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.