@Deaf_piper shared a cochlear implant article that’s here on Hearing Tracker. It’s a great source of information about CI.
At the top of the page go to home
Then learn. The hearing solutions. There you will find Cochlear Implants.
It’s a well written article that answers most questions about CI from the beginning to the end.
I had some residual hearing. Then about 4 months after surgery, it abruptly disappeared. No idea why. It just happened along with an acute change in impedance.
Sheryl, I think you said that you will never have a second CI. Is that because you are happy with the bimodal system you are using now? Thanks.
@ibawaya The reason I’m still bimodal is my surgeon doesn’t recommend doing my other ear. As it is congenital loss of high frequency. He doesn’t think I’ll get a reasonable result because it now over 7 decades, ive not heard high frequencies for. I’ve tossed around going bilateral, and I’m still tossing it around. For the time being I’ll remain bimodal.
@bcarp yes mine did the same after 15 months. I wish I knew why it happens, but no one can explain it.
Seattleite here. Which surgeon will you be seeing in Seattle please?
My surgeon was Chad Ruffin, MD, in Seattle. I had surgery on July 1. His website is very helpful: https://www.chadruffinmd.com/
I am trying to set up my education plan, and I want to use audiobooks from my library. Is there a company that offers audiobooks with text? If not, how do you see the text?
I asked the reference librarian what books they had that were available in both audio book and in book form. I also explained what I wanted to do and why. She gave me a short list to start with and I read the book as I listened to the audiobook.
It went pretty well except that I’m a fast reader, and I kept getting out of sync with the book, I had to slow myself way down.
I listen to stuff while reading, and find the playing it at double speed works pretty well. It doesn’t sound mickey-moused, it just goes fast.
WH
I went to my local library, downloaded their audiobook app. And got all my audiobooks from the library free of charge.
I waited until after my activation, I didn’t need books to read along with. I could discern words on activation day. My word comprehension improved dramatically after my first mapping. So I just streamed books for hours, I didn’t read along. When I wasn’t streaming books I had the radio on, listening to either podcasts or music.
Music appreciation is a very tough gig. You need to train your brain to appreciate music again. It’s not an easy thing to do. Some don’t ever get to appreciate music again, most are able to appreciate music.
I was completely the opposite. It took about a week of live speech training before I even started to understand some words. Music is still incomprehensible 3 years later despite different methods of training, so I’ve given up. I only play music now with an in-ear monitor in my remaining good ear.
Something that has helped me with music if pick a song I remember and love. Listen to it often. For me it took a few months but that song got very real and close to what I remembered.
Since then I have learned certain types of music I can hear and enjoy while others are gibberish. I do stream most music when listening. Some live music is not too bad while others are terrible.
Ole music I enjoyed in the past is best because I remember it.
Thank you for the suggestion! I’ll see if our library can help me with that! I am a fast reader also, so I may need to slow things down also. I am thinking that reading and listening might help my brain understand words.
Don’t forget to watch tv with subtitles on! Some people like to listen to TED Talks with the subtitles on, too.
Yes, I plan to watch tv with captions!
@ibawaya, if you want to read along while listening to audio books and happen to be an iPhone user (not sure if I missed this earlier in the thread) you can enable Live Captions under Accessibility in the Settings menu. the iPhone will pretty much transcribe any audio that is being played including audiobooks (in my experience using the Libby app and others as well).
Below is a screenshot of the menu settings…
Not sure if Android has similar… Hope that helps.
Thanks for the response! It’s a good solution. I don’t really like reading on a tiny screen though, so for now I’ll read a book and listen to the audiobook.
Have you been activated? How are things??
Thanks for asking! I was activated on Monday July 15. I could understand what the audiologist was saying, so I guess that’s good. When I got home I could hear my husband’s voice and I could tell it was his voice. The sound was not exactly robotic, but there was an undertone like a pipe. Since then I have heard some robotic voices. The audiologist set the sound so low that I can’t hear much now, and I see her on July 25, so that’s 10 days without hearing much. I think she wants to start slow, letting me get used to the CI. I was anxious to start training the CI but I can’t use any games or training tools because I can’t hear them. I am watching tv with captions and listening to music, and I have printed books on hold at the library along with the audiobooks, so I’ll try that today.
