Being Cyborg
Ingrid has a degenerate hearing loss which caused her to slowly go deaf over a period of 20 years. Last year she was clinically assessed as profoundly deaf in her left ear and severely deaf in the right. The fear of being isolated from life and not sharing her family experiences prompted her to go ahead with a cochlear implant. This is her story.
Ingrid Turner 2009
Download a copy of Ingrid's story
Hello my name is Ingrid. I graduated from university in 1987 and was originally a mainstream Science/Maths teacher. But my hearing loss only made it possible for me to teach for 5 years after which I dabbled in visual art and interior decorating for many years. In the early 2000s, due to the changes in technology I started using hearing aids which increased my hearing function. This gave me the opportunity to return to university to study special education. I have now worked in special education/learning support for 3 years. My two sons start at St Andrews next term and through their enrolment process opportunities became available to me to also become part of the St Andrews teaching team.
Ingrid continues her story through her diary entries.
Cyborg Update
Today is my 13th day of living this unusual existence as a Cochlear implant recipient. I thought I would pass on some of my experiences and share the frustrations. I didn't realise or have forgotten what a noisy world we live in.
The electronic interpretation of noises is still over-riding normal sounds and speech. Obviously this means I am not functioning as high as I was before with my hearing aid and lip-reading - I know be patient, be patient everyone keeps saying. When have I ever been patient?
However the wonderful thing is I am hearing sounds I would have missed before (electronic version or not). I have discovered my dog's toenails on the tiles make a cute little tinkling noise and sugar rattles in those coffee shop packets.
Although things are progressing quickly I find I still rely on lip reading and visual cues to keep up with conversation. Speech still sounds like people's voices are being put through a keyboard synthesizer with each syllable coming in as different notes. Weird but getting easier to interpret each day - the speech therapy/ listening activities are a drag but do help with progress.
My boys call the implant adaptation process "Mum's Cyborg Evolution" and it is truly an exciting time learning to hear again. Having the implant on as often as possible increases my Cyborg evolution so I'm trying to keep it on every waking moment. Fatigue is a real issue but worth it, nightly wine helps.
I haven't heard the sound of 'sh' for over 20 years and now I can hear it although it sounds like a high pitched little bird. Last night I discovered our car beeps when you leave the lights on and slicing tomatoes make a 'sh' sound. The birds outside the kitchen window sing to me each morning and they are beginning to sound clearer and above the road noise. I'm sure my brain is totally confused about where to put all this new or forgotten information. How do people who have no memory of hearing do this process??
Returning to work is still two weeks away and I'm glad I haven't rushed going back. I definitely underestimated how hard this transformation was going to be. Oh well, better go do some listening homework as I have to report my efforts each Wednesday to the Audiologist. These weekly trips to Brisbane are very exhausting but there was such a big change in the programming (mapping) in one week, I can see why it must be done.
Feeling Bionic
I am now at the end of my 7th week of Cyborg development. The last 2 weeks have seen some big changes. I have been watching TV without subtitles - albeit with huge high tech Sennheiser headphones however NO SUBTITLES. It has been a decade since I haven't needed them. Tony is getting very excited that we may now add going to the movies to our social repertoire. My sons are getting into more trouble for swearing and the lyrics to the music they play is not for Mother's ears.
I returned to teaching a few weeks ago, the Early Intervention classes have been a real challenge. 4½ year olds with speech language impairment or ASD (Autism Spectrum disorder) don't articulate, don't make eye contact and have high pitched voices with erroneous speech patterns. I am very proud to say that last week my fabulous class of little men started to become more intelligible. That is, I can not only fill in the gaps of their speech error but hear and document consonant inaccuracies. Of course this means lots of class-time auditory training for them!
Sounds like /d/ and /g/ are decipherable, which was just a dream two months ago. I have ordered my special hands-free telecoil phone and instead of being worried, I am confident that listening through the Cochlear Implant will be a vast improvement.
The synthesised voices and fax machine overtones are subsiding and people are sounding more normal as the weeks go on. I am starting to feel more bionic than cyborgic (now that's a new word!).
We are off to Brisbane for more mapping tomorrow. Then the next one is in a month, then down to 6 monthly visits. The weekly trips are very tiring, Tony and I will be happy to reduce the flying - yes we definitely wouldn't make good rock stars.
Cyborg Life
Already I am noticing huge benefits in my life from being able to hear again.
This year I am back teaching - half time in mainstream education and half in Learning support.
Best of all I'm back teaching Physics and Maths A, which I had missed, and I have also picked up senior Visual Arts. The cochlear implant has given me back the joys of teaching mainstream students. There are not many people who would say that they love teenagers but I do and I have missed the special relationship that teaching offers.