From Unknowns to New Discoveries

I often searched forums and the Internet for stories of people who grew up hearing, became deaf, and got cochlear implants. I wanted to know if I’d have to continue using lipreading, sign language interpreters, and stenographers. Another question was – “How would things sound?” Many bloggers wrote about the strange sounds they heard just after their cochlear implants were switched on, but then they stopped talking about it. 

I didn’t dare hope my life would change much. My worst fear was that implantation wouldn’t work and I’d have to deal with the disappointment. So I told myself it might help a bit, but probably not. I told myself it might be awful, so there was no point getting my hopes up.

In 2013, I got an AB Naída Cochlear Implant on one side. In the weeks and months after it was switched on, I found out to my utter shock that things began to sound almost the same as I remembered they did when I could still hear. 

I was able to follow speech completely independently. I rarely had to even lipread. I no longer got tired from carrying on conversations, unless they were long meetings or video conferences where hearing people become fatigued, too. I didn’t have to spend the next day or so utterly exhausted like in the old days. 

One day, I listened to a BBC Radio play that had been produced before I got the implant. In the play, I portrayed a deaf vampire victim. Listening to my former self, I realized that my voice sounded different. I had never heard how I sounded as a deaf person before. 

That was when it became apparent to me that my speech had also changed after I got the implant. One close friend even said that I spoke like I did when I was twenty-one. I realized that all this happened naturally. As I was able to hear myself better with the implant, my brain was able to monitor and modify my speech on its own. Not only was I hearing and following speech, I was also starting to speak more clearly. 

Because I always had my hearing aids turned up, especially in noisy restaurants, I always felt like I was shouting, when in fact, I was talking too softly. My husband and I became the couple who ate in silence because it was too stressful for me to talk loud enough for him to hear me, even though he is not deaf. After the implant, we found that we could communicate easily now and he could hear me in noisy places.  

My sister, who went deaf at the age of twelve, also got a Naída three months after I did. Her experience hearing again with the implant was similar. I enjoy chatting with her on the phone, and walking down the street while talking without the need for us to stop or look at each other. 

After my CI activation, I’ve often found it easier to talk to strangers. I find they have no idea that I’m deaf, so we just get on with communicating without any preconceptions. But I’ve also gotten to know my friends and family better. They’ve helped me learn to hear at first by pointing out sounds and saying, “Can you hear the plane/washing machine/children playing?” I’ve phoned people up and arranged to meet up. I’ve gone to parties and haven’t gotten bored or sad.