I have a CI surgery date!

I finally have an officially scheduled surgery date for my cochlear implant: March 16, 2006! I am very excited (and impatient). I set the date to be a week before my school goes on Spring break. That will give me about two and a half weeks before I have to be back in the saddle and ready to teach. Then I will be the "walking, talking show-and-tell" at my school for the rest of the school year! Our school mainstreams deaf and hard-of hearing students (using cued speech), and several students have implants. The teachers have also said I provide them a valuable point of view as I talk about what it is like to be hard of hearing. (FYI: my school is at www.agbms.org and cueing is at www.cued speech.com.)

My surgery will be at Northwestern University Hospital in downtown Chicago. The surgeon is Dr. Alan Micco and the CI audologist is Pam Fiebig. I have chosen the Advanced Bionics Auria for my implant.

I will get the staples out about 10 days after surgery. If the incision is sufficiently healed, I could have my hook-up the same day. That means to have the external portion of the device attached so I am actually getting electrical stimulation of the auditory nerve. Until the external microphone, speech processor, and transmitter are attached, I am completely and entirely deaf in that ear. Then begins the long process of auditory rehabilitation, where my brain re-learns how to hear, using the electrical stimulation rather than auditory stimulation. That usually takes 3-6 months. Or more. Or less. It all depends. There are so many variables, there's no real dependable way to tell how long it will take ME. I've heard tales that, at first, voices sound like dings, or a fax machine, or robots or Donald Duck! I suppose I will have my own way to describe things, too.

Thank you for your love and encouragement throughout this whole process. In a way, it began back in 2001, when my ENT first suggested I might become a candidate for an implant. Or you could go back as far as 1992, if you count when I got my first pair of hearing aids and began to deal with a progressive hearing loss.

Please feel free to ask any questions! I love answering them.

Stay tuned!