Brian

Well, I have been born again.  No, I am not referring to the fundamentalist Christian style of being a reborn Christian, although my relationship with God is as rock solid as ever.  I have been explained by my audiologist at University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Massachusetts, Dana Hume,  as well as by Melissa Waller,the Northeast Director of Med-El Corp. (who is now located at the home headquarters in Innsbruck, Austria), the manufacturer of the digital cochlear implant, that I was going to regress as a bona fide infant.  Without missing a micrometer of a beat, I excitedly asked if that meant I could get all the benefits of that as well, by allowing the most extreme childish immature and unadulterated id component of my personality to explode to the clear surface, allowing me to act as impulsive, self-centered and uninhibited as I wanted to.  Sadly, that one drew a negative, but I still secretively assured myself that this pleasantly surprising declaration of infancy will grant me at least a few opportunities to act out at least a few outrageous behaviors that are cruelly stripped from us in adulthood.    

The type of regressing rebirth I am referring to is that I am learning how to hear all over again, the same way an infant does.  Unlike most cochlear implant recipients, I have absolutely no sight, so I suspect being unable to size up people's non-verbal cues to my bench test will allow me a few more of the pleasures of my id.  Most people submerge their id by the age of five or so, but thanks to my live-it-up philosophy in preparation for sight and hearing loss, I think I was about twenty.  I knew there was going to be something really great about this cochlear implant, especially when it was  activated, or more accurately, turned on on September 2, 2003, about three weeks after it was implanted into my skull by my skilled neuro-otological surgeon, Dr. Daniel Lee, on August 11th. 

A cochlear implant device is actually composed of two units-the internal unit of electrodes and round magnet that are surgically implanted in the skull and the external unit consisting of an ‘L’ shaped speech processor.  In oversimplified terms, sound comes through the speech processor, is then converted from sonar energy to electrical energy, then is transmitted through the electronic cord passing to the external magnet.  The external magnet,clamped to the internal magnetright through the scalp, feeds this electric energy right to the twelve electrodes which are delicately, but securely clamped to the converged ganglion cells of the auditory nerve.  It is when this speech processor is activated that a cochlear implant recipient is truly getting a literal buzz from the turn-on.

Let me start by portraying what happened on Day One, at H-Hour 13 hours, on Tuesday September 2, 2003.  I was accompanied by my incredibly supportive partner and soul-mate Sharron Hubbard as well as my great friend Pete Rossetti, a fraternity brother and one of my roommates at UMass.  After an exchange of pleasantries and enduring a computer test to ensure the implant indeed was functioning,  the next step was to attach my new bionic ear to my beloved skull that contains all those brilliant brain cells (id regression step #1-overly self-centered narcissm, or in plainer terms, an incredibly swelled up head).  But the speech processor wasn't turned on yet, not by a long shot, there was still a lot of work to do just yet.  The first task at hand was getting each of the twelve electrodes that was delicately, but snuggly, implanted into my useless cochlea to function at a comfortable level of volume.  Each electrode represents a particular band of frequencies that control a sound’s pitch .  So the first electrode was activated, and The Big Bang began. 

When I first heard the sound of the first electrode, I thought 'Sonuvagun! The implant really worked.  I am actually hearing something.'  I was in total ecstatic charge here, getting back to my regressive role by being as demanding as I wanted to be, simply saying words quite familiar to me 'more, more, please baby,  give me more'when I wanted the volume cranked up.  After we finished the first two electrodes, I was getting impatient (id step #2), so I started speeding up the process. It was when I got to about the fourth electrode that I started to get slightly choked up and had to slow down the turn-on by taking a few stabilizing deep breaths.  I guess I forgot that I was grantedinfancy status.  But it was at the fourth electrode that it dawned on me that I had never heard this sound before, never in all 56 years of my life. 

It was an incredible experience, but slightly bewildering as well, actually mind-blowing.  It was like, as I explained to Peter later, what I had imagined a LSD trip to be, except Peter nor I ever dropped acid, I swear. But this fascinating mind-boggling experience kept escalating right up to the twelfth electrode, I really thought I was kind of getting high from the endogenous sensations, not just the exhilaration of hearing something like sweet music.  I could tell that I never ever heard about ten of those twelve frequency bands, indeed it was like psychedelic music of the ‘60s.
   
Now at this point at the completion of calibrating each electrode, Dana played them all together, all twelve in a serial row, just like going one piano key at a time.  After Dana completed this piano tune-up several times, it was what I imagined how Mozart sounded, not quite 'Pomp and Circumstance' yet, but we were definitely getting there.

About a half hour later when all the singular electrode testing was completed, now we got to the nitty-gritty, the big banana, the speech processor is going to be turned on all by itself without benefit of computer hook up.  This is the phase where the hankies are passed out.

So I anxiously waited as Dana made sure the the speech processor is fitted properly around my ear. 

