Going Bilateral: The Joy of My Second Cochlear Implant

About 15 years ago, I woke up to a world that sounded… different. Not silent, but distorted—like my brain could no longer process what my wife or anyone else was saying to me. Conversations felt like an indecipherable blur.

As a former U.S. Army Sergeant and a hardware engineer for multi-national technology companies in Silicon Valley, I was used to working in collaborative and boundary-pushing environments. Without hearing well, I lost the ability to excel in my jobs.  While my company made sincere efforts to accommodate my hearing loss, at the time, technology was limited. This was pre-Zoom, and conference calls made up a significant part of my role. Eventually, I was placed on disability.

Faced with the abrupt change of pace, I quickly realized that boredom was my biggest challenge. To fill the void, I turned to abstract expressionist painting — a creative and physical outlet that allowed me to channel my energy and emotions. Still, I sought answers to my hearing loss and hoped I could return to a hearing life I knew.

Excitement grew as "activation day" arrived. But when the audiologist turned on the CI, nothing happened. The headpiece couldn’t connect to the implanted induction coil. Frustration. Disbelief. After several visits, it finally paired—but the results were underwhelming. The sounds were tiny, distant, and foreign. Speech comprehension was terrible. Had I picked the wrong ear? Doubt crept in, but I pressed on.

Over time, my brain adapted. One-on-one conversations became manageable. Some voices, though, remained unintelligible. Music, once a source of joy, was reduced to a handful of songs deeply embedded in my memory. It was progress, but far from perfect.

Frustrated by the lack of progress, I decided to go bilateral. At 65, I finally asked my doctor: am I still a candidate for a second implant? His answer was immediate—of course.

Finally, I didn’t hesitate. Surgery and recovery were easy. Activation day arrived, and I approached it with cautious optimism. My audiologist scheduled a full two-hour session—a welcome change from my first experience.

And then, something amazing happened.

The moment it turned on, without any fine-tuning, I could hear more clearly than I ever had with the first implant. The difference was night and day. It was like going from a distant AM station to FM.

Hearing rehabilitation was a breeze. There was a synergy between the two implants that accelerated my progress in ways I never expected.

In many situations, my current Advanced Bionics Naída CI Marvel processors are the equivalent of a high-fidelity audio system. Suddenly, I could hear sounds I hadn’t experienced in nearly two decades. Conversations with loved ones became natural again. And slowly, I rediscovered music.