The cochlear implant continues to be more of a distraction than anything. Some sounds are becoming clearer and more like what they should be, but most things still sound the same, and everything is too loud. If I block my other ear and someone talks, I can recognize it as speech and pick out a word or phrase here and there. But overall, between the distraction of the weird sounds from the implant and the new hearing loss on the other side, understanding others takes a significant amount of mental effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This initial mapping (that’s what they call programming the implant) contains five programs, each progressively louder. I’m on the first one and I’m supposed to progress through them as things start sounding more normal. So far that hasn’t happened: even on program one, everything is way too loud. I am supposed be at program 5 by my next mapping appointment, which is in 2 weeks. I have no idea if I’ll get there or not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, I’ve been doing hyperbaric oxygen treatments for the sudden hearing loss in the non-implanted ear. So far I haven’t noticed any change, but it’s only been 3 days so far. Still no word on whether the insurance will cover it (they’re still working on appealing the initial denial), but I’ve decided that if I have to pay out-of-pocket, I will — if I don’t exhaust every possible treatment option, I will always wonder if there was something else I could have done. But it’s also a huge time suck: two hours a day plus travel time to get there and back, in addition to working a full day. They told me to come in on the weekend as well — normally they aren’t open then, but they really seem to think this will help me and they’re making an exception for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
My husband once commented that I’m one of the most resilient people he knows, and I’m coming to realize more and more that he’s right. I have had my moments of despair during all this, but now that the initial shock is over, I realize that I will get through it. For the moment I’m focused on learning to hear with the implant and getting treatment for the new hearing loss in the other ear, but whatever happens, I will deal with it. Living with a hearing impairment is hard, no question. But I will get through this, and one way or the other I’ll learn to live with it if I have to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The cochlear implant continues to be more of a distraction than anything. Some sounds are becoming clearer and more like what they should be, but most things still sound the same, and everything is too loud. If I block my other ear and someone talks, I can recognize it as speech and pick out a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-97","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=97"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/97\/revisions\/98"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=97"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=97"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=97"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}