The Dating Game

Woo Hoo!!! We have a date!

Just Chillin'

Wednesday morning we dropped BabyB at childcare and trundled up to the city to meet with Jaime's ENT surgeon.

As we walked the ice cold city streets toward the hospital, Jaime and I shared an air of excitement...

We entered the waiting room,  Its glass and mirrored walls always reminds me of a fish tank; a holding ground for a wide variety of fish, all bobbing around awaiting their turn to be plucked from the tank. Sometimes the tank is full of old fish, and sometimes its a school of baby fish all fighting for prime position around the treasure chest of toys, sometimes you could swear a shark was on the prowl with all eyes fixed on the waiting room door, everyone in staunch silence.

Today it was a beautifully vibrant mixture, a tropical assortment that were more that happy to socialise and share stories.

I love seeing the different stages of the cochlear journey all in the one place, each supporting the other.

From those anxiously waiting for their first appointment, wondering "is this for me"; to those waiting in anticipation for their green light; then others who have taken their first tentative steps into the hearing world, to the experts that have been up and running for years.

The 'experts' are reminded how far they have come and the newcomers get to see how much they can achieve, its beautiful.

We are in-between, on one side we are entering the realm of seasoned pro, wonderful progress through the use of her CI, a fabulous example to others; on the other hand, we too are again newbies, taking our first unknown steps into the world of bilateral implants.

After 1hr20 of waiting (yep, our ENT was running just a tad late) we had watched the fish bowl slowly empty until Jaime was a lone goldfish racing laps around the now spacious bowl. Finally her name was called, finally it was time to sign the dotted line ready for hospital admission in less than two weeks time. Our date is set, June15 will mark our entry into the bilateral CI world.

Despite all the waiting, our appointment was brief, 5minutes later we were on our way. As we departed the office our ENT quickly checked if we were aiming to preserve Jaime's residual hearing or not, without too much thought my response was "as long as we get a good electrode placement, what will be, will be".

That night I tossed and turned, I like to think of myself as the fact finding sort, I like to be informed, yet I had rather flippantly brushed of the question of hearing preservation. After battling for approval for this CI you would think I would take this a little more seriously, should I indeed be pushing to preserve what little Jaime has left? Is one electrode better than another? I didn't want to regret my choice.

I made the call to our ENT, I didn't really know what I wanted to ask, so I just blurted something about making the right choice.

I was glad I picked up the phone, our ENT was fantastic and talked me through the electrode selection.

Jaime is a candidate for both the Contoured and Straight electrode arrays (some recipients will be restricted to one or the other due to their anatomy)  for us, there was somewhat of a choice.

The straight array is fantastic, it is thin and flexible enabling it to curve passively through the cochlear along the outer wall, the hair cells that will pick up the sound signals line the inner wall of the cochlear, so by avoiding the inner surface the straight electrode is less traumatic and therefor has the ability to preserve any natural hearing that may be present (not guaranteed but more likely).

The only downside is that due to the position of this electrode it requires a higher power input to bridge the gap from the electrode to the nerve endings, occasionally this restricts the ability to stimulate the deepest hair cells that are responsible for low frequency sounds (your bass sounds).

For those aiming to preserve hearing, the hearing they do have left normally resides in those lower frequencies so this type of insertion makes sense.

Image from: Slide Share

Although Jaime has a little hearing left, it has been gradually dropping and therefor in the next 10 or so years its feasible that she won't have any residual hearing anyway, so what would our reasoning be to try and preserve it for 10years?

The idea sounds great, leave her with 'something' for those times when she can't wear her CI; tho, she doesn't use that sound now so she isn't really about to start.

So, what about the contoured electrode? This is the big sumo when compared to the Slim Straight electrode, its fatter and not so delicate as it passes through the cochlear. The Contoured electrode is exactly that, contoured, it is pre-shaped to follow the tight spiral of the cochlear.

This pre-shaping means it is able to hug tightly against the inner surface of the cochlear, placing it in direct contact with the hair cells and allowing for it to reach deeper into the cochlear, this also means that by stomping its way through the cochlear it is likely to destroy what hearing is left.

As a quiet world mumma I will always worry about making the right choices, I want Jaime to have nothing but the best! In this case, the stomping robust Sumo wins over the agile Slim electrode array.

Bring on June 15th!!! We are ready to tackle implant number two head on, we are ready for the joys and the challenges.

Always ready to tackle everything with a smile!

Some of you may wonder where our quiet world daddy is through all this. He is here, he lurks in the background chiming in when he can, he tries hard to learn about this whole new world and is amazing with Jaime. He is Jaime's light, her clown and superhero. When it comes to the technical side, lets put it this way... He never knew there was more than one type of Watermelon (incase you weren't aware, there are thousands of watermelon species!) In his mind you could either hear or you couldn't, there weren't all these different types of hearing loss, and there certainly weren't different types of implants! Boy is there a whole new world out there he could get lost in!