Deafness Sucks - I'm being Reimplanted!!

Being profoundly deaf totally sucks in my opinion. I’m forever straining to hear what people are trying to say, which makes me really tired. I’m an excellent lipreader, but even then, I miss a lot. The importance of being able to hear was really brought home to me last week when I was in hospital too sick to open my eyes to even lipread. I personally wouldn’t wish deafness on anyone.

Yes – sign would be good – if the rest of the world signed with you, but let’s face it, only a small proportion of the hearing population bothers to learn sign, and I don’t think it’ll ever be made compulsory in schools for everyone to learn as a universal language. I want to be able to talk to anyone, anywhere, anytime, without that confused wild look in my eye, without such intense concentration, and without having to curse those background noises threatening to drown out the last vestiges of sound I have.

I want to hear the birds again – not only hear them but recognise their calls like I could do just 8 months ago. The dinstinctive song of the Tui, the chatter of the fantails, and the peeps of the white-eyes. And the odd call of the Kingfisher.

I don’t want to sell my piano – something that is very near and dear to me.

I want to be able to listen to my ipod again while out running. Did you know running without music is really hard. With music I can run for miles without even thinking, without, I’m lucky to get 1km without having to give up, desperately trying to suck air into my lungs! (Please remind me why we have to exercise!!)

I want to hear the click of my camera when it takes the perfect image.

I want to hear when my car needs a gear change. My daughter reminded me the other day that I was still in 4th gear and I should be in 5th . Yeah yeah – not a biggie but I have caught myself in 3rd gear before when I should be in 4th – never heard the engine scream!

I want to hear my cats purr again. At the moment they are just vibrating machines without sound. And I can’t hear them talk either. Most people think that’s a blessing as my Burmese are very talkative – but to me they just open their mouths and shut them again. It’s really hard to lipread them!!

With all this in mind, I met my ENT surgeon yesterday and we discussed the pros and cons of reimplantation. The very very worst thing that can happen, is they take the old one out, and cannot get another one in. And then I’d be totally deaf again. Forever. Never to hear again. If that happens, someone can let me off at the top of the harbor bridge and give me a gentle shove!! However, that risk is low and unlikely to happen, I just to have to be aware that it ‘might’.

Auckland Harbour Bridge.

So if they do get the new one in, at worst, they will only be able to get 10-12 electrodes threaded. However, that will still give me more hearing than I have now, with 8 electrodes working, but not optimally. At best – they’ll be able to get the full set of electrodes in and I’ll be back to where I was before in no time. If that happens, I will never whinge again about anything, in my life, ever again. (Make sure my brother doesn’t read that as he has that personality type that will remind me I wrote this for the rest of my life!)

My choice was that I could muddle along as I have been doing for the last month, or go ahead with a reimplantation. With known risks – it’s a hard decision to make. One minute I’m wildly against even touching what I still have, and hating the thought of another operation. Then I miss out on something important, and with tears of frustration decide on the spur of the moment that I will go ahead. So – after discussing everything with my daughter, and writing heaps of notes of positives in column A and negatives in column B. There are 57 lines of text in Column A and just two in Column B. 57 to 2. Positive wins – and I emailed my specialist this morning to say – Yep – set everything in concrete I’m going ahead.

I haven’t had any second thoughts yet, and it’s now been 6 hours since I made the decision. That’s pretty good for me!

I will hear next week when the surgery will be. It’ll either be sometime in the next two months, or sometime this year, depending on the trust and funding. I will be getting Cochlear Corp's new Freedom implant.

Watch this space…