hearing person, that would be silly but I do aspire to hear things that enhance my life. I went to see the Phantom of the Opera a few weeks ago and I could hear the different parts of the music, I could pick out that someone was singing. The first few seconds of the play I could even tell what the actors were saying without having to read the captions because it was a familiar context and situation.

Predictably is half of listening (maybe more, maybe less, I'm not sure on the specific percentage) but this is still something I get caught up on. I hear, or at least I think I hear the main point, some other parts of the sentence, whack them all together, think of an appropriate response and hey presto I sounded really intelligent there. I've got it wrong. I still get it wrong. But hearing people do just the same. Listening all the time is hard work. Even hearing people get tired (shock horror) and I think sometimes deaf people forget that. I know I do. Perhaps that should be a new years resolution for me, to consider hearing people more.

I will end this blog with my top three reasons of why I do not aspire to be a hearing person and I'm sure some of you will agree with me on some of these points...

1. I get to sleep in complete silence. Those poor hearing people that are kept awake by every little noise or snoring...
2. There would be no funny misheard quotes. My brother asked me what I thought he would be best at: tiddly winks, farming or vegetable throwing. I of course immediately responded with vegetable throwing but it turns out he said vegetable growing..
3. Being hearing would mean I would not have met any of the amazing deaf people that I know. Your abilities continue to astound and amaze me everyday. You are all amazing.


Have a wonderful night tonight, enjoy the last day of 2017 and I hope 2018 brings you everything you want. If you are on the route to a Cochlear Implant then hang in there, it'll be worth it. I hope my journey has helped inspire you or at the very least reassured you that you are not alone.

As for me, I'm on the list for a hearing dog and I've got my fingers and toes crossed that my 2018 will be the year of the dog.

A muffled world, my week with one hearing aid: By Eleanor

 This week has been particularly tough. Not in the usual format of being on placement, assignment work etc. (its half-term whoo) but in the fact that one of my ear moulds has been causing me a lot of pain recently, constantly rubbing to make sores in my left ear.


 It has got to the point where I am coming home and taking it straight off. As a person that has grown up dependant on these machines to communicate it has been strange.


 Today I had to go to the UEA to do a 'viva voce' to pass the remaining assignment. I worried about attending with just the use of one hearing aid, knowing that it is really quite disorientating and that I can only realistically listen to one person at a time who is facing me. I considered wearing my hearing aid just to avoid any issues. But then I started to wonder, how would they cope if I did lose my hearing further, if I couldn't rely on my hearing aids any longer, and more to the point, how would I cope?... so I went without.

 But actually, I didn't need to worry. I explained to my tutor and she actually made a point of swapping positions to be sat on my 'better side'. She spoke clearly, not treating me like an idiot (you know the 'caaaan yoooooou heeeeaaaarrrr meeeeee?' version). She said if the other person in the room would ask me anything then she would indicate this was so, knowing that they were sat on my 'deaf side'. It really made me feel more secure and safer, not just in those 30 minutes but for the rest of my day. I spend the day with Imz (one of my best friends) and although we were in the busy city centre, I wasn't distracted by anything (mostly because I couldn't hear much of anything) but I could focus, I could listen, I could lip-read, I could speak, I could communicate. I'm not saying that if were was more than one friend, that I would have been able to cope but I really surprised myself.

The ones that matter don't mind and the ones that mind don't matter.

 On my way home Imz had left one of my old favourites in the CD player, with just one hearing aid in, I cranked up the sound to the max and belted out the lyrics, feeling the vibrations through the floor and reciting those lyrics from those thousands of times we practised when we were young. It made me smile, so much. Thank you (Imz, I love you :) ).


 In some ways it has made me so appreciative of the life that my mum and dad brought me up in, they encouraged me to speak rather than sign. This has made me really good at adapting to situations, by lip-reading and fitting in the missing bits (it often still goes wrong when I don't know the context!), and quite probably TOO good because some assume that I can talk so I can hear leading to another world of pain and communication breakdowns.
Sometimes I wish my signing was as fluent as my speaking, however it has enabled a bigger, accessible world, ensuring that I can associate with hearing people. This world is predominately a hearing world, and always will be.


It is estimated that 1 in 1000 people are deaf. This means that there are ALOT more hearing people, speaking, talking, chatting with their backs turned, talking from another room, mumbling down the phones, whispering secrets, singing along to lyrics, sharing stories, every minute of every day of every week of every year. A life with working ears, taken for granted, hearing and absorbing. Of course I can understand not knowing, not seeing and not understanding a world with broken ears.


  Sure, I still get frustrated at the lack of deaf awareness but quite often it is fixable with knowledge and communication. I want to fight for equal access, be it in the form of subtitles in cinemas, on TV, on the train, for any and all announcements. I want to fight for sign language to be a GCSE option, I want to fight for all companies to have and to use access to emails and live online chats rather than phone calls. I want to fight to enable that no deaf child feels they don't know which world they belong in. But I (and probably many other deaf people) have heard the same things, reached the same brick walls, same boundaries time and time again.


My energy falls, my enthusiasm and motivation to continue the fight often waivers. I celebrate at LoveFilm finally agreeing to subtitle more contents, but the fight goes on, directed for Sky next. I celebrate at getting my local cinema to show subtitled screenings once a month, but I despair at no-one using them.

 One day it will all be gone, and people will moan, but they didn't use it when it was there. These changes will be those failed movements of time that no-one opened their eyes or closed their ears to see.