Debra McClendon

 
  • Age 50
  • Profoundly deaf since age 17 (cause unknown)
  • Deaf over 30 years before implantation
  • Implanted at age 47

The following story is one person's experience with a cochlear implant. Your experience may be very different. Success with a cochlear implant is influenced by many factors including how long a person has had hearing loss, the age a person receives an implant, medical and anatomical factors and more. Please consult your cochlear implant professional and/or the Bionic Ear Association with questions.

When my implant was first activated with a traditional strategy, music sounded lousy. I could recognize some songs, parts of songs, and the beat, but they did not sound anything like they did when I had normal hearing. What I did to help with music was to print out lyrics from the Internet. Reading, while listening to a song, was a tremendous help in starting to recognize the melody and lyrics. I worked as much on music as I did on speech.Music was enjoyable, and I was grateful for it!

Fast forward to year six with my CI (this month!) and I realized that I couldn't finish this story without mentioning my listening experience with Harmony, the new processor, and Fidelity 120, the new strategy! It's amazing how we honestly feel it can't get better when we have it good. Imagine my joy in discovering that both the Harmony and Fidelity 120 improved music!! It's crisper and has more depth and elusive vocals are back in place. Patsy Cline's voice sounds like Patsy Cline again! This is a gift I never expected! The sound quality is superb!

I have an internal device that came out in 2001 and have had two major upgrades. From traditional to HiResolution programming, and now I am hearing with the latest and greatest CI technology in existence.All of these upgrades through the years have given me wonderful quality of life improvements, andyou can't put a price on that!

 

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