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.