My life renewed!

I haven't been on here to update so allow me to do so now. Since the last time I was on here I have had a major change happen in my life. I can hear again!!! After 10 long years I finally can hear again! I got my cochlear implants!!! But as amazing as it is to be able to hear again it's not without it's complications. It's far from perfect. I'm still missing a lot of sounds, it's difficult to understand speech or whatever unless I have visual cues. I've attempted to talk on the phone and I miss a lot of what is said though I hear them I don't quite understand what is being said. I still watch TV with captions and when I attempt to listen to music it is usually music I remember very well and can follow along. I know that eventually this all will be a thing of the past. I've been told it all takes time. I have many adjustments to make and I have to get used to it. I've only been activated for about 3 weeks now, it's not an overnight process but I am making strides much faster than if I were someone who never had hearing before. I never knew what to expect when I planned to get cochlear implants and it wasn't anything I could ever prepare for. But I am extremely happy. I can understand people when they talk to me, I can listen to some music, I can enjoy TV with sound on. Is it perfect? No. Will it ever be? We'll see. None the less, this is an amazing experience! I never thought I would hear anything ever again! Look at me now! I expect things are going to improve in my life, part because I got my hearing back again, mostly because I already started my ball rolling for better things long ago. I go back to college in August. First time going to school with hearing. I'll still have a captionist to help me make sure I don't miss anything. I don't quite trust my hearing as of just yet, but I will get there. It takes time. Months, maybe even a year or so before things start to sound more natural to me, but I will get there. One thing is for sure, I don't regret my decision to get cochlear implants and one year from now, I will get my left ear done so that I can hear from both ears for the first time in my life! I just can't believe I'm hearing things again! As I sit her typing, I'm hearing the clicking of the keyboard, and things in the background. It might be just noise but it's such a sweet sound to my ear. One thing that I love about having cochlear implants aside from hearing again. I have complete control over everything. Volume, sensitivity, when I want to hear or when I want complete silence. I also will be seeing my audiologist regularly for awhile, making adjustments to the sounds, volumes, and frequencies. It will take time but it will all improve drastically. It so amazing. It simply attaches to my hear magnetically and sends all the sounds through my head into my hearing nerve directly to my head! How cool is that?! And to think, just one year ago, I hadn't even dreamed this would happen. Not this soon.

Thanks for following my blog my fellow readers, and I will try to continue to update as things happen. You will be a part of this journey right along with me. :)

Changes coming!

Since the last time I posted a blog I have been going through the process of getting my Cochlear implants. I've been through many tests, all which have been a little upsetting. The last time I had hearing tests, I could still hear somewhat. Now I can't hear anything at all! Well, that will soon change once I get the cochlear implants and I cannot wait!! One of the most grueling parts of this process was making a choice of which company I want to receive my cochlear implant from. Cochlear America or Advanced Bionics. This was a very hard decision because they are very similar. There are many differences in options and things like that but they do pretty much the same thing. In the end I chose to go with Advanced Bionics because their options were more suited to my needs. I am active and like to go to Kings Island or go swimming. With AB I had the option to have two processors so I could go with the Naida CI for normal use and the Neptune for swimming, riding roller coasters, etc. As far as how they sound, I won't know until I have them turned on. It is virtually impossible to know which would sound better, Cochlear or AB since they all work differently for everyone. But AB claims they have a wider range in sound which would make music sound much better, but again, I won't know until I have them turned on. Now I'm only waiting for the insurance to give the green light which shouldn't be too long hopefully. They told me approximately 6 weeks from my appointment on March 26. If that's true, then I will have the surgery on May 29 and be activated sometime in June. If not, then I won't have the surgery until mid to late July and be activated in August. I'm hoping to be activated before July since my daughter's birthday is July 3. That would be a great birthday gift for her don't you think? :)

Time for school!

Well this week I finally started back to college. I used to go to college at Southern State Community College. I loved it there, however, I wrecked my car awhile back and lost my license and was unable to get transportation to and from there. So I had to transfer closer to home where I could get transportation. Now I go to Clark State Community College. It's much different and I have to readjust to college life all over again. Some things I like about this school, some things I don't. I like that I will not only get my degree in computer networking but I will also get my certifications too! I'm very happy about that as Southern State didn't offer that at all! What I don't like is all the time that I had attended Southern State, all the credit hours I put into them won't transfer up here! Very few of my classes and credit hours will transfer and so I have to go here at Clark State almost as long as I would normally, which sucks! Oh well, at least I got back into it and will FINALLY be finishing my degree and can graduate! Nothing can stop me now! Well unless I screw up and stop myself again. But I don't foresee that happening again. My main concern is balancing sleep, school, studying, homework, and everyday life. I don't know what I would do if I had to work!! I can't wait till I can work again but hopefully that won't happen until I'm almost finished with school. I really hope that I can find and get hired on through someone in the area, doing what I am going to school all this time for. Man, I've been going to school for over 3 years already! It's supposed to be a 2 year course! But life got in my way several times, be it my fault or not. Now I have to go almost 2 more years for the same degree! It's only an associates degree at that! Not Bachelors. Sigh...well, all I can do is keep going and see what it brings me. I'm hoping to make it in life finally. Doing what I love to do, working around computers. Maybe one day I can help make a better network connection that we all crave. Data traveling online to and from computers are getting larger and larger. Movies, games, you name it! We need something better than what we have! But we need the network mainframe and computers to handle the traffic. I think game developers such as Microsoft and Sony have the right idea, streaming data while having instant access to it to speed up wait times but there has to be a better way to do these things. I would love to see a day when downloading things are a thing of the past and when you download something or even stream something it would be instantaneous! Maybe one day. Look how far we've come so far! It's not as far fetched as you would believe and people like myself will be working on it to make it better. And I'm doing all this while being deaf. Can't wait till I get cochlear implants! Life will be so much easier!!! Well, till next time bloggers. :)

