Priscilla Gets Bionic Ears: Report #1

The following is by Priscilla Gilmore, who recently got cochlear implants (read all entries to date on this topic).


I am hearing all these little noises as I type on the computer; it's a little freaky. I listened to my car key alarm for the first time; of everything I'm hearing, that sounded the most like how it should sound, constant beeping but with a beautiful clear tone. The audiologist can talk to me now without typing on a computer screen; I am still reading her lips but now she can just talk in a normal voice and I am getting it.

It's very strange because the sounds I'm hearing via the processor do not sound like normal speech; nothing sounds quite like it should. It's all a bit tinny, with echo. But something is happening which is making it all easier.

I feel like a kid in a candy store, scuffing my feet and tapping on things just to hear the sound! I don't have the processor turned up to the richest setting yet (there are two more levels), but will pretty soon.

Its also slightly irritating; I miss my soundless world a little.

It's all very different, but I see the potential now. I had a lot of fear but now that is gone. I'm writing exactly how i feel about it all: jumbled and excited. I just "heard" the phone ring. It doesn't sound anything like how it did before with my old hearing aid, but somehow I am not worried.


Continue to Report #2