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Black is the new… black

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2 black speech processors on a black background

Peer closely and you will see my new Sonnet speech processors.

After seven and a half years with bilateral cochlear implants, I have finally upgraded my original speech processors. I am now the proud new owner of two sexy matte black Sonnets, by Med-El.

Black, it would appear, is the new black.

It is remarkable, really, that the previous pair lasted as long as they did. It’s true I took very good care of them (at A$12,500 each, it was no doubt wise to do so) but it’s also true the plastic was getting brittle and they were literally falling apart.

Still, they had a pretty good innings. They didn’t even die while we were living in our mouldy rainforest home! And thank heavens for that, as I didn’t have access to an audiologist who dealt with cochlear implants up in Far North Queensland.

My health fund unfortunately didn’t automatically agree to pay for the upgrade. (Apparently only Medibank Private does, and HBF doesn’t cover them at all. The other funds appear to vary in the degree of difficulty of approval.) There were a few hoops to jump through and the process took about 7 months altogether. I can’t pretend I didn’t feel I was bashing my head against a brick wall for much of that time but really, I’m just grateful that the day finally arrived when I received an email from the Lions Hearing Clinic telling me the money was in their bank account. I could now come in and be fitted with the sparkly new speech processors that had been ordered and delivered months beforehand.

When I walked into my audiologist’s room, she had already started to unpack one of the boxes containing the speech processors and accessories, and had ripped open some of the small boxes containing the accessories too. I felt like a disappointed child, not allowed to unwrap my own presents! So when it was time to open the box for the second speech processor, I stopped her before she got stuck into it, and snapped a photo while it was still sitting on her lap.

Shallow rectangular cardboard box containing an number of smaller boxes with Med-El branding

Brand spanking new cardboard boxes, er, I mean, speech processors.

It’s a far cry from the fancy aluminium cases my first two came in! But that was, admittedly, pretty wasteful. This is too, really, in a different way, and has much more packaging overall from what I can remember. (I do still have those old cases — they are far too good to throw out — but wouldn’t know where to find them.)

On this visit, my audiologist mainly copied over the settings from the old speech processors to the new ones, which didn’t take long at all. I have a follow-up appointment booked in early March for any fine tuning that might be needed after I’ve used them “in the wild” for a few weeks.

The most amazing thing

I’ve found by now that there are indeed a couple of annoyances, and will see if those can be eliminated at the follow-up visit. The main benefit, however, has been an absolutely remarkable one to me. The Sonnets are far more moisture-resistant than the Opus 2s, which makes a very practical and quite astounding difference to the quality of my life.

It might seem a small thing on the surface, and of course I realise it’s minor in the scheme of things, but I don’t actually remember the last time I was able to hear while taking a shower, or directly after washing my hair.

You see, when my speech processors are out, I am totally deaf. I have zero hearing. Not even the faintest sounds — just total silence. So, in the past, I would take off my speech processors (or, before that, hearing aids) to shower, then put them on again afterwards. If I washed my hair, I had to either blow-dry my hair straight away so I could put my “ears” back on again, or be totally without hearing for the hours it takes my thick, below-shoulder length hair to dry.

Likewise, at the beach, I’d take my “ears” off and, most times, keep my head above water so as to avoid getting my hair wet. Wet hair means no hearing until it’s dry again, which in turn means I am not only in silence while actually in the water, but also while packing up and walking back to the car, then during the car journey home, in the shower once home, and until my hair had been blow-dried and I could put my “ears” back on again.

I’m sure you can appreciate that not being able to communicate for significant chunks of time is somewhat less than ideal.

When out diving, I’d have to bring a hair dryer if I wanted to be able to hear at all between or after dives. I was on the receiving end of some strange looks and incredulous comments, I can tell you!

It was inconvenient, but that’s how it was and for more years than I can count, I lived with it. As you do, when there’s no other option.

Now, I can wear my speech processors in the shower and in the water at the beach, as long as I don’t get my head wet. If I do, well, I still have to take the speech processors off, but the difference is that a quick towel dry later, I can pop them back on again. I haven’t been diving since the upgrade, but the same thing will apply — a quick towel dry and I’ll be able to hear. No more worrying about whether or not a boat will have power for a hairdryer, and no more feeling quite so like a freak.

Being deaf is extremely isolating. This seemingly little thing is actually huge to me.