My random thoughts

Hello.
Well I figured I'd just post about random things today. Today I'm going to my brother's house for a family get together for Christmas. I know it's a little late but that's how my family is. We do things when we can. It's not perfect but at least we try to keep together as a family. I look forward to these get togethers, even though I'm kinda just there, in the background. My family does try to include me. They know that it's hard for me to be involved in conversations, especially when there are alot of people. I just get lost. I try to keep up but it never really happens so I have to have someone explain things to me or I just sit there and take in what I can. It's hard being deaf in a hearing family and it's even harder when all I can do with them is read their lips. Add in multiple people and you see what I have to deal with. Just one more reason why I can't wait to get cochlear implants! I'm tired of being swept aside because I can't communicate the way I used to. Don't take this as a pity party for myself, honestly I've dealt with this for 10 years and still going. I'm just content. This isn't about me, it's about our kids. It's about bringing the family together so we can enjoy each others company. I just hate that my hearing is the barrier that keeps me from enjoying it to the fullest. One day soon, hopefully, this won't be a problem anymore. On that note, I do communicate with alot of people, just mostly online. On my Facebook I try to be as funny and happy as possible. Posting things I see on Facebook and sharing them to give others a laugh. I also post videos of music off and on. I get songs in my head at random and I post these for others to enjoy. Granted they are all older songs from before 2004 but it's nice to reminisce about old times and songs are the best way to do that. People always ask me, how do I live without music. Well, technically I don't. I have over 30 years of music that run through my head. I see something that reminds me of a song and there it is, playing in my head. Some times the full song, sometimes just little snippets on repeat. Sometimes I enjoy it, sometimes it annoys me. Much like anyone else. We all get songs stuck in our heads, well, so do I. I just can't hear them anymore. But seeing posts of songs, videos,  etc. It brings it all back to me and I'm just jamming away in my head. When I get cochlear implants my goal is to catch up on music. Listen to all my favorite old bands again, new and old, and learn about all the new bands I missed out on in the last 10 years! Thank God for all the new technology because without cochlear implants, MP3 players, iPods, and many more, I would not be able to catch up for a long long time, if ever. As it is I can catch up 10 years of music in a few days for the most part and gradually catch up to more as time goes by.  So many things to catch up to when I get my hearing back, not just music but everything, and I look forward to it all!

Fear and determination- The road to hearing again.

     I should probably post on this more often as I have alot of thoughts running through my head constantly. It's the only voice I can hear, my inner voice.

Anyways let's begin. I want to explain myself. I'm 37 years old and for the last 10 years I have lived without hearing. I am completely and profoundly deaf. But 10 years ago and for 27 years that wasn't the case. I was born deaf in my left ear but I could hear almost perfectly through my right ear. I had a hearing aid and only wore my hearing aid when I absolutely had to. It drove me crazy to wear it because in most cases I never needed it. As I was growing up my hearing fluctuated every few years and gradually got worse, fluctuating every year to every few months. When I was 27 I was going through a lot of stress in my life. Things that would bring any man to his knees. Well during this time my hearing took it's final fluctuation. I thought it was just another fluctuation and that it would come back. It didn't. Instead, it kept going and going, getting worse and worse. I wore my hearing aid. I went to the doctor multiple times within those 6 months to have the hearing aid checked and readjusted so that I could hear. Nothing stopped it. Noone could explain why my hearing was taking this nosedive! After 6 months it was gone. The hearing aid did no good for me anymore and I couldn't hear anything anymore.

Lucky for me I had so many years of reading lips and that I could still speak that I could still communicate but it has been and still is to this day very difficult. Reading lips is very difficult and I may understand people about 20% of the time. And that's if I can actually read their lips! If the person mumbles, if they are old, if they talk really fast, if they have alot of facial hair, etc, I can't understand them at all and have to resort to other means to be able to understand what they are saying i.e. texting, writing things down, typing, etc.

