Hi again everyone. I know you’ve been waiting with baited breath for my follow-up blog about my second implant. So, not being one to disappoint my adoring public, here goes!
As I’ve said before, I had my second surgery on my left ear in early February 2014… on a Saturday (Jeremy Hunt, please take note, that looks like a 24 7 NHS from where I’m sitting). The surgery went really well—so well in fact that the consultant let me leave on the Saturday night. One issue we were worried about before surgery, was how I’d hear for the 24 hours or so when I had the bandage round my head, as we thought the magnet wouldn’t be strong enough to attach my right implant to my head. Fortunately, I seem to have either a really strong magnet or a really thin head and, although it wasn’t very secure, it stayed on… meaning that within an hour of waking up, I was able to listen to 5Live to check the football scores… priorities eh? In the interest of adding some ‘colour’ and ‘period detail’ to this blog, I’ve googled and can tell you that my team lost 2-0 to West Ham!
So, I then had the 3 week or so wait to be switched on. We thought that as, prior to getting implanted, my left side was my better side; I’d adapt quite well to the implant and be able to hear at least as well, if not better, with that one than with the one on my right. Twas not to be! Even after a number of trips to the hospital for mapping where various settings were fiddled with, I still don’t hear as well on my left as on my right. The sound seems to be slightly echoey. To get it in to context though, it’s still a million times better than how I was hearing with my hearing aid on that side, so a huge result for me.
The reasoning behind giving blind people 2 implants is to help with direction of sound. This has certainly helped me in terms of locating the direction of sounds and, although maybe not quite as successful as my first implant, I definitely don’t regret having 2!
Hearing Again 
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