Hooray! Good news!

[Kurenai]

Hello all! You may remember me when I posted in the Introductions but I finally ended up getting a referral from Australian Hearing to Ear Science centre.

I had the appointment this morning and she said my left ear is eligible for cochlear implantation! My left ear is worse than my right, both in hearing and in speech perception. I ranked 43% in speech perception in my left ear, my right was 70%.

This is very, very exciting news. I have an appointment to see her again in October as she needs to do more tests as well as testing how my hearing is while wearing hearing aids, talking more about Cochlear implants, costs, and about the surgery etc.

She complimented both myself and my mum (who was there with me) on my speech, that it was very clear so the speech therapy when I had as a child and my parents helping out certainly paid off.

She gave me information booklets on both Cochlear and Med-El. I remembered the Med-El website had recently released Rondo which made me in awe of it because it had no wires or anything behind the ear. I've worn hearing aids since I was 2 years old so you can imagine my excitement about a speech processor incorporated into the external piece of the cochlear implant!

At this moment, since I had already done my research when I first found out about cochlear implants, I'm stuck between Cochlear's Nucleus 5 and Med-El's Rondo. My mum has a personal inclination towards Cochlear since they have been around the longest and she feels it's better to go with them. I agree but ever since I laid my eyes on Rondo, I've had my heart set on it.

I'm not even sure if Rondo is even an option so that may have to be a question I'll ask her at the next appointment! I need a piece of paper to write down all the questions I'm going to ask her!

Sorry I just had to get my excitement out somewhere! Has anybody had any personal experiences with Rondo? Or is it too new?

I thought I would clarify that I know CIs aren't a magical cure. I know it's going to take time to relearn how to hear again and if the result of hard work and persistent re-learning is being able to understand speech and words better via CIs than HAs, you bet I will take that chance 110%!

 

[Phoenix23]

Yay!

 

[Paullys50]

Congrats! Very exciting!

I have Med-El and I have the Rondo. Right now they are giving them away free, which is a irritation for me since I got my CI before the promotion and to get the Rondo I had to exchange my spare Opus 2. So I have 1 Rondo, 1 Opus 2. With the current promotion you would get 1 Rondo, and 2 Opus 2 processors. So I'm a bit jaded.

Being a young adult with very short hair the Rondo is rather thick and obvious. Granted if someone looks at me straight on, you don't see anything. It would be much less noticeable if my hair was a bit longer. I must say it is comfortable given it's off-the-ear, but I have had a few instances where I knocked the processor off my head because I put my hands behind my head, or if I rested my head against a couch or chair towards my CI side. The Opus 2, because of how thin the D-coil is I never have this problem.

I've just started to use neck-loops for direct audio of TV, radio and such. As well as for bluetooth to my cell phone. This is the biggest pitfall of the Rondo. While I love using neckloops with my Opus 2, due to the location of the Rondo processor, the extra distance away from the base of my neck (where the neck loop rests) means a much weaker signal from the neckloop resulting in very low volume through the Rondo. Had I known how much I would appreciate neckloops, and how the performance is poor with the Rondo I probably would have kept my spare Opus 2. But, I still would have chosen Med-El.

Because of the Rondo promotion you have no risk at all.

 

[cdmeggers]

I would say, you should be able to make the choice for yourself. But do take your mom's thoughts into consideration.

Just so you know, Cochlear's N6 was recently FDA approved and will formally start being sent out at the end of the month. So if you were to go with Cochlear, more than likely you'll get the N6 instead. As for the Rondo from MedEl, you yourself get to pick which processor device you want. If your clinic is a 2 processor clinic, then you could get a Rondo and an Opus, if that is what you wanted to do (or 1 Rondo and 2 Opus if that promotion deal is still going on for new users so hey, 3 processors!).

That's the nice thing about the CI, there are different options.