As a bonus, when I let my hair dry naturally it’s curlier, more bouncy, and feels softer and just generally more pleasant. It still feels like a real luxury to be able to do this again.

Still waiting…

The Sonnets actually have reusable covers that are waterproof, but for some reason they’re not yet available in Australia, even though they appear to be elsewhere. I’m looking forward to them becoming available here, as then I could actually go swimming wearing the speech processors. That would be amazing. It’s hard to imagine being able to put my head underwater, come up again and be able to hear if someone spoke to me.

Nope. Can’t imagine it.

Another feature that hearing aids and other cochlear implants have had since I got my original speech processors is bluetooth capability. The Sonnets do have it built in, but for some reason beyond my comprehension the facility for this is also not available in Australia yet. This means that I have to physically change the battery covers and plug cables in to connect my speech processors to a computer or device if I want to listen to music, or a podcast, or anything else with audio. This is not exactly convenient, especially as when I’m “plugged in” I can’t hear other sounds, so if someone speaks to me it is not a matter of simply hitting “pause” — I have to change the battery covers back again first.

Rechargeable batteries are yet another accessory that is available elsewhere but not here. It’s good that the Sonnet takes only two batteries instead of the three my previous speech processors took — and they last just as long before they need to be changed. Still, they require replacing every two days, and even though I’ve now reduced battery usage from six every two days down to four, it does gets expensive and means a lot of poisonous waste in the environment that has to somehow be dealt with.

Catching up

A bonus of my new Sonnet speech processors is the Dry-Star electronic drying station that came in the box. Each night, the speech processors must be given the opportunity to dry out to prolong their life. If we’d still been in our rainforest on solar power I might think differently about the power usage but, as it is, it’s much more effective than before. Instead of a little screw-top plastic container with disposable silicon-filled tablets, I have this.

The drying station is a white plastic container with small vent holes in the top that light up blue, and a glowing blue button at the front

Dry-Star UV electronic drying station.

I believe that in later years the Opus 2 processors have come with an electronic drying device, but “back in my day” it was just the small plastic tub I’ve had all these years.

I do like getting new toys!

So there we have it — and hopefully my new, sexy black Sonnets will be as good to me as my original speech processors have been.

Taking cochlear implants to the depths

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I know, I know, I’ve done it again. It’s two years, almost to the day, since I last wrote. Argh. I started this post a year ago… wow, what a lot has happened since then, but for now I’ll just get this post out of the way. :-)

General CI update

First of all, my cochlear implants have been going pretty well. I had a software upgrade early last year which, in general, made sounds clearer, and also improved my music experience. Yay! I shouldn’t have waited so long before going back to the audiologist. I do have issues with pain on some of the electrodes which tends to mean that, with each visit, these electrodes have the volume turned further down, which is psychologically unpleasant but isn’t noticeably detrimental to my hearing experience.

Scuba diving!

Me waving underwater

Me, the scuba diver

Ears aside, in my mind one of the really positive things that happened last year is that I learned to scuba dive. I did my Open Water Diver (OWD) course in May, 2011. Diving is something that has held an attraction for me since at least high school, however there has always been something else more important to spend my money on. Finally, however, at the ripe old age of cough, cough, I bit the bullet.

I started the process by dropping in at Perth Diving Academy in Balcatta, about a 3-minute drive from my place. I spent quite some time talking to the folks there, and they could not have been more helpful. I was so impressed with the service that I wasn’t even interested in looking at other dive shops.

The Dive Medical

As a pre-requisite to the OWD course, everyone must undertake a dive medical, to be carried out according to Australian standards. Even with cochlear implants, I didn’t expect this to be an issue. I’d contacted the Med-El representative in Australia, who told me that my particular implants have been tested to 50 metres depth, which is deeper than I anticipate I’ll ever want to go. So I turned up for my dive medical feeling quietly confident.

The first thing the nurse wanted to do was put me in a hearing booth for a hearing test. I laughed wryly. “Good luck with that,” I said. When all was explained to her, she said, “Oh. I haven’t come across this before. I’d better talk to the doctor.” She disappeared for a bit then said the doctor wanted to see me before she went any further, so I had to wait a while longer for the doctor to become free.

