Dr. Awesome’s Big News

Brandt had his annual appointment with Dr. Awesome on Monday, and not even a kidney infection could keep me from the 2-hour drive back to my hometown for this!  Last year, at his first appointment with Dr. Awesome, Brandt found out that his hearing—and especially his Speech Discrimination—was deteriorating much faster than he’d realized and would need to get Cochlear Implants (CI) in 5 or 6 years.  He was “in the gray area” of Cochlear Implant candidacy, so Dr. Awesome suggested waiting a few more years before getting evaluated for CI.

Over the past year, I could tell that Brandt’s hearing was getting much worse.  He’s been sleeping through his alarm (he really needs to get a vibrating alarm clock!) and keeps waking up in a panic thinking there’s a plane flying over the house (it’s actually his tinnitus).  So when Dr. Awesome looked over his audiogram from 3 months ago and said, “Well, your hearing hasn’t really declined since last year, that’s good,” I jumped in and explained that it actually has.  He agreed that “hearing on paper isn’t always the same as it is in practice.”

Dr. Awesome thought for a second and said,

“I think I just might send you over for a Cochlear Implant evaluation.  You’re borderline, especially since your hearing loss isn’t all that bad, but your Speech Discrimination is so low, I honestly think you’d do much better with an implant.” 

I started dancing in my chair.  I could barely concentrate as Dr. Awesome told Brandt about the new research on the benefits of “bimodal stimulation”—using a Cochlear Implant in the worse ear and hearing aid in the better ear.  If he passes the evaluation and there aren’t any problems with his CAT scan (and the health insurance approves the surgery!), he could be implanted in 6 to 8 weeks.  Weeks.  The room was spinning.  My lower lip kept trembling and I was holding back tears.

I was almost-crying for 3 reasons.  First, was the excitement and relief at the thought of Brandt hearing better.  To be able to participate in group conversations, understand dialogue in a movie, possibly even listen to music without hating it.  To continue teaching without as much worry about understanding his students.  To rejoin The Hearing World (I have doubts he was ever fully in it before).

Another reason:  my immediate thought was, “I can’t wait to tell Aunt Louise!  She’ll be SO EXCITED!!”  And then I remembered that I can’t tell her.  I always thought she’d be sitting next to me in the waiting room while Brandt is in surgery.  That she’d give me advice when he’s having a “Bad CI Day,” and give him tips on how to adjust to everything sounding different.  It’s hard for me to imagine going through this process without her, especially since we wouldn’t be here at all if it hadn’t been for her constant insisting that Brandt’s life could change for the better if he’d go see Dr. Awesome.

And third, was sheer terror.  The CI surgery itself has some risks, and Brandt has never undergone any kind of surgery before (he doesn’t even have wisdom teeth!).  There’s an 80% chance his tinnitus will be erased, but in a few people, the surgery makes it worse.  And with as many problems as Brandt has had this past year with his new hearing aids, iCom, and FM system (the iCom broke again on Monday in the clinic—his FOURTH iCom in 8 months, and his hearing aid had to be sent off to the company to be repaired AGAIN—it was just sent off 3 months ago), it’s scary to think about what would happen if his Cochlear Implant processor had a bunch of technical glitches. 

The implant surgery wipes out ALL residual hearing, which is why someone’s hearing loss needs to be quite significant in order to be a candidate.  For someone who isn’t completely deaf—and not even severe-to-profoundly deaf yet—it’s a lot to give up.  Brandt’s hearing loss in his left, “worse” ear is only 70 decibels, which is usually at least 10 to 15 decibels less than what he’d need to be a CI candidate.  So going from a 70 dB loss to a COMPLETE loss (over 120 dB)—that’s huge.  He’s going to go deaf anyway, at some point, probably in less than a decade.  But the natural decline is much much slower than a sudden removal of ALL incoming sound.

Although I have been desperately wanting Brandt to get a Cochlear Implant for the past 3 years, by the time we arrived back home, I was having second thoughts.  When I went to sleep, I’d almost completely changed my mind.  I wanted to take it all back.  I wasn’t ready, it was too big a step, too much to think about.  Without Aunt Louise, my mentor and guru of All Things CI, how could I handle this?

Now, three days later, I’m not as freaked out, but still not ready either.  I know that it will have to happen eventually.  It’s an inevitable necessity.  But I’m worried that it’s still much too soon, that my initial enthusiasm was premature.

We know that it will be at least a year before Brandt could logistically get the surgery.  He will graduate with his doctorate next May (we hope!), which would not be possible if he got implanted this year.  He will have to arrange his schedule so that he doesn’t teach next summer—trying to teach several classes this Fall while adjusting to a CI would be impossible as well.  And it could very well take all of the next year to convince his health insurance company to cover it.  The ideal time for surgery would be late May to early June of next year.  So there’s time for us to fully prepare, if he does end up getting approved this year.

But I’m still scared.