Officially Approved!

So today was my appointment at UC Irvine with the Audiologist for my CI evaluation. UCI is 3 hours away, so each appt will be an all-day event! It was raining, foggy and just generally yuck the whole way there and back but God had his hand on us :) First she did a pure tone test with my hearing aid in. Came in and checked my hearing aid with a modified stethoscope, changed the battery, then did the test again. Then she did a test I've never had done. She put a sensor thing in my ear. It had a cord running from there to a hand-held device I held. It tested something and gave me a 2.0 for my left ear and a 4.0 for my right ear. Whatever that means, she didn't tell me lol. It wasn't the ear drum pressure test, my ENT requested she skip that due to my ear drum repair less than 2 weeks ago. Then she did a speech test with my hearing aid in. These were pre-recorded sentences. I didn't hear any of the words let alone understand them. She came back in the booth after a few minutes to confirm I wasn't hearing anything and my response was "I didn't know you had started." Ha! She finished the test and then had me do a pure-tone test without my hearing aid, and then a bone conduction test. Finally she took me out and did a live speech test with my aid in. She asked me questions with her mouth covered, waited for a response, and then asked again with her mouth un-covered. This was with her less than 2 feet away from me. I got no words correct with her mouth covered. I got "eggs" but it was actually "legs." I also got the vowels out of two words (oo and ay). I got all of the questions with her mouth un-covered since I'm a speech-reading Ninja like that lol! Then we were done with the testing! She informed me that I was a great candidate! She complimented my coping skills and said they will be of great benefit to me during the 3-6 weeks between surgery and activation, and also in learning to hear with the CI in general. She went through the process prior to surgery, risks of the surgery, expectations following activation, follow-ups for re-mapping (changing the program on the CI as my brain learns), etc. She indicated that my right ear will be implanted, as my left ear has been "dead" for 16 years now and has never been aided. She made us an appointment with the surgeon for February 7. He will take a look at my MRI and CT. The Audi doesn't think there are any repair options for my ears, but he will confirm or deny that at the appt. In lieu of repair surgery, we will proceed with the CI! She told us it is usually one month from insurance approval for surgery to happen. Regardless I have to wait until Spring break or Summer break so I don't miss too much school! She gave me an information packet on Med-El (I already have packets from Cochlear and Advanced Bionics) so that I can start thinking about which CI company I want to go with. I'll have an appt with her to go over it all before deciding. As of now I'm leaning towards AB. I don't know if my insurance has any restrictions on the companies, so we'll have to see about that as well. From everything I've read you get to decide which one you want barring any physical defects of the cochlea that would require you to go with a certain company's electrode. I'll make a post soon comparing the 3 companies' implants and processors. As we checked out she let me know I would need a Meningitis vaccine prior to surgery and that the surgeon would give me the order for it. This is because there's an increased risk of Bacterial Menengitis following the CI surgery.

We were very happy with our experience at UCI! A gazillion times better than at the last clinic! We love the Audiologist, she is so awesome! I'll have a minimum of 6 appt's with her in the next year and a half, so that's important! Now we just wait until our appt with the surgeon!

Feeling incredibly blessed today!

We made it!

 Cool pic of the LA mountains on the way home.

Here we go!

So, I'm new to the blogging world. But as I've searched for blogs about others' CI (Cochlear Implant) journeys, I've realized I would love to create my own. For myself; to catalog my journey, and for others; to help them should they embark on this journey some day.

Some background: I was born hearing. I lived in an abusive home and suffered Traumatic Deafness at 8 years old due to a head injury. At 10 years old, surgery was performed to repair the ossicles (ear bones). This returned to me some hearing in my right ear. This remained stable for many years. At 22, I received my first pair of hearing aids. They opened up a world of communication, which had always been difficult for me. In the last year, however, my hearing has declined greatly. I am now Deaf again. I received a much more powerful hearing aid at the beginning of this summer, which helped me cope with this decline. In the last couple of months, however, I have noticed more decline. I have not been back to the Audiologist to see exactly how much, but it is on my To-Do list. In the Spring of 2012, I had begun pursuing a Cochlear Implant. We made an appointment at a highly-regarded clinic in Los Angeles. At my first appointment, they chose to do another Audiogram. This Audiogram came back saying I could hear twice as well as I could. Impossible seeing as my hearing aid, set at an astounding 120dB, would have caused me great pain if my loss was what they determined it to be. To sort out this confusion, they scheduled me for an ABR test (Auditory Brainstem Response). This test requires no response from me, my brain tells them what I hear on its own. I later found out they ordered this test to prove I was faking being deaf. So, we returned for the test, and the results showed I didn't hear a thing. Still convinced I was a faker, they scheduled me to come back and take the same test again. Um, nope! My Mom and I decided on the way home that we were through with them. We did some more research and scheduled an appointment elsewhere. Before the appointment, however, I decided that I wanted to postpone getting a CI for a couple of years, so that I would not be deterred from becoming fluent in ASL. That was many months ago. I have very recently changed my mind. My brother, sister, brother-in-law, and my brother's long-time girlfriend, live out-of-state and are visiting for Christmas. This is the first time I've seen them since my hearing took its dive back in June, as well as again in November. This time has made me realize just how much I'm missing. I cannot hold a conversation that is more than one-on-one or one-on-two. This leaves me missing out on a lot of conversations, as well as being perpetually lost. Outside of my family, I have stopped attending my bible study due to the great difficulty of communicating. I have switched to attending the Deaf Church within my home church because I simply couldn't hear anymore. I'm still lost in Deaf Church as I do not yet know enough ASL to fully understand, nor can I hear the Interpreter. In the future, I want to be a Foster Parent, as well as run a home Preschool. These things will be greatly difficult without the ability to communicate effectively (I can lipread but not without at least some auditory cues). This has left me at the conclusion that I need to continue my pursuit for a CI. I want to stay connected to the hearing world, while also continuing to connect with the Deaf world. As I was born hearing, I fight between wanting to be completely deaf and immersed in the Deaf community and wanting to he completely hearing so as not to feel disconnected from the majority of the people in my life. I have finally decided that I can have both. I can connect with the hearing world through a CI, and simply remove it whenever I feel like not hearing anymore (I put my hearing aid on Mute quite frequently).

So, here I stand. At the beginning of this journey yet again. We will not be scheduling surgery until the Summer due to the recovery time, and will be using this semester to get through all of the testing and evaluations. I will keep this blog updated as things progress!