Christmas Day 2013

This is Christmas Day 2013 and I've decided to start writing this blog on Cochlear Implants because recently I've met some complete strangers in a department store and in a grocery store who have a CI or are getting one very soon. Coincidences are not something I'm a big believer in; so, I believe that there is a need for information for the informed and the uninformed.  Anyone who has an interest in CI's for any reason is invited to join my post. I will try to post something every few days about my life with CI's.

My background with hearing loss is going to get personal but I don't see any way to avoid this. I want to be creditable, open and honest in this blog, so here goes.

Way back when I was in 6th grade the schools started giving hearing tests. My brothers and I all failed, for lack of a better word. My parents were advised to take us to Northern Illinois University for further testing. They did with the result of "wait and see what happens". Nothing happened to me until I was 21. It was then when I got my first hearing aid. So began my hate affair with hearing aids. Sure they helped me to hear; but they had so many flaws, if you're reading this, most of you will know exactly what I mean.

With sensorineural hearing loss combined with Meniere's Disease so began my journey to contentment with a CI. If I could just leave it there I would, but there is so much more I want to share. The pain and the joys. The loss and the gains. I'll revisit the hearing aid years at another time but for now I'm going to jump ahead to Christmas Day 1992. I'm now 37. I woke up that morning with a buzzing in my head and feeling like a train was running through my brain. I put on my hearing aids and nothing happened. If silence was only in one ear I would have got the HA repaired; but, it was both hearing aids so now I knew both ears were finished. It was Christmas. I was deaf. And I was alone.

As I adjusted to a quieter world, my days grew darker as well. I didn't know where to turn in those pre-internet days. I did read a lot of books. Classics, all the books I felt I should have read but never did. I read "Tarzan of the Apes", "Robinson Crusoe", "Razors Edge",  "Great Expectations", "The Iliad and The Odyssey", and dozens more. Unbeknownst to me at the time, they were books on humankind and overcoming the adversities of life. Slowly, I climbed out of the dark and began to want to live my old life again. My social life. I was/have always been a big believer in PMA or Positive Mental Attitude. I learned that if you need help you had better ask for it yourself because no one else is going to do that for you. It's called self-advocacy. 

Soon after I figured I'd see what our social services system had to offer a person that had suffered a loss as I had. I drove myself to the local office of the Illinois Dept of  Rehabilitation Services. Armed with a yellow pad and a pen, I walked in the door. A receptionist wrote for me to sit and wait. Hard to believe now, but at age 38, I had never met a deaf person in my life. That changed a few moments later when a man, who I will call BB, walked me into his office. One important thing he did for me that day was to have me go to the public library a few blocks away and check out a Closed-Captioning decoder for my TV. All I had been able to understand was sports and "Wheel of Fortune". Now I could watch many other programs again. However, the most important thing BB did that day was to send me to the Center for Sight and Hearing (CSH) in Rockford just a few blocks away. 

Now I was on my way. Very nervously I walked into CSH and was sent to see a recently promoted to full time staff counselor. Her name was Diane Jones. She was to become my Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher. 

My thinking at the time was as long as I was deaf I might as well learn how to be deaf. Initially, my sign language classes were a thinly veiled attempt at counseling and healing. I really needed help and Diane was the perfect person for it. We'd talk for hours and I was able to heal and move forward. One day when I arrived Diane told me that there was a local group of similar people who met once a month at a local restaurant and that we were going there tonight. As panic started to set in, she reminded me of my goal of getting my social life back. I went and continued to go, eventually running the group and writing the newsletter. It flourished for many years after that, until I had to leave due to personal circumstances.  

As soon as I began with the local group in Rockford I learned of a group of of people in Chicago called ALDA, or the Association of Late-Deafened Adults. It was, and still is, a great group of people. 

This group has a national affiliation (ALDA National) and an annual convention. As a group they meet the needs of Late-Deafened people through support, education and advocacy. To me it has always been a gateway to social activity. These annual conventions are held in some of the nicest cities in the country. Last year's was held in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and next year's will be held at the Norfolk Waterside Marriott Hotel in Downtown Norfolk VA, October 7th-12, 2014.  

At every convention they have workshops and panel discussions on CI's. They also have an exhibits area with all of the CI companies. As it is now, it was also the same in 1995 at my first ALDAcon. That was the first time I had an opportunity to learn about Cochlear implants. 

Over the next few years I continued to learn all I could about CI's. Finally, after living seven years as a deaf man, I had my first implant surgery in Hinsdale, Illinois, on November 20th, 1999. It took about one month to heal, so that on December 23rd, 1999, two day before Christmas, I had my CI activated and my hearing was restored. Coincidence, I think not.

I invite comment and feed back. 

Thank you,