The Technical Side of Things

As with all other technologies, cochlear implants have many other aspects to consider other then the sound that they provide. Being a piece of equipment means that there are things that limit it, and on the other hand it means that there are new possibilities.

 

Some of the cool things about cochlear implants are the different modes and maps that can be programmed onto it. Some maps make it easier to hear certain pitches or tones, and can be changed to be unique to the person wearing them. Almost like fitting a glove on a hand properly. A well-mapped program does a great deal to improve how a person hears with cochlear implants. There are other cool modes that can be adapted as well. Some programs change how sound is taken in by the microphone so that it’s easier to hear in very noisy environments like restaurants or other busy locations. Another mode makes it so that when the cochlear implants are plugged into an ipod or another device, they stop letting in sound from the outside world, so that the person only hears the music and sound from the connected device. (One my personal favorites, you’ve got to love pure music with no other sound pollution.) There are many different modes and personally tailored maps that make the usage of cochlear implants more enjoyable.

 

But there are also drawbacks, no matter how good the device is. I still have trouble with soft sounds, and hearing in very noisy environments. Since it is a technology, I need to carry a stash of batteries wherever I go to make sure that whenever the batteries run out I can change the them quickly and hear again. It has happened to me over and over again. When I was younger I often forget my batteries and had to go through a period of time without sound. I hate it the most when it happens right when a movie starts in a movie theater. It’s not so bad in a boring class...or when my mom lectures me. Another drawback of these devices is that I cannot use them near water. At pools, or at the beach, I have to take them off, which means that I cannot hear when I am swimming or just hanging out with friends. It can be isolating when you cannot talk with the other kids or play games that rely on some communication. My older siblings would either try to act out what they were trying to say, or use the water to write out what they were saying on the poolside, or if it was at the beach to draw it in the sand. Then there are the especially bad times when my speech processors break. This has happened to me a couple of times. Sometimes it would be because they fell off when I was running or jumping, and they would hit the ground pretty hard and break. At other times they just stopped working. If we were lucky we could find the problem and replace it with one of the many parts that we keep stashed at home. But more often than not, it just would not work anymore and we would have to send it to the company and I would have to go without hearing or wear one of my older outdated devices.  Now I have extra speech processors so I can keep on listening while my equipment is switched out.

 

This brings up something that has blown my mind away over and over again. When I am wearing a device. It sounds good, it sounds right, it sounds normal, or at least I think it does. I think that I am hearing everything and that the sounds I hear are the sounds that exist. A car sounds like this sound. My mom talking sounds like this. But every time I switch between devices, a whole new world of sounds are introduced. My mom sounds different, the wind sounds different, the cars sound different. Everything sounds different and I have to go through a new phrase of learning sounds again, and getting comfortable with it. I never fail to be amazed at how bad my older implants sound compared to the new ones I am wearing, and how bad the ones I am currently wearing will sound compared to the next generation of devices. 

 

I look forward to the new devices that will come on the market, and the new programs and maps that the implant companies create that make the sounds I hear better and better every year, while always chipping away at the drawbacks of the devices. Maybe soon I will go swimming with my speech processors on, and be able to hear everyone talking and feel less isolated.

Rebuilt for Sound

Millions of people around the world experience hearing loss, and if they lose their hearing they are fortunate because they can often restore it with hearing aids or cochlear implants. That is exactly what Michael Chorost did.

Michael Chorost for a long time wore hearing aids in order to hear because while he did have a hearing loss it was not severe enough to prevent him from communicating with other people. But the book opens up on the day that his hearing went from okay to worse. He could not hear with his hearing aids. The book then narrates his journey from a natural hearing person to what be believes is now a mechanized human, or a cyborg. He discusses the change that he underwent from hearing aids to cochlear implants. From the surgery to the first day of hearing with cochlear implants, Michael Chorost mentions some really interesting points that I would like to discuss further from my own perspective as a deaf person from birth. 

Are we really cyborgs? In his book, Michael Chorost spends a lot of time discussing the technology and the fact that Deaf people with cochlear implants replace their natural hearing with a mechanized extension of that sense. But as we go along our daily lives, do we really notice them? Or is just because of my different experience of always having them since I was two-years-old that I do not see it that way. I cannot remember a day that I have gone without my implants without a good reason. They are always there, always working hard so that I enjoy all sorts of small miracles every day, from hearing my own voice, to the voices of the people around me. Every morning, when I wake up, I don't even realize how bizarre it must be that I cannot hear at that exact moment, but whenever I want I can just take my speech processor and put it on my head and I am back in the hearing world. I owe a great debt for the tremendous thought and effort that many different people in all sorts of different collaborative fields put into creating this small powerful machine. The point that I think I am trying to make is that, it is not a part of my body that I notice all the time, it is like another limb, it is part of me, functioning behind the scenes, but it doesn't define me. It's part of who I am, not what I am. Know what I mean? Maybe not, it is hard to explain. Its like a blog almost. It captures part of who you are as you write, but it does not make what you are.

