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Shobana’s Story: Living with Cochlear Implants Every Day

Monday, January 20, 2025

Living Life to the Fullest

Navigating the world with cochlear implants is an experience that blends unique challenges with incredible rewards. It’s a journey of adapting to tools and strategies that enhance accessibility while fostering my own independence and confidence. Through this blog, I, Shobana Ramesh, share my daily life as a cochlear implant user. 

As a 26-year-old university student living in Canada, my daily life is filled with lectures, social activities, and daily nuances that I’ve learned to navigate and enjoy with my AB Naida Q90 cochlear implants. I aim to shed light on how I manage everyday tasks, academic responsibilities, and leisure activities while balancing the realities of living with hearing loss. Whether you’re curious about assistive technology, practical tips for living independently, or insights into how cochlear implants shape day-to-day life, I hope you’ll find my story both relatable and inspiring. 

Let’s dive into the routines, strategies, and tools that help me embrace life with a cochlear implant, from morning alarms and classroom tech to travel tips and social moments.

Shobana standing in front of a serene lake with mountains in the background, highlighting her connection to nature while living with cochlear implants.

A day in my life with cochlear implants

Typically, my day starts at home.  

I do not put my cochlear implants on right away when I wake up, especially when I do not “feel” awake yet. I enjoy the quiet in the morning while I take a shower and prepare breakfast.  

Because I live alone, I’ve made some accessibility changes to enhance my daily life. One of these changes has been installing a special doorbell. As someone who relies on cochlear implants to hear, these special doorbells are beneficial when I don’t have my cochlear implants on, or to simply provide a different sensory alert.  

There are doorbells available that provide a flashing light signal and/or a notification on your phone indicating that someone rang the bell. You can also find alarm clocks, fire alarms, telephones and other home accessibility devices specialized for people living with hearing loss, which I’ll talk about later. 

I also use a medical alert bracelet and an emergency card in my wallet that indicates that I wear two cochlear implants and no MRI is allowed since my right implant is not MRI-compatible. I also indicate that I have type 1 diabetes on the bracelet and the emergency wallet card.

Because I live alone, I’ve made some accessibility changes to enhance my daily life.

At School

I am pursuing my Master of Teaching degree at the University of Toronto and will soon begin teaching in elementary school classrooms.  

For school, I use the latest FM system technology by Phonak, called Roger ON. I connect the receiver to my cochlear implant on my stronger ear, and the transmitter can be worn by a person speaking or placed in the middle of the table for discussions with multiple people.  When I attend classes through Zoom, I enable closed captioning, and I sometimes connect my Roger ON FM system to my laptop to hear my professors better. When I attend classes in person, I give my Roger ON FM transmitter to my professor. During discussions with my peers or presentations by multiple people, I place the Roger ON  in the middle of the table to hear everyone speaking better.  

During my practicums, I taught in an elementary school classroom. I used a Roger Digimaster speaker, a receiver connected to my cochlear implants, transmitter, and pass-around mics. The speaker allowed the entire class to simultaneously hear and connect directly to my cochlear implants. When students were involved in discussions and asked questions, I gave them the pass-around mic to hear them better. 

Leisure Time

My free time is filled with various activities. I love anything artistic, such as makeup artistry, photography/videography, dancing, and visual arts. Some of these activities I do alone, and others I do with friends. I am also learning American Sign Language (ASL). When I do my makeup and visual art, I usually have my implants off to ensure quiet time and be more present while doing and creating art. I also take my implants off when I am learning ASL to help me gain awareness of people who are Deaf and a bit of understanding of their experiences. 

Like many people with hearing loss, I’ve developed my own methods of communication accessibility. For example, when I talk to my friends and family at noisy places such as a restaurant, I often have people sitting across from me so that I can lip-read them, and another person can sit on my left to ensure that my stronger ear is picking up their voice better. 

When I am home with my family watching TV, I often sit on the far right of the couch, so my family members sit on my left to ensure that I hear them better when we have short conversations while the TV is playing. It is also encouraging to pause the movie or show if we have a longer conversation since most cochlear implant users, including myself, cannot do two listening tasks simultaneously. Reading the closed captions and lipreading together is impossible for most of us.  

My implants rarely fall off, but when I lean on one side of the couch, my implants tend to fall off, so when that happens, I stay calm and try to put it back on myself. When someone is talking to me while I am putting my implants on, I tell them to hold on for a few seconds. 

