Get Over Myself

Another cochlear implant anniversary has come and gone, two years now. In case you were getting popcorn during that part of the show, I lost my hearing in March 2006 due to meningitis, a dangerous illness I was lucky to survive. I lost all useful function of both ears, except to keep my glasses from falling off. The cochlear implant is a miraculous electronic device. Sometimes called a “bionic ear,” it is actually an ear bypass, mini-electronics transmitting sounds directly to the brain without traveling through the ear. One of the interesting things about my cochlear implant is that I do not believe I hear anything differently or better after two years than I did the first day it was activated. What changes and improves are the ways that my brain recognizes and deciphers sounds.

The first music I listened to after my cochlear implant was hopeless. A jumble of noise. There have been milestones. I first realized I could pickup the rhythms, but I could not tell the difference between a drum and a guitar. If I distinguished notes at all, a scale consisted only of root and something that was not the root. I have spent hours driving down the road in the car singing scales, trying to make eight notes and hearing their intervals. I like to turn off my cochlear implant processor and try matching the physical note in my throat with the way I remember it feeling and imagining the note in my brain. God knows what it sounds like, but it is a thrilling exercise, almost as good as actually being able to do it. Last week, I was listening to the radio and a piece of music came on, and I just was certain it was Mozart. I could not believe the joy, noting this and that signature of Mozart, believing myself close to actually hearing something beautiful. If the radio identified the music, I failed to understand. Who cares? I came as close to enjoying a musical experience as I have in two and a half years.

I recently received a You Tube link from Dennis Crews. With my hearing, I usually don’t do You Tubes, because, unlike regular television, You Tubes are rarely captioned. Nonetheless, I am always interested in what Mr. Crews finds noteworthy. Not only is Taking it back with Barack, Jack (For Swing Voters) great fun, I immediately recognized the song, “Choo Choo Chaboogie” and added the video to my sidebar. Years ago, I played “Cho Choo Chaboogie” countless times, along with “San Antonio Rose,” “Crazy Arms,” and “Bubbles in My Beer,” all of which were on my practice tapes from the Nashville, Tn., Jeff Newman College of Pedal Steel Guitar in which I once had matriculated.

Having a telephone conversation continues to be unpredictable. Sometimes I think the conversation has gone well. Other times are discouraging, and I do not understand anything I hear. I carry my cell phone when I leave the house but only expect to use it in case of emergency or brief calls to family. At home, I love my new CapTel landline phone, which displays captions of the conversation I may or may not be understanding. I posted a blog about this wonderful device. Eat Blackberries, Get Bluetooth was reprinted in the annual report of the Georgia Council for the Hearing Impaired. Previously they had invited me to appear on a local radio program discussing telephone operator assistance provided by Georgia Relay. Now they have also asked me to help them “begin a late deafened social group” and be one of the “coordinators.” My friends at GCHI said, “You have a wealth of information on resources and coping that would be useful to many hard of hearing and late deafened people.”

Wait a minute. That deer frozen in the headlights is dear me. “You have probably asked the one thing of me that I have the least confidence about,” I replied. “Social interaction, certainly coordinating anything, is not something I do well. I would be happy to participate, share my experiences, etc., but I am not prepared to be in any sort of dependable leadership position. While I am able to conduct somewhat successful conversations face to face, one on one, because of my cochlear implant, groups render my hearing very unsatisfactory.”

I am so embarrassed. Maybe I should do some research on support groups and get over myself.

Copyright 2008 by William C. Cotter

Cochlear Implant Anniversary

It has been a year now since my cochlear implant. My surgeon was Dr. Ronald Leif Steenerson of the Atlanta Ear Clinic, located next door to Northside Hospital. Dr. Steenerson is about my age, maybe a few years older. I prefer that my doctors not be the age of my children. I don’t know what I am going to do when all my doctors themselves become eldercare patients. Dr. Steenerson has the public manner of a poker player with paper money on the table in denominations carrying portraits of people who were never President. And maybe an awareness that the U.S. Constitution guarantees the right of every citizen to bear firearms. I am comforted by this attitude in people who cut holes in my head to wire things up to my brain. My audiologist, Cindy Gary, is a tireless and sensitive professional. She makes the computer magic that tells my implant how to work in ways we select, based on testing, what I describe to her that I am hearing, and how I like it. She is active in the support group, the Georgia Peach Cochlear Implant Association. She says I can expect the quality of my hearing to improve for another year or so, even now that we have pretty much settled on the technical settings for my implant. The improvements will continue, because my brain will keep learning how to interpret the sounds it hears. My hearing has already improved in the past year. I am now beginning to hear music as something other than just noise, to actually recognizing tones. Sometimes I have a successful conversation on the telephone. This is so unpredictable, depending on the voice of the speaker, the telephone itself, and even the difficulty of the subject discussed. I would not dare try to conduct important business on the phone without using the Georgia Relay Operator, who types the other person’s end of the conversation to me, either on my computer or a portable device provided by the Georgia Council for the Hearing Impaired. My next big goal is to attend public meetings and lectures. I can do pretty well in a social setting, face-to-face, one-on-one, in a quiet environment. More people, more noise, the worse my ability to understand what is said.

Earlier this week, I took my sister Ouida lunch from the Piccadilly Cafeteria for her 73 rd birthday: turnip greens, black eyed peas, coleslaw, broccoli salad, macaroni and cheese, cornbread sticks, and of course the specialty of the house, carrot soufflé. Ouida’s daughter Marcia was also visiting for her mother’s birthday. While we ate, we exchanged reports on our health. My sister is homebound and on 24x7 supplementary oxygen. Marcia is a cancer survivor. We never ran out of things to talk about. Marcia was telling me about visiting me in the hospital in March 2006 when I had meningitis and was on life support. My wife Annette was at my ICU bedside day and night, every minute the rules allowed and some not exactly covered by the rules. “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Marcia said. “I’ve never seen anybody with such dedication and love.”

For years before I got sick, I played Puccini tapes at thrilling volume as I drove down the road in my 1992 Honda station wagon filled with sheetrock, 2x4’s, and recycled five gallon paint buckets of tools and plumbing parts. At red lights, often I met other cars bouncing like pogo sticks to some different drummer, and they would give me the fish eye and roll up the windows. While I was in a coma for three weeks, Annette, brought to me CD recordings of Luciano Pavarotti, Montserrat Caballe, and Jessye Norman and played them to try to reach me, wherever I was.

Copyright 2007 by William C. Cotter