Nine Months Later

As my cochlear implant has become just another part of my life, I am starting to take my new hearing for granted. I'm still *so* grateful every morning when I put the CI on, and use the phone, and sometimes watch TV without the closed captioning. But so much now is "normal" for me that never was before. How can I convey the excitement of understanding my nieces and nephews so much better than ever before?

Even the little things are nice; I can hear the turn signals blinking in my truck, and when I leave the lights on there's a buzzer that goes off when I open the door, reminding me to turn them off. I can hear when the washer is finished upstairs, and I can hear when it is raining outside without even looking out the window.

The next step: see if my mom is a candidate. Her hearing has been poor and I think it is getting much poorer; she can barely understand a thing. I think it's her turn to go through this process.

If anyone out there is still on the fence about getting a CI, all I can say is I wish I had done this long ago.