As I listen to music to spice up the morning while I am writing this, I laugh at the irony of how practiced and unthinking I am as I plug in my headphones in order to hear the music from my laptop. It‘s just like how other people just take their headphones out of their pockets and place them into their ears. It's a mindless action. It was a simple action that I don't usually think about too deeply, but I just did something that most of my peers cannot do. But it is still an action that we all take in order to enjoy music, the action may be different but we are all humans never-the-less experiencing the same love for sound.

Another interesting point that Michael Chorost brought up was the idea of how amazing the brain really is. The internal device has a cord with an electrode array that reaches into the cochlea, and stimulates the cochlea in a completely artificial fashion. The brain doesn't care, that information can still be turned into sound for us to use. That is incredible. But it brings up questions about reality, after-all the brain took in external artificial information and chooses how to utilize that information in order to bring a sensation to the patient. It raises the idea that perhaps, reality is not so rigid as we would like to think it is. After-all the brain did make up a sensation, which brings into question what the real world really is, compared to what we perceive.

Regardless, I still go on with my daily life without a thought to my amazing little helper riding on my ear.

Embracing my Heritage

Cochlear implants are amazing in that they can bring sound to people who cannot hear, but it still requires a lot of work and effort for people to use them to their maximum potential. Sound is just part of the process. The newly implanted patient must then go through a rigorous process in order to understand the new sounds that they can hear and then apply what they have learned into a spoken language. It is not an easy thing to do. My mom, to make it easier for me, helped me focus on learning English alone.  English is such a difficult language to learn. She thought that by limiting the amount of American Sign Language (ASL) I used that I would work my way through the frustration of listening, rather then giving up and switching to ASL, which was easier for me because it is a visual language. She wanted me to learn English because that meant that I could communicate with and be able to speak with everyone that I wanted to at home or in the neighborhood. I would never have learned how to speak and hear as well as I do if it wasn't for my mom. She was the one that was always there when I wanted to give up in frustration, when I needed an extra push to keep working, and she was always the one that made me feel the proudest when I made a breakthrough.

But this meant that I never learned ASL as fully as most of my Deaf peers have. I believe that I have my current level of listening comprehension and speaking ability because of my unwavering attention to one language. It didn't matter to me as much when I was younger when I ran into other deaf kids who I couldn't communicate with in ASL. I did feel a little disconcerted because I was a deaf person who couldn't sign, but I knew it was because I was doing my best to learn another language. But now that I am older, I feel that being deaf defines me more and more every year. People who find out that I am deaf always ask if I know ASL, and when I tell that I don't, it usually creates this reaction. They seem to think its weird. That reaction makes me wish that I knew ASL.

Now I do know a little sign language, but I have decided that I am going to learn ASL in its entirety. I am now comfortable enough with English, and even through I still learn new words and pronunciations everyday, I feel like I can dive completely into ASL and learn it. I want to be able to talk with everyone, regardless of whether they are hearing or deaf. I want to be the one who straddles both cultures. Just like how blogging combines all the cultures and societies across the nation, and allows for a new level of understanding between them.

First Thoughts on College

When I was first deciding which colleges I wanted to apply to, my mom and I had a few ideas in common about what kind of college we were looking for. We both were looking for smaller, liberal art colleges, where the classes would be smaller, and where I could have plenty of outside resources to help me if I struggled with the transition from high school to college. I have now been at Skidmore College for a month now, and I have to say I think I have found the perfect college for me. The student body is diverse in culture and background and all of the students are very friendly. Within the first week, I made so many friends. Looking back, I laugh at myself for being afraid that I would have a hard time making friends. The professors that I have in my classes, are both intelligent and clearly care about how the students do in class. The classes are small in size. The professors ask questions and lead discussions that every student in the class takes a part in. The campus is beautiful and right on the outskirts of Saratoga Springs, a great town with a lot of great shops and activities to do on the weekends.

There was one other very important reason that my Mom and I wanted a smaller school and eventually chose Skidmore. We were both worried that I might face difficulty in college because of my deafness. We both wanted to make sure that I would be in a school where I would have the least amount of trouble when it came to hearing, whether in the classroom or out, and where I could have help if I did struggle. Now that I am here, I can say that being deaf, and having cochlear implants, has not had a big impact on my college experience here at Skidmore College.

