Recovery - What Should I Watch



 

 

 

 

I will be home from cochlear implant surgery November 2nd.  My surgery is November 1st but I am staying the night at the hospital.  The surgery is in South Carolina, which is four hours away so instead of sitting in the car for four hours after surgery the doctor wants me to stay. 

 

Cochlear Implant recipients say it's about one week recovery but everyone is different.  Right now, I am done with my two graduate courses and it will not start again until 2nd week of November.  I need suggestions on what to watch on Netflix or Hulu.

 

 

Recent favorites

Teen Wolf

Dr. Who

Walking Dead

Revenge(y)

Arrow

Masterchef Junior

 

I need some ideas.  Tell me what are you watching.  I'll try it.

 

 

 



 

T-Minus 9 Days

MORE DAYS

Anticipating Great Things, Anxious at times, and Amazed!
It is going to be an amazing experience - get my hearing back.  The days are flying by and soon I will be in the car driving to South Carolina getting ready for surgery.  You can read about it here why I have to go out of state for surgery - http://www.deaf-insight.com/15/post/2013/08/ci.html.  I have read some amazing stories of Facebook friends who received their cochlear implant and they are hearing words.

Two of my friends have been encouraging during this time period.  Lisa J. and Rick S.

 

Cochlear Implant - Family Thoughts

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

KAREN'S THOUGHTS ON JEFF GETTING A CI

"From the moment he went deaf, Jeff has been researching cochlear implants. By now
he’s an expert. He’s done a great job without them. For a while the hearing aids worked well, and it took some of the stress off at his job. But then his hearing started going downhill again. We learned sign language together, and we can communicate to a certain extent. But I will never be that fluent - not enough to share my deepest thoughts and concerns. I can ask what he wants to eat, if he’s tired, what he wants to do. It’s utilitarian. But it is not my first language of emotional and intellectual communication. I will be very glad to be able to just talk.

Before he went deaf, we had been to a few music concerts, something we had not done before. We were listening to new music together. I’ve missed that, and I know he has, too. Recently I started listening to a podcast and I though, oh, Jeff would enjoy this. But of course he can’t listen to it.

There are many small things that come up - trying to talk on the phone, making sure that I fill in if someone asks him a question he doesn’t notice, remembering to not turn away when speaking or call out from another part of the house. And I really hate that in the dark both sign language and speech is useless. Lately I’m the only one who hears the ominous sound of the cats throwing up at night. That won’t change, of course, since he will always be able to switch off whenever he likes.

My greatest hope, though, is that the CI will allow him to pursue the career he wants - teaching. I also hope that he will continue to sign and be part of Deaf culture, because I know that’s important to him, and I think he has a lot to offer both hearing and Deaf cultures."
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Lizzie (13 year old daughter) writes:
"I am extremely excited for my dad getting a cochlear implant. I’m worried that something might go wrong, but other than that, I’m thrilled. Once he’s able to hear, he can’t just turn away when he doesn’t want to listen. I won’t have to tap on his arm every time I want to speak. I think this will bring our family closer since it will be easier to communicate. I hope the cochlear implant will live up to his expectations, since I know it won’t be the same as before."
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Abby (11 year old daughter) writes:
"I want Dad to hear me laugh and I also want him to be able to hear Dito (our cat) say
“meow” all the time, because it’s very annoying and I wish he could make it stop. I want him to hear me play the clarinet. And also so he can watch a movie without captioning. I will be able to talk to him without having to repeat myself all the time."

Cochlear Implant

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I want to hear!

I can’t stand my hearing aids. I have reached the point where I can’t hear anything but static even with the multiple adjustments I have received.  My wife and I went out to dinner the other night and I wore my hearing aids so she wouldn’t have to sign all night long.  She gets tired signing and at times I do too. But I had to keep asking her to repeat what she said.  I was so pissed that I ripped my hearing aids out and put them in my pocket.  It is so much easier for me to lipread with no hearing aids or sound at all.    

My ENT said it is time to consider a CI (cochlear implant).  By the time this gets posted I will have had my CI evaluation, which is the determining factor.  I didn’t qualify at the last evaluation because the audiologist wasn’t thorough and the doctor simply didn’t want me as a patient.  I just learned a new hearing term called auditory fatigue. My hearing gets really bad as the day progresses, so having a CI evaluation at 3 pm rather than in the morning makes more sense.  

