“Imagine yourself in a room with just a few close friends you love, talking and laughing. The conversation is quick and animated. It is too swift for you to follow on their lips, too difficult for you to understand – because you are deaf. You sit in their midst with a frozen smile on your face, your cheeks aching, afraid to break the warm mood by telling them you are unable to understand. Your heart tightens and aches too. You feel angry that you are once again shut out, angry at yourself for being deaf, and at the world for expecting you not to be.. Then, imagine another day, when you have a device implanted deep within your ear to help you to hear. Imagine that with it, you hear words and phrases in the air without looking for them on people’s lips. You understand – not everything, but enough to feel a part of the group. You hear birds that were once silent, music that was once noise. Your cheeks thaw. Your heart opens up. Your anger melts, and you feel a sense of grace.” – Beverly Biderman, Wired for Sound
activation
misconceptions & expectations
I want to clear up a few things, because it has come to my attention lately that a lot of people really don’t know much about cochlear implants. Which is fine, why would you unless you know someone getting one or who has one? So there is a big one I want to clear up. I am not going to wake up from surgery on Tuesday and suddenly be able to hear.