Coming to My Senses: One Woman's Cochlear Implant Journey

To Sum Things Up

137 To Sum Things Up Looking Back I see myself bluffing, wanting to slip by undetected, wanting to look like everyone else. Sometimes I bluffed because I assumed I couldn’t get what was being said. Truth is, many times I couldn’t get it no matter how good my lipreading skills, and the can’t-get-its can add up, become the habit of giving up. Yet bluffing also forced me to “get it” some other way. You don’t hear only through those funny flaps on the sides of your head. I developed the necessary radar for detecting kind-hearted souls quick to clue me in, explain the situation, repeat the joke, take notes, without a shred of pity. And I learned to “get it” by picking up what spoken words omit: 138 Coming to My Senses how the lines around the mouth can give away a lie while the eyes play innocent. How the hands can tell if a person’s generous or stingy. How thoughts and feelings sculpt every face: sometimes lightly, wind over sand, often deeply, water over rock, grave or aglow, always meticulously. Looking at Now I see an evolving need. Who’s speaking? What’s happening? Where’s all this noise going? Why does it have to be clamorous, insistent, everywhere? Maybe I can’t “get” what you’re saying on the first try or the second, or the third . . . but I hear those words, they’re alive, they’re powers! Before: colors, forms, gestures, faces To Sum Things Up 139 called up tones within: red often shouts, blue can whistle, trees whisper, rocks snore, faces can shift within a sentence from loud to soft, to loud again. Now it works the other way too— noises, sounds, tones, have colors, forms, gestures, faces to explore. I’ve landed in a smorgasbord! I want to sing rather than mouthing words, meet jazz, classical, hip-hop, get acquainted with the talk of leaves in storm or breeze, learn to say, “Hey, I’m here!” when I don’t get it. Yes, hello, vast world of sound! I’ve become the bird in the spruce outside the window, the bird proclaiming, “I am here!” 5 140 Coming to My Senses Three years have passed since I got my cochlear implant. Though I am writing less frequently about it in my journal, and mostly in prose, the journey continues. Last week, for example, I was able to identify the strange sound I sometimes hear when going up the stairs in our house. It was the sound of the metal of my ring knocking against the wooden banister. I now remember this sound. I know it happens when I use the banister, and I know I make other sounds too when I do certain things. So I am learning to move through the world in new ways. For instance, when I’m taking dishes and flatware out in the early morning in preparation for breakfast. Do I want to do it quietly and let Ed sleep, or do I want to do it with the bang and clatter I now know I made before the implant, and wake him up? Ha! Sometimes it is tempting to make loud statements! I cannot, however, remember all the sounds I am getting. There are just too many. I have become desensitized to a large portion of the noises that seemed so astonishing when I began hearing them through the implant. Put another way, I am still learning to absorb and selectively sort through sounds, rather than being overwhelmed by them. But sometimes—when in a busy city, at a noisy party, or when Ed’s using the lawn mower or chain saw nearby—I can get a little dizzy. When that happens , I turn the processor off or excuse and remove myself. Speaking of dizziness, I’ve decided there is profound wisdom in the observation that the sense of hearing and the sense of balance are closely connected. Apart from the fact that the senses of position and bodily balance are connected to the fluid in the inner ear and vertigo can come on when this organ is upset, the ability to manage many sounds is quite clearly a balancing act. Furthermore, it seems to me the sheer number and variety of sounds one has to deal with is just one part of this balancing [18.218.129.100...