I'm postlingually deaf (diagnosed with mild hearing loss at age 3; moderately-severe hearing loss by age 15; severe-profound hearing loss for the past 10 years) and have had my CI activated for 6 months. At this point, most of what I hear (voices and enviromental sounds) is very much like what I remember with hearing aids.
A prelingually deaf CI user I know reports that bird songs sound mechanical to her. When I listen to birds with my CI, I can hear them "tweet" and "chirp." I can also hear more than one bird call at once.
I was able to use my hearing to hear/understand speech until 2-3 years ago. I've worn hearing aids for 20 years, so have plenty of auditory memory to help give sound meaning.
The first 2 weeks following my CI activation were *really* difficult!
Everything was *so* loud!! In the beginning I could only wear my processor for 2 hours at a time. Any longer than that would cause nausea and headaches. I took breaks and slowly increased the time I wore the CI from 2 hours to 2.5 hours, 2.5 hours to 3 and so on.
Although my audi thought it would take weeks or months before I would start to understand speech with my CI, I spent hours practicing every day on various listening websites. As a result, I was able to understand some speech at 3 weeks post activation. Each person is different. There are so many variables which help determine how well a person will do with a CI (duration of deafness, time of language acquisition, brain wiring, etc.) -- and no guarantees.
I'm doing very well with my CI. My latest percentages at 6 month post activation are 97% for sentences in quiet, 90% for sentences in noise and 72% for single words. Those percentages don't always translate into real world experience, but they're very close -- and much better than my pre-CI test scores (22% for sentences in noise, 0% for single words and 0% for sentences in noise).
Deciding whether or not to get a CI is a difficult decision because there are no guarantees. It took me 3 years before I finally decided to be evaluated for a CI and even then, I wasn't entirely convinced it was the route I wanted to take. I procrastinated and my CI application spent close to a month sitting inside a drawer.
Sometimes the only thing you have to hold onto is the hope that you, a friend or loved one will receive maximum benefit from an implant. Unfortunately that isn't always the case and people really do need to realize that the CI isn't always the panacea people make it out to be.
Don't get me wrong...I *love* my CI and wouldn't trade it for the world!! However, CIs aren't the right choice for everyone. Just because a CI works for me doesn't mean it will work for you or the next person. Each of us has to decide for ourselves what choice is best and that choice should be respected.
CIs aren't a miracle cure for deafness. They are a tool -- nothing more, nothing less.