I came to Skidmore a little worried, but also curious about how having cochlear implants would play into my college life. I can now say with confidence. Nothing. I have been to all my first semester classes, and I have had no problem hearing and taking notes, as I follow the class and what other students have to say, and once in a while adding my own thoughts. I can hear the professor and the other students perfectly well, and I feel right at home in my classes. The Dining Hall, the only one on campus, is both loud and boisterous, but I have no trouble hearing and holding conversations with my friends in there, unlike a lot of restaurants that I have been to. Of course, college life would not be college life without the parties. I thought that parties would be some place where I would have trouble at college. Having attended a few parties, I feel like for the most part I can hear fine, and when I do have difficulty, its not so bad. Sometimes I do ask for friends to repeat themselves. Overall I am very happy with how it is going at Skidmore, I am having fun, and learning a lot from my classes.

Another really cool thing to point out is that I have noticed two other people at Skidmore who have cochlear implants, and a few others with hearing aids, one of my teachers being one. I don't feel that different from the other students, and while people are curious about deafness and cochlear implants, they don't treat you differently. I am glad to see that so many people are completely open to students with hearing loss and the idea of cochlear implants and hearing aids. Hopefully this attitude will be adopted by more people who are part of the Deaf Culture and those who take part in the cochlear implant controversy. The same thing goes for the English professors who have a bone to pick with blogging and internet text.

Let there be sound

I was born February 4, 1992 as the youngest of four, with two older sisters, and one older brother. My parents were experienced parents by the time I was born, and they knew the drill of raising a kid. But there was one thing that set me apart from my siblings as a child. I was born profoundly deaf, but the doctors did not check my hearing. So when I started worrying my parents with my unusual behavior, they brought me to the doctors to get me checked out. My parents first reactions were completely normal to the life changing news from the doctor that I was deaf, shock and anxiety thinking I could never have a semblance of a normal life and that I would never have a life of those of my peers and siblings. But my parents did not just throw-up their arms in defeat and acceptance after the initial shock, they immediately asked about what they could do to help me. One of the ideas that was discussed and finally chosen was cochlear implants, which would change the rest of my life.

Cochlear implants were a new technology that came out recently before I was born. It is a device that functions with an external device, and an internal device. The internal device, which is surgically implanted into the child, with a wire with a snail shaped coil of tiny electrodes at the end, called the "electrode array," is inserted in the inner ear. The electrodes with the proper codes from the external device, would stimulate the auditory nerve utilizing small bursts of electricity. The brain, amazingly enough, can use this electrical stimulation as sound. The external device, which has the microphones takes the sound in the area around the deaf person, and send it to the internal device via radio transmission held in place by magnets between the external and internal devices. These amazing devices are being treated with trepidation from certain communities. Not only from the Deaf Culture, fearing it as a genocidal technology, but parts of the hearing society who fear that implanting this device in children who are deaf takes away their choice in a very monumental decision that affects the rest of their lives and infringes on the rights of the Deaf Culture. It is a very controversial technology right now, with many debates on its usage. A comparison of this controversy can be compared to the idea of blogs. For right now blogs are in state of controversy as well, as part of the new wave of Internet writing that emphasis the actual content and speed instead of the traditional formal writing emphasis. Some people fear that blogs and other writing on the Internet are degrading the level of writing skills of the new generation who use it often. So just as the English departments around the world are trying to come in terms of the new style of writing and how it fits in with the traditional writing, people are trying to understand the cochlear implants role.

So I got my first cochlear implant at the age of two. It was a new process to implant kids at such a young age, and nobody could be sure of the results. But through a lot of hard work of the people around me, especially my parents, and a lot of time spent in speech therapy and listening exercises, I am able to participate in normal activities with no one being the wiser that I am deaf.

Gallaudet

Gallaudet is a famous college for the deaf in D.C., and recently there have been many debates and protests over the future of the college, because of the introduction of cochlear implants and changes in the education policies for deaf students, in the Washington Post there was an article that highlights some of the debates and what the college is doing,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/gallaudet-university-adjusts-to-a-culture-that-includes-more-hearing-students/2011/09/23/gIQAC3W9tK_story.html?wpisrc=emailtoafriend

What do you think about the changes, and would you do anything differently? Just some things to think about.

Old Poems

I attended a elementary school called CHS, or the Concord Hill School from kindergarten to third grade. One of the art classes that I took there had a project where we had to write a little poem and cut out a picture in the magazine that you liked, and combine the two. The result of my project, had a little picture of an eagle, with a small poem under it that went:

 Life and Death

Noise and Silence

 I am between

 Life and Death

Noise and Silence

Because I am Deaf

It is from this silly poem that I got the idea for my blog title, Life and Deaf. My mom put the poem on the fridge when I came home from CHS, and today it is still there on my fridge. So I have never forgotten my little poem.