Over the years I had learned about cochlear implants and have looked into them profusely. I've looked at the pros and cons of having them. I've looked at what people have said about them. So many positives and negatives. Ranging from what they do and how they sound to what they cost. Most deaf people are completely against CIs, which I can understand as they have been deaf their whole lives or mostly deaf their whole lives and have cemented themselves in deaf culture and ASL. That's great for them! Much like hearing people have grown up living their lives with English and speaking and sounds. I grew up hearing. I tried many times in my life to learn and use ASL but there is one glaring flaw in that. What good does it do if I never use it?! I can't sign to people who don't know ASL! Everyone I know, family, friends, people I go to college with, etc, none of them know ASL. Only a handful of people in my life know ASL and  I can count them on one hand! I have been a deaf man stuck in the hearing world. Trapped between two worlds! I don't belong in the hearing world and I don't belong with the deaf community either. After many talks with other people we finally concluded that the only option is to "restore" my hearing through cochlear implants. I'm so excited to finally be starting the process to getting them and I can't wait to be able to hear again. But I'm scared too. How will they work for me? Will it be like when I had my hearing with hearing aids? Better? Worse? If I go to cochlear implant sites or I read about others experiences with them I see amazing results! But then I hear about the bad things that have happened. What if it affects my brain or my facial nerves? What if it doesn't work the way I'm hoping it will? I'm determined to hear again and I am determined to be successful in life and this is one of those steps that will solidify my goals in life. But it scares me too. So many things could go wrong or it could be flawless and better than I've ever experienced before! Only way to find out is to go through with it and find out. I'm not very religious but I am praying that everything goes smoothly and that my experience exceeds my wildest dreams! Only going through it and time will tell.

Gotta start somewhere

So I thought that I would start a blog about random things that pop in my head from time to time. I tend to forget these thoughts and it would be nice to come back and remember them.
So....where to start. Well, lately I've been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to find an attractive woman who would like  to be with me. The problem is, most women are fed up with men. All the lies, all the problems and frustrations. Fact is, not all men are the same. I, for one, am not like anyone else. I'm a deaf person. But I don't belong in the deaf community anymore than I fit with hearing people. Due to this it has opened my eyes as an outsider of sorts. A misfit stuck on the outside. I see how men can be and how they act and treat women. How many women I've seen that has given up on finding the right man. Now, as a man who has just settled with what came to me, I know that just settling for someone simply because you are lonely doesn't work. But being too picky also generates difficulties as well. We live in a world where you can't just have whoever you want whenever you want. I mean, I look at myself. I'm a good looking guy. I have a good head on my shoulders. I'm going to college and I'm trying to make a better life for myself. I don't do drugs and I don't drink constantly. I'm nice and sweet. I don't get into trouble or go looking for trouble. But when you look at all the good points then you have to ask why the hell am I single? Good question. It's simple. I'm not everything women want. Women want a man. When I say a man that means, a man who has everything in their life organized. They have a job, they work hard and play harder. Someone who doesn't mind getting dirty. A good ol' country boy would be a good example. This is where I'm lacking. I don't come off as a man to women. Sure, I'm attractive but once they see me, speak to me, they see the obvious flaws. I'm not like other men. Period. No, I'm not gay either. It's part the fact that I'm deaf. Dig deeper and you see that I'm not where I want to be in my life. I don't have a job. I'm on disability. I'm in college but I'm not graduating and seeking employment yet. I had a car till I wrecked it. That just made matters worse. What's really sad is it was my own fault. My own undoing. Like a lot of the things I've been through in my life. My past, present and future is tied together by one long string of bad decisions. Some decisions were based on good intentions. Other decisions were based on pure stupidity. Like my car accident. I was drinking, decided it was a good idea to drive home because it was cold and I didn't want to drive home. Baaaad idea! I'll never ever make that mistake again. Live and learn right? Problem is, I didn't just lose my car and license. I've postponed my graduation from college. I'm stuck walking everywhere I want to go. I now have no choice but to hope that one day soon I might meet a girl here in this damn town. Which will never happen. I'd love to meet a girl who was like me, even close. I'd love to meet someone who wanted to be with me simply because I make them smile. I'd love to meet a girl who I actually would be completely in love with. That girl, just doesn't exist. Not in this town. Not anywhere near here! Yeah I'm also guilty of being kinda choosy. I don't want some woman who is well over 300 pounds and/or over 45 years old! My preferences for a woman would be between the ages of 25 and 32, and weighed about 150ish. It would also be nice if they are pleasing to the eye. Who wants someone they have to put a bag over their head just to introduce them without being embarrassed? Now, yes I know this makes me sound like a douchebag but lets be honest. It really doesn't. I don't completely rule them out. Hell I've dated too many overweight women to count! I want something different. Something better. Something I believe that I deserve! I deserve to be happy right? Fact is, I don't know if such a woman exists. Cause for all the reasons that make me sound like a douche, women and men all over, are exactly the same way! The majority is far worse! Noone wants to hook up with a "fatty". Noone wants to hook up with someone who reminds you of your mother due to her age. I may not be young. I'm 36. I'm getting up there. But I'm not there yet! And I pray one day, I might meet the girl of my dreams, before I'm too old to enjoy it. I'm already getting there and I'm not getting any younger. Until then, I gotta keep working on becoming the man every real woman out there expects, because everything counts!