My Hearing Rehab Story

My story from a few weeks back was about my decision to get a cochlear implant hearing device for my left ear.  This story is about CI surgery and rehab.  Writing it has helped to motivate me through the challenging rehab process, and I hope it is helpful to family, friends, and others considering a CI.

I have severe to profound hearing loss in my left ear and can no longer hear much at all in my left ear with a hearing aid so I qualified for a CI at the Veterans Administration Hospital at Long Beach.   A CI uses two primary parts. One part is surgically implanted into the inner ear and acts as a type of receiver and stimulator, sending electrical “sound” signals to the inner ear hearing nerve via implanted electrodes.  These signals stimulate the hearing nerve that sends the impulses to the brain where the electrical impulses are perceived as sounds.

The second part of a CI is worn outside behind the ear. It contains a microphone and receiver, an antenna, and a speech processor.

The transmitter and receiver both contain magnets that attract to each other to stay aligned and keep the two communicating across the intact scalp.

I had CI surgery on February 2, 2023, at the Long Beach VA Hospital.  It was a fairly routine outpatient surgery, lasted about an hour, and was performed under general anesthesia.  The surgeon made a small incision behind my left ear, placed the receiver implant under the skin, and then inserted the electrodes into my inner ear auditory nerve.  I woke up a short time later in recovery with a very sore jaw and couldn’t open my jaw very wide for a week or so.  They put a cone-like cover over my ear.  My wife met me outside the recovery room and drove me home where I took a pain pill for the sore jaw.  For the next two weeks, I had periodic dizziness, jaw pain, and some nose blood, and slept a lot.  Then came two more weeks of waiting for the surgery to heal until the VA audiologist activated or turned on my left ear.  I have no residual hearing now in my left ear.

Me post CI surgery 

Finally, on March 5, 2023, I visited the VA audiologist and he activated or turned on my CI.  That is, he connected my external sound processor behind my left ear, switching it on.  When he first spoke the sound processor captured the sound signals and sent them to the receiver implanted under the skin behind my ear.  The receiver sent the electronic signals via implanted electrodes to my inner ear hearing nerve, which then directed the signals to my brain.  

My brain interpreted these signals as intermittent, robotic, tinny sounding static.  It was very different from natural hearing and I knew it would take months of practice, patience, and persistence for the auditory nerve and brain to process the electronic signals it was receiving and transmit them as meaningful speech.  One thing I noticed immediately is how loud I was speaking (as I likely did when I wore hearing aids) and now I find myself slowly starting to talk softer.  My voice also sounded like I was in a deep well.

As my appointment came to an end, I received a huge backpack filled with boxes of CI external electronic equipment and accessories, such as processors, a processor remote control, batteries, battery chargers, a TV streamer with cables, a small microphone, and lots of plastic packages.  All this equipment is to enhance my hearing function and is overwhelming.  I have spent frustrating hours trying to call the company tech help and my son to figure out how to use it.

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Me at CI activation

How to explain the rehab process?  I have been going through it for six weeks now and my progress toward a goal of being able to hear words clearly through my CI is slow and frustrating.  My brain was very confused in the beginning as it had never heard of using this kind of technology before and it had to learn how to use it.  And unlike hearing aids, getting a CI is not an instant hearing result.  On a scale of one being deaf and ten being perfect hearing, I began at two.  

My initial hearing rehab began at 1-2 hours a day about a week after activation as I needed to train my brain to use this new way of hearing and figure out the electrical equipment.  About an hour a day, I would listen through a Bluetooth iPhone connection to an audiobook and read along with the hard copy.  Each day my wife would read our daily devotional as I read along.  I also watched closed-caption TV.  Gradually, I began to associate the tinny static sound I was hearing with a word or phrase from my memory of those sounds.  The frustration was that the clarity came initially at an agonizingly slow pace and was intermittent.  But I persisted and practiced each day.

At week four I went to see the audiologist for mapping or adjustments to the equipment.  I went into a hearing booth for a CI hearing frequency test and listened to soft sounds, pushing a button when I heard anything.  He compared the results with my pre-CI frequency test audiogram and said my CI ear had improved at the top level he had seen at my post-activation stage.  He adjusted the processor so it sounded a little better.  I’m pretty sure I couldn’t stop smiling.   Actually, I’m not sure I’ve stopped yet.  

In the past few days, I have started doing the rehab with my CI processor on and no hearing aid in the other ear.  By removing my hearing aid, I am forcing my brain to use my CI.  My goal is to be able to go the entire day with only the CI processor on and no hearing aid.

So how long will it take for me to understand speech clearly with my CI alone?  Each person is different but my goal is six months based on other CI recipient experiences.  What I am finding are small plateau improvements.  I hear with only the CI the sound of the wind, and understand many of the daily devotional words, and some TV dialogue without looking at the words or closed captions.  

I still have difficulty understanding telephone conversations, conversations with background noise and conversations in restaurants.  Music is the most difficult for me to hear- both melody and lyrics.  My hope, listening to stories of past CI recipients, is to hear so much better speech and music in these environments.   My admonition to those who decide to get a CI is to adopt a positive mental attitude that you will have success as long as you pursue rehab with patience, practice, and persistence.  To me, I want to improve the quality of my life, interact with my family and granddaughter in group outings, enjoy OLLI and socialize in general.