Candidacy Determination

Yesterday, Brian and I got up at 5, and we hit the road at a little after 6. On the way up, we talked about a lot of things, and cochlear implants came up a lot. Traffic wasn't too terrible in Phoenix and we arrived at 8:30, the sun shining bright and the air thick with citrus bloom. I dropped off my paperwork at the front desk, and we waited. The office was clean and bright, with plenty of space. There were people of all ages in the waiting room.

The audiologist came out and called my name. I do not remember her name, but she was very nice. We went to the soundproof testing room and she set up the ear-buds. First, we did the standard hearing test: push the button when you hear the beep. Then the word test, where she read off a standard list of words in each ear alone, and I repeated what I heard back to her. When she did the left ear, the quality of the sound was so poor that I told her she sounded like a dog barking. I laughed at how ridiculous she sounded. I was able to make out some words, albeit very few.

Next, the aided portion. She came in and took the earbuds out, and I put my hearing aids in. Using speakers, she re-did the first part: push the button when you hear the tone. Then we did the HINT portion, Hearing In Noise Test. It was hard. Once in a while I made out a few words or the entire sentence, but I missed a lot of them. We all had a good chuckle at some of my answers. There's no way "He broke his nail" wound up on the sentences list. But that's what I heard.

Finally, we were done. She said I was audiologically qualified to be implanted. I still need to be medically evaluated with a CT scan.

Next, I met the surgeon. He started with the standard "When were you deaf? When did you start wearing hearing aids?" Looking at my audiogram, learning my history, and hearing me speak, he complimented me on my speech. I thanked him, and said it was the result of a lot of work. In addition, I said that I owed a lot of success to a good ear for hearing speech, which was now showing decline.
"Your hearing sucks," he replied.
"What?" I said.
"Your hearing is terrible. It's just getting more terrible," the doctor said. He said that I have probably been a qualified candidate for quite some time.

We talked about devices. He implants all three systems, and leaves the device selection decision completely up to me. My kind of guy. He's going to submit my name to all 3 companies for the information packet. I've already seen the packets from Cochlear and Advanced Bionics, but I'll finally get the Med-El packet. I'm pretty certain I'll do Advanced Bionics, but it's great to have the ability to choose.

We talked about which ear. I told him that my left ear used to be a bit better and faded into the corner by the time I was a teenager, so it has some auditory memory, and that I wanted to save my right ear. He agreed that the left ear would be a good choice, but we need to look at a scan first. He said that it makes a world of difference that I've continued to wear a hearing aid in that ear, keeping the auditory nerve stimulated. Serendipity from wanting my bass line.

He addressed the potential for facial paralysis and taste disturbance. The face and taste nerves are 3-4 millimeters apart, and apparently they need to drill between them. They put electrodes on the face to measure current and warn if the surgeon is getting too close. If they cannot do the operation safely between the nerves, the taste nerve is sacrificial. I'm not too thrilled with that, but I appreciate his honesty. If I do lose the taste nerve, the front 2/3 of the left side will lose taste. I'll still have the right side, and my sense of smell, and apparently I'll 'recover' and adapt.

To my surprise, he said that activation is 3-4 days after surgery. I'm not sure how they can activate so quickly yet. Hopefully we can do the surgery on a Monday, and activate on Thursday or Friday, with a weekend to adjust to it before going back to work as a newly assimilated cyborg. I'm not sure how useful it will be right off the bat, but it will be good to skip waiting a month without sound in the implanted ear.

I asked about where the implant would go, and the need to accommodate a cycling helmet. He said to bring the helmet to the surgery, and they would do what they could. It won't be the first time he has done that. He accommodated similar requests for a woman who rode horses, and a construction worker who needs to wear a safety hat.

The next step is to do the CT scan and make sure I am normal in the head. I know for a fact that I'm not normal in the head, but the bones are probably ok. Along with that, I need a meningitis vaccine. There is a heightened risk of contracting meningitis due to the type of surgery. Then the insurance packet is prepared and submitted for approval. This step is expected to be routine. I am a qualified candidate, and my insurance covers it, so it's a matter of ensuring the approval before going under the knife. I'm not sure how long it will all take, but I think it's safe to assume I'll be implanted and activated by the end of April.

Here we go!