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.
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