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Quora Questions are part of a partnership between Newsweek and Quora, through which we’ll be posting relevant and interesting answers from Quora contributors throughout the week. Read more about the partnership here. Answer from Cristina Hartmann, author, cochlear implant user since 1991.

I know what I hear with a cochlear implant (CI) is a far cry from natural hearing. In an abstract way, I know the sound I hear is highly digitized and pixelated, but I have no other frame of reference for understanding sound.

Learning how to hear with a CI, particularly for someone born profoundly deaf, isn’t an easy or simple journey. I don’t regret going on the journey, but there were no roses or rainbows along the way.

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I was born profoundly deaf. My deafness was so severe that no hearing aid on the market was any help. I thought they were toys and would feed them to my dog, to my mother’s horror. The only sound I could sense was some vibrations from very loud noises. I was off the charts in terms of dB loss, which is relatively rare.

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Through sign language (initially Signed Exact English, then American Sign Language) and reading, I had access to visual languages. By six years old, I was perfectly on par with my hearing peers in terms of language development, albeit visually, not auditory. My brain was functioning quite well; my ears weren’t.
I knew there was a thing called “sound” in an abstract way. It was kind of like how you know there are atoms and electrons, even though you can’t directly see or touch them. Seeing others move their lips and understand each other seemed almost magical. I considered it close to a form of mind-reading that I wasn’t privy to.In 1991, I became one of the first few hundred children to receive a CI after theFDA approved it for pediatric use.

Neurologically speaking, I was far past my prime. Doctors didn’t expect me to learn how to speak or listen.[1] Considering the profundity of my deafness and my advanced age, doctors didn’t quite know how well I would ever hear.

Most of the children who received a CI during the clinical trials once had hearing. I was uncharted territory at that time, so the doctors warned my parents not to expect too much. In 2014, the field of auditory training for children with CIs has developed by leaps and bounds, so my case wouldn’t be as much of a conundrum today.

I knew there was a thing called “sound” in an abstract way. It was kind of like how you know there are atoms and electrons, even though you can’t directly see or touch them. Seeing others move their lips and understand each other seemed almost magical. I considered it close to a form of mind-reading that I wasn’t privy to.In 1991, I became one of the first few hundred children to receive a CI after theFDA approved it for pediatric use.

Neurologically speaking, I was far past my prime. Doctors didn’t expect me to learn how to speak or listen.[1] Considering the profundity of my deafness and my advanced age, doctors didn’t quite know how well I would ever hear.

It was in a windowless room in a cramped hospital on the Upper East Side. The audiologist and my mother watched me as they turned on the external processor.[2] After the audiologist placed the magnet on my head and turned it on with her computer, it was game time.

Disappointed, my mother and I left the hospital wondering if the surgery had been worth it at all. As we waited to cross the street, someone started a motorcycle behind me, and I felt something. I couldn’t even quantify it. It wasn’t tactile. It wasn’t visual. It was painful, like sharp prickling somewhere in the depths of my brain.

It was in a windowless room in a cramped hospital on the Upper East Side. The audiologist and my mother watched me as they turned on the external processor.[2] After the audiologist placed the magnet on my head and turned it on with her computer, it was game time.

 

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