Even after I get a CI,  I will still consider myself deaf.  Please understand that a CI doesn’t fix me. I will not hear the way a hearing person does. I want to continue signing and participating in Deaf culture.  But the CI is a better device than my hearing aids if I want to participate in hearing culture. Here are the reasons I want a CI:

1.  I want to hear my daughters’ voices, especially before they graduate. Fine! - my wife’s voice, too.

2.  Having a CI will open up more options as I change careers.  (BTW, my next blog post will be about my career move and hearing).

3.  I miss music.

There is some contentious conversation in deaf cyberchat about whether deaf people should have CI’s.  I have had mixed feelings, but with the progressive deterioration of my hearing over the past six months and my recent layoff, I’ve had time to reflect on my future. Getting a CI is a personal choice based on what each person needs to follow his or her particular path. The deaf community should not look down on or shun a CI recipient. People with CI’s should in turn be accepting of those who don’t want to wear anything at all. Keep signing and learning about Deaf culture.  We all have to remember that once you lose your hearing it is gone.  You are deaf. The only difference is that some people - for any number of reasons - want to use devices that will help them hear sounds.   

We are all on the same boat.

 

 

CI on Saint's Day

  

After visiting all the doctors and several audiologists here in Georgia and not being pleased with most of them I decided to go out of state to visit a doctor that came highly recommended.  I made a good choice.  The doctor was knowledgeable, experienced, and answered all my questions. The good thing is I can keep the CI audiologist here in Georgia, which was really important to me.  My audiologist, Dr. Erin Rellinger from Auditory-Verbal Center, has been so patient and helpful.  It was important to me to have the right device from Advanced Bionics, and my new friend Edie Gibson, from Advanced Bionics, helped me find an out of state physician.  I am pleased to say my surgery is scheduled for ALL SAINTS DAY.  I hope I am blessed, that God looks down from Heaven and there are no issues with surgery.  Now that I have the hospital, the doctor, and the audiologist on board I can rest and wait.

I miss the ability to understand what people are saying. Reading lips is hard work.  My wife and kids are probably tired of me saying, “Please repeat”.  I don’t make them sign enough but with the cochlear implant technology and ClearVoice to improve my poor speech recognition I will be able to hold a conversation with anyone in the hearing community.  But,  there is something my family and friends (offline and online) need to understand. A cochlear implant is an assistive device; it doesn’t make me a hearing person.  When I put on my device each morning it will help me enter the hearing world, but that is not the same thing as being a hearing person.  I will be deaf the rest of my life and I accepted that a long time ago.  But, here are some of the things I am looking forward to when I get activated, meaning when my device gets turned on by the audiologist:

1.  Understanding what people are saying around me or one-on-one.

2.  Music - I still listen to music now with my hearing aids but I miss the words.  

3.  Cellphone - to hear a phone call on my cellphone and stop telling people to call my Caption Call phone.  Texting on my cellphone is great but I want to dial and hit the send button.

4.  Hear my family.  I hear sounds but I really struggle with my daughters’ voices.  

5.  My cats - to hear them meow when I walk into the house.

Look at what cool color I picked for my CI.  

Please stay tune to my next BLOG.  I have 3 special guests posting and you don’t want to miss their message.



DEFINE: EXPECT

Expectations, we all have them.  We may not like knowing we have them but we do.  We expect our alarm clock to go off at a certain hour so we can jump into the shower.  We expect our children to behave a certain way during dinner when you have guests. We expect our pets to not bark or bite visitors.  We expect our bed to be comfortable with big fluffy pillows so we can drift into dreamland in under five.

ex·pect

ikˈspekt/

verb

verb: expect; 3rd person present: expects; past tense: expected; past participle: expected; gerund or present participle: expecting

1.regard (something) as likely to happen.

2."we expect the best"

My expectations on September 16, 2013, walking into the CI surgeon’s office were that my surgery would be scheduled and I would be out of the office in less than 45 minutes flat.  I added the extra 15 minutes since it was on the 9th floor.  No, my expectations got the best of me and I ended up snared in hospital politics with an audiologist that didn’t know much other than why I should not like the product I was wanting to implant.  I thought the position of an audiologist was to help a deaf person restore hearing using the best technology to meet his or her needs, not to have a product debate.  I had to pull in more powerful people than me to help me get what I want.  Now I have expectations of Advanced Bionics. If they don’t come through for me here in Georgia or I will have to go somewhere out of state for surgery.  I made my phone calls to Advanced Bionics and I will find out next week what happens over at Emory Hospital Midtown.  

My final thought is this - hope more, expect less.