Facebook post and report on today's evaluation.
Hearing Update:
I don’t have much to report from today’s CI evaluation. I still qualify for an implant on the left side, which has slightly worsened since my last evaluation. I was certain that my right ear had gotten worse, too, but today’s tests proved that it’s actually made a small amount of improvement. I was quite surprised by that.
Tomorrow I’ll contact the surgeon’s office for an appointment and to get a place in the line-up. There will be quite a lot of paperwork and some preliminary tests, of course.
This is a “scare-citing” adventure for me - quite a bit scary and quite a bit exciting. I’m not afraid of what’s ahead; I’m anxious, as we used to say, to “get the show on the road!”
Don’t be surprised if you see a few solo piano videos from me in the next few weeks. After the surgery, it may be quite a long while before Music is my friend again and I want to share some music here while I still can.
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I thought my appointment was going to be with Dr. Sarah Cain, but it was with Dr. Jerad Battles. He’s a super-nice guy and we both liked him a lot. His voice is in a near-perfect range and I didn’t have any trouble understanding him. After the tests confirmed my eligibility, he covered all the bases and walked me through the ‘What to Expect’ routine.
He told me that there were certain areas in the high frequencies that, when I was unable to hear the tones, he increased the volume in some cases as high as it could go and I was still unable to hear the tones. I told him about my experience at the piano, essentially unable to hear to top octave of the keyboard, and that one of the people who tested me at Hearing Life in Norman (maybe two years ago) told me, after learning I was a life-long pianist, “Well, you hear fairly well up to about Middle C.”
It’s unclear at this point who my CI audiologist will be. Dr. Cain now has two babies at home and is part-time at Hearts for Hearing and he was unsure if her case load is such that she can take on another patient. I explained to him how I had come across her name (he’d already read about it, as a copy of my paper is in my file) and the importance that music – and the ability to make music – has in my life. He told me there is at least one other audiologist on the CI staff who is a musician (though that doesn’t necessarily mean that they will have any expertise in mapping the device, called a ‘processor,’ for music listening and performance. Time will tell, I guess; I’m not going to worry about that).
He also said that it’s not unusual for some people to have a small amount of residual hearing in their implanted ear, but that it was unlikely that I would have any, or perhaps a minuscule amount, not sufficient to provide any viable support for natural hearing. That doesn’t surprise me; I have said for a long time that the primary function of my left ear is to keep my glasses on my head!
I’ll have to return to H4H soon to complete some paperwork and undergo some additional testing, including some cognition tests that I remember doing when I had the first evaluation just about a year ago. Today’s test results have already been faxed to Dr. Berryhill’s office in Norman. I will go down there after lunch tomorrow and speak with the receptionist, with two objectives in mind: (1) make an appointment for the initial assessment with Dr. Berryhill; and (2) get my name in the ‘surgery line-up’ (for lack of a better term).
I asked Dr. Battles how long it may take after the first meeting with Dr. Berryhill before the surgery would happen. Of course, he can’t be very precise about it, as he isn’t privy to information about Berryhill’s schedules at his clinics (in Edmond and Norman). He said that he expects it could be as much as a couple of months. My sharp mind quickly moved from August 1st (tomorrow) to October 1st (two months from now), so I suppose I’ll have the device in my head sometime around fall break, perhaps earlier, or maybe by Halloween. That’s cool, actually, because I was hoping that I could have it done ahead of Thanksgiving and Christmas.
There will be a period of time, perhaps as long as four weeks, for the incision to fully heal, at which point ‘Activation Day’ will be scheduled. I don’t believe that will be a lengthy appointment, but more like an initial assessment of how well (or how poorly) I am able to understand ‘speech in quiet’ – that is to say, in the confines of the audiologist’s office. He said there is typically an appointment made for the following day, then another in about a week, and another at the end of the fourth week – so four appointments in the first month. The fifth appointment is usually at the three-month mark, with another at six months, and another at the first anniversary of activation, so seven appointments in the first year. After that, the schedule can be every six months to as much as a year, whatever is appropriate.
H4H has added a new on-site therapy/rehab program for adult patients, which I am glad to know. I had already added that as one question on my list of questions to ask. I’ve also thought of asking my friend Larry Hillis, retired speech and drama instructor and a former colleague (and a neighbor five doors down the street from us), if I could hire him to be my speech therapist for a few weeks or months, helping me with my audio rehab exercises. Perhaps I can find a local support group of other CI recipients.
I told Dr. Battles of the research I’ve done about the whole process and of comparing the ‘big three’ CI manufacturers and models – Cochlear, Advanced Bionics, and Med-El – and that I’ve pretty much landed on the Cochlear™ Nucleus 8 processor. He beamed when I said that; he told me it was the one he was going to recommend. I know that my Phonak hearing aids are not compatible with the Cochlear™ CI and expressed my concern about it, knowing that digital compatibility allows electronic communication between the CI and the hearing aid in the other ear. Much to my relief, he said that initially it’s not a huge concern and that I probably shouldn’t buy a new compatible hearing aid right away.
I mentioned to him that I planned to donate my two sets of hearing aids to the program they have to provide HAs at low cost to people who cannot afford them. He suggested that I donate my older pair, but keep the current ones. They can be programmed to either ear, so I should use one and keep the other one for a back-up if/when one is needed. That makes a whole lot of sense. He suggested that I probably won't have much of a problem with understanding speech using my current hearing aid, but the compatible HA would be more advantageous when talking on the phone. It's too soon to tell how that will all play out, but at least I'm comfortable with the idea of holding on to my current hearing aids instead of buying a new one for my right ear.