The doctor eventually told me that he hasn’t come across a wannabe diver with cochlear implants in his 30 years of doing dive medicals. It seems I was his guinea pig, but I was happy to be one in this instance. He’d contacted an audiologist who sometimes worked there about it, and was awaiting her call back. Lo and behold, it was my beloved Roberta, who had been with me since my CI (Cochlear Implant) assessment, through switch-on and beyond. She’d left the Lions Hearing Clinic to go into private practice a year earlier. She called within minutes and I got to talk to her (evil woman — she may have guessed how much the phone would stress me! ;-) ) and it was all very wonderful.

However, she didn’t throw any light on the doctor’s dilemma. He was happy that the implants themselves were safe to 50 metres but, thinking aloud, wondered if the wiring that ran from the implant (which is embedded in the skull) to the cochlea might somehow compromise the integrity of the structure of the inner ear. He said that even though my hearing couldn’t be damaged any further, the vestibular (balance) system was in that area and his concern was that it could be affected in some way. I did appreciate him thinking it through and considering every conceivable negative consequence, but it was a bit hairy for a while there, wondering if I was going to pass the medical.

Still, after putting me through all the usual testing (all good!) the doctor decided that he had no real reason not to give me the go-ahead, so I left feeling happy and warm and fuzzy, dive medical certificate in hand.

Stresssssssss

After a couple of course cancellations due to lack of numbers at the Balcatta dive shop (it was, after all, late autumn and getting chilly) I decided I’d travel the extra 20 minutes to Hillarys where a course was going ahead, just to get to do it.

So I dutifully turned up at the Hillarys dive shop on the designated date, and the course commenced. The first morning was in the classroom, going over the pre-course material. That was fine. I’d done my homework! But in the afternoon we did pool work and, oh my, that was stressful.

Although everyone is in the same boat underwater, and no one can talk to each other there, it was a little different for me. If I had any kind of issue, I could come to the surface and tell the instructor, Dohn, but I could not, of course, hear his advice on how to deal with it. At the best of times, I get stressed when I can’t hear and know (or worry) I’m missing something important. Here was I, engaging in a potentially life-endangering activity and being taught how to do it safely, yet not being able to hear… well, to say that “I didn’t find it easy” would be a gross understatement.

Day 2 was somewhat better, because Dohn brought a slate into the pool so he could write things down for me and was really understanding and encouraging, assuring me he’d get me up to speed and wouldn’t let me drown. And he is a man of his word!

That’s not north!

Probably the most humorous aspect of the dive course related to the navigation exercises. Before going into the ocean, we first took our compasses out to the carpark and were shown how to use them. I was a bit confused by mine. I knew where North was, but my compass seemed to be telling me something else. I showed Dohn who seemed a bit puzzled, but acknowledged there was something wrong so gave me his own compass to use. When this compass, too, failed to indicate the correct direction of North, I realised that the magnets of my cochlear implants were interfering with it. Ha! What we did learn, though, was that there would be no adverse effect underwater so it was evidently related to my speech processors rather than the implants themselves. That was a relief!

The princess

Having cochlear implants has not proved a barrier to diving itself, but I certainly have a different experience of it compared with hearing folks, especially on boats with other people around. Sure, no one can talk underwater, but hearing people can still hear bubbles, and fish. (Yes, they apparently make a noise.) Hearing people can hear if boats go overhead, or an emergency whistle, or their buddy, if experiencing some kind of difficulty, tapping his or her tank trying to get their attention. At the surface, if someone from the boat calls out to me, I have no idea what they’re saying. When I get onto the boat, I’m asked for depth and remaining cylinder pressure but at least I know what to expect there. But the divemaster and everyone concerned needs to know in advance that I won’t hear if spoken to.

Then, of course, I’m on the boat with wet hair and still can’t hear because as long as my hair is wet I can’t use my speech processors. (Water and electronic devices definitely don’t mix!) So I’ve taken to bringing a hair dryer with me so my speech processors can go back in. I have my normal, powerful one for boats that will accommodate it, and also a portable, rechargeable one for smaller boats and beach dives. I have had some strange looks, I can tell you! A hairdryer on a dive boat! I wouldn’t be surprised it was previously unheard of, but even if other folks think I’m a princess, then so be it. I don’t want to be hours without my “ears”.

