We started with lots of testing with the implant audiologist. She took him to a sound booth and did lots of tests to determine his hearing quality. Dan emerged from the booth and said, "Yep, still deaf!" With the help of hearing aids, he can hear about 20% of sounds, making him a prime candidate for a cochlear implant. He has been a candidate his whole life, but within the last year he has decided to go forward with the process. It was a big decision! They will be performing an irreversible surgery that has the potential to damage the little hearing he has left and also making him ineligible for any future advances in research. Not a decision you make on a whim.
We spent almost 3 hours with the audiologist performing tests and going over the whole process. We then met with the surgeon for about 10 min. I will admit that we were a little taken aback by the meeting with the surgeon. It was too brief and we felt very rushed, but we concluded that while technically the surgeon is the one performing the actual surgery, most of our time will be spent with the audiologist going over questions and discussing expectations etc. It is the audiologist, not the surgeon, for instance, that activates the implant.
The next day, Dan got a CT scan, so that the surgeon could evaluate his cochleas. Now, the audiologist and the surgeon will provide their recommendation to our insurance and once the insurance gives approval (usually within 2-4 weeks), we will be able to go forward with the next steps. He will then have at least 4 more testing sessions with the audiologist and a surgery date will be set.
We're not setting any summer plans until we know when his surgery will be since there will be a long recovery process. After surgery, he will need about a week to physically recover, but then he won't be able to use any hearing aids for about 4 weeks in order to let his brain recover. Around 4 weeks after surgery is when the audiologist will activate the implant. And THEN he'll have to re-learn how to hear and speak. Overall it will be long process, but ultimately the goal is for Dan to hear more than 20%. The surgeon guaranteed he will be able to hear more than he can currently hear, but the extent of success is variable. His hearing could increase a little or a lot, and there is no way of knowing how successful it will be.
(outside the sound booth)
(inside where all the testing is done)
The implanted part is in the top left corner of this picture (clear, circular-looking thing that has longer electrodes coming out of it). The circular part is the magnet that will be placed under the skin, above his ear. The electrodes are placed inside the cochlea. The processor will hang on the back of his ear like a normal hearing aid and a microphone will attach via magnet on the outside of his head.