When I was younger, I used to attend skating lessons. My helmet was not friendly to my implants, so my mom cut off a piece of the Styrofoam where my headpiece is located, and that worked with ease! Additionally, my dad rides his motorcycle, and the motorcycle helmet is not cochlear implant-friendly either. I had to ride on the bike with him in the quiet one time, but the wind, the moon, and the quiet road made me enjoy the ride. I am still figuring out what is the best way to put on the motorcycle helmet on my head without the implants cutting out, so if you or a loved one rides a motorcycle, let me know what you do to keep your implants on while wearing the helmet. I am open to any suggestions!  

Shobana enjoying riding a motorcycle with her dad.

Like many people with hearing loss, I’ve developed my own methods of communication accessibility.

Sleeping with cochlear implants

At the end of the day, I immediately take my processors off and feel more relaxed and sleepy, and I never put them back on until the following day. The listening fatigue is usually worse at night, so when I take them off at night, I feel a huge difference. I charge all my used batteries and keep my processors in a dehumidifier for the night to ensure they are dry and ready to use the next morning.  The cochlear implant’s battery life can last throughout the day.

To ensure safety at night, I have an alarm clock that detects smoke in case of a fire. It comes with LED flashing lights and a vibrating bed shaker. The alarm clock can also be used as a regular alarm, so I can wake up at a specific time in the morning. I also use my smartwatch for alarms as a backup. When I am at a sleepover, I usually use my smartwatch to set the alarm since it is portable and always on my wrist. 

Maintenance, planning and my hearing health

Alongside my daily routines, I have planned and spontaneous tasks built into my life to enhance my listening experience. 

For example, I attend listening therapy sessions every Sunday morning to help improve my listening skills and analyze whether I need mapping to boost my hearing. Mapping is when the audiologist stimulates each of your electrodes and increases or decreases the volume of each electrode if necessary to better suit the user’s listening experiences.  

I also visit my audiologist at least once a year for checkups and to adjust the mappings to hear sounds better. 

Travel tips and enjoying life

Being prepared with a daily routine gives me confidence for spontaneity and fun, especially on holidays. 

I often travel back home to Ottawa and on flights worldwide.  To make sure I’m prepared, I always keep my cochlear implant and other medical supplies in my carry-on baggage in case my check-in baggage gets lost – such as the wire, headpiece, microphones, extra accessories for my aqua kit to wear my cochlear implants during swimming, etc. After swimming, I ensure my waterproof headpiece is kept in the dehumidifier. I also keep my processors in the dehumidifier that night to ensure the implants are completely dry after swimming. 

Keeping my supplies in my carry-on is a highly crucial step to take. Additionally, I keep a note from my audiologist in case the airport security questions your cochlear implants and spare parts, especially in counties where cochlear implants are uncommon. Since technology in security has improved, we can go through metal detectors. Additionally, airport security may require you to swab your hands for those with implanted devices, pacemakers, insulin pumps, or any devices on your body. This screening is known as explosive trace detection, which detects explosive substances such as nitroglycerin, nitrates, glycerin, or other chemicals that can harm air transportation.  

During overnight flights alone or with a loved one, I usually take my implants off when the cabin crew dims the lights to ensure I get better sleep and feel refreshed when I land. I usually keep an alarm when it is close to landing so that I can put my implants back on and hear announcements.  

Living a fulfilling life with cochlear implants

Adjusting to life with cochlear implants can come with challenges, but having a routine, taking advantage of technology and staying organized really helps me succeed in my education, social life and personal goals. Having a community of people who are going through similar situations also really helps. I’m glad to have shared my day with you, and I invite you to connect with me through the AB community to share more!


Note: The views expressed in this post are those of the author. Each person's situation is unique so your experience may not be the same. Talk to your hearing care provider about whether a cochlear implant is right for you.

Shobana Ramesh
Written by Shobana Ramesh

Shobana Ramesh

Shobana completed her Bachelor of Arts Honours program in Childhood and Youth Studies with a minor in Psychology and Disability Studies at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. She is in the final year of her Master of Teaching at the University of Toronto in Toronto, Canada. From a young age, she has been involved in the deaf and hard-of-hearing community in Ottawa through a program called VOICE for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. She is a type 1 diabetic, so she takes part in raising awareness for type 1 diabetes as well. She loves Bollywood and Contemporary dancing and enjoys performing at multiple venues in Ottawa. She is also passionate about makeup artistry, photography and videography.

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