A magical new world

a majestic bull ray sweeps past

A stingray at Rottnest Island near Perth, Western Australia

Diving literally opens up a whole, magical new world. The underwater landscape is surreal, and the inhabitants are too. I love this world and feel far more protective of marine life than I was before. As a result, not just over-fishing and ocean dredging the world over causes me concern, but eating seafood at all creates something of a quandary. I like to swim with those creatures, not eat them! I find the concept quite confronting.

As with most things, the more you know, the more you realise you don’t know. The more I dive, the more respect I have for those who are Instructors and Dive Masters, because they are true masters of their crafts and I have such a long way to go! As a new diver, it has been fantastic to have an experienced dive buddy in Dohn, who was my instructor and then great friend, and now my beloved partner.

I’ve also been collecting specialties at a great rate. So far I have — in addition to OWD and Advanced — Nitrox, Night, Deep, Wreck and EFR/Rescue Diver. Now I just need to finish Dive Theory to attain Master Scuba Diver (MSD) level. I’m on my way! :-)

Conversation starters

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It’s now over two years since the activation of my cochlear implants. Yay! I am so glad I got them when I did. There are all kinds of reasons people delay getting CIs, but I would not have missed a single, hearing, minute of this period and regret my own lateness to that particular party.

I’ve been thinking recently, not so much how much my hearing has improved in the last year, but of the increased quality of life I’m experiencing because of it.

I’ve said in the past that I am now no longer afraid that someone will talk to me. I may not hear every single thing, but I can be fairly confident that in most cases I’ll catch on sooner rather than later. This is absolutely huge.

I know other hearing impaired and deaf people will understand what I am trying to say about that fear of being spoken to. For someone with a hearing impairment, any situation that requires aural communication can be stressful — to say the least. With my severe to profound hearing loss, I became quite reclusive for some time before I took the plunge with cochlear implants. I started to wonder what the point of socialising was, if all I could do was look intently at people and imitate their expressions when they spoke, and hope it looked like I wasn’t totally stupid. Now, when I recognise the same thing in others (and I do!), I just wish they realised that it doesn’t have to be like that…

If there’s one thing that most of us with cochlear implants have in common, it’s a past of isolation. And the fact that the isolation is in the past.

Flashback

As I type, flashes of recent conversations are passing through my mind. Top of the list has to be when, a couple of weeks ago, I was in my local butcher, Meatlovers Paradise. Love that place! Top quality products and they are so friendly and helpful, nothing is too much trouble, and they greet me by name and chat away with me, taking a real interest. What more can one ask?

As I was being served, a man standing near me turned to me and said hello. I did a double-take — it was someone I used to go out with briefly about three-and-a-half years ago. In fact, the very person who told me about Meatlovers Paradise in the first place, when I was new to the area.

The first thing he said was, “So you had your ears done!”

I enthusiastically confirmed this, while trying to figure things out. Our time together was long before I started the CI process…

“Yes, Marcus was telling me about it,” he said. I must have looked at him blankly because he added, “Marcus. Marcus Atlas. The guy who did your operation.”

I must then have looked at him incredulously and said something really bright like, “Um…?” because he said, with a smile, “I’ve known Marcus for years. We went to school together. I told you that…”

More blankness from me.

“…but you probably didn’t hear me,” he laughed.

Love it. :-)

It’s All Good™!

More than an end to isolation

But just recently I realised it goes much further than being able to communicate again, and not be afraid when someone speaks to me. I realised that I was actually starting conversations, not just with people I know but also with complete strangers. This is something I vaguely remember doing a hundred years ago in another life, but I realised that now I do it all the time. I like people! I find people interesting. I’d almost forgotten that.

Can you imagine forgetting that you like people and enjoy interesting conversation?

In a way, it’s very cheaty. It’s actually easier than it at first sounds. When you start a conversation, you can guide it. You pick your topic, and you look and listen for expected key words and phrases in any responses. But, oh my, to have the confidence to unhesitatingly speak when you think of something to say… That is just amazing. (And it works for telephone conversations, too!)

Recently, I don’t even think twice about opening my mouth around other people. Stopping by the open kitchen to talk about cooking with the owner/chef at a local café restaurant. Talking politics at a boat club with a marine broker (don’t ask!) and waxing philosophical about Slow Food with someone in the supermarket checkout line.

To be able to finally be myself again — a me I’d all but forgotten about — that’s priceless.