Assured that the processor indeed is where it is supposed to be, Dana then follows these reassuring hand movements of a skilled professional doing her job by abandoning me into the abyss of the frightening unknown.  I wait.  I don't have a clue of what to expect, but suddenly I hear these weirdest sounds.  The best analogy I can provide is the visual and auditory image that came bouncing smack into my mind’s eye when I heard these unheard of sounds. These sounds sounded similar to when, like a real idiot, I threw Berkie, an old Sig Ep fraternity brother into the swimming pool at a popular off-campus housing complex before I remembered to take my hearing aid off.  Although Berky was a frat brother of mine, I think he became my enemy forever, I haven't heard a word from him since.  But my much greater concern about the loss of my friendship with a former pal whom I had just slammed dunk into the pool was the eeriest of noise that my hearing aid was croaking out.  Having some sight at that rambunctious age of 21 while still an obnoxious  frat brother, I instinctively scanned the horizon to see if we were being invaded by UFOs.  This electronic gizmo that hated water, yet was totally immersed in this huge pool of H2O, the same electronic marvel that enabled me to function relatively normal, barring myadolescent acting-out, was beginning to sound like an ill-fated  Hoover vacuum cleaner that was trying to operate in the very swimming poolI was embarrassingly in with all my clothes on. 

Anyway, this was my first association with these unnerving sounds fed from the processor into the auditory cortex of my brain, but I got a hold of myself, again putting my id in check for the second time in about a half hour.  I took my leap into faith and listened.  And I listened.  Still nothing was making too much sense, in fact, nothing was making any sense.  Somehow I reasoned to myself, keeping the id in check still, that I had to put these sounds together, after all, amy of these sounds were sounds I never heard before.  It was if, I thought, a giant auditory puzzle had been dumped out of the box on to the table and I had to find a way to put this puzzle together, bit by bit.  In essence, my brains were becoming scrambled and I had to unscramble them by making sense of these sounds. 

All of a sudden, what seemed like a minute after Dana abandoned me, I think I hear a recognizable sound.  Now I listen with fierce intensity and the patience of Job, just taking in this sound that is so agonizingly close to a word .  Is this sound I am hearing what I think it is?  I listenwith all the concentration I can muster, listening, listening . . .well, I’ll be,  it is what I think it is.  It is my name, someone is saying 'Brian', and my name couldn't have sounded sweeter even when my mother was preparing to nurse me as an infant. 

After making sure it is Brian that I hear, I start to ask if someone is calling me, except that when I utter the first syllable I nearly jump out of my skin.  I hear my voice for the first time through the processor and, man, does  it sound different.  The first thing I reflexively think of when I hear my name is a activated tape recorder that is playing in high speed while submerged in water, if such a thing could happen, except theletters that form my name   can be understood.  So I listen some more.  Now I am distinguishing some more words.  'Brian, can you hear me'.  I hear this sentence repeated at least three times.  It reminds me of the line from the rock opera 'Tommy' by The Who.  'Tommy, can you hear me, Tommy can you see me . . .' But this is no rock opera, I am sitting in a professional's office, not at London’s Symphony Hall. 

Finally, I say, 'yes, I think I hear you' but again jump to the sound of my own voice.  Then I say something to the effect (some of this I can't remember too well, as my brains are really scrambling) 'why does everything sound like a bunch of chipmunks in heat?' then I hear a cacophony of sounds that resemble a canary that got caught in a fan, but I decipher it to be laughter.  So I laugh, and again I jump.  Now I make out some words that Dana, at least I think it is Dana, is saying. 'You are hearing all new sounds you never heard before.  I feel like responding to this statement by uttering 'no kidding what a brilliant assessment' under my breath, but I think better of it because I don't have the foggiest notion what under my breath means anymore.  My own breathing sounds as loud as the wind blowing into my helmet encased hearing aid while racing on a steep perilous course in the downhill when I was a member of the US Disabled Ski team.  I learned to calibrate the meaning of 'uttering under my breath' about forty years ago when I uttered under my breath for my math teacher at Bridgton Academy (the school I deliberately underscored my SATs for so I could have a hockey comeback attempt) to, using my exact words, ' take a long walk off a short pier’.  Not only did my math teacher hear it clear as a bell, so did the entire classroom.  Then my headmaster heard about it after the fact, and I nearly got bounced from a school that I deliberately downscored my SATs to gain admittance, a school at the time I was at the top of the class academically.  Yep, I really learned a real lesson, I would say I lowered my not so fancy utterings about thirty decibels, but I still really had no way of knowing if this was truly effective for getting-even barbs.
   
Then I make out 'Brian, can you hear me' again, and I wonder if this statement isn't getting a bit overdone.  Some however, however, I realize that I forgot that Sharron, Peter and Melissa are also in the room.  Without jumping this time, I ask who is speaking.  I hear the name 'Sharron'.  She says her name as if her nose is pinched together by a clothespin and someone has magically tightened up her larynx fourfold.  I say 'Sharron?'  As my mind is so clouded, I try to think of something intelligent to say to my soul-mate who is now in tears, so, after searching for some smooth words,  I say, 'Have we met before?' to which I hear the sound of the canary hitting the fan again. 

Now, I get serious, something hard to do at this stage of the game, and really concentrate on my listening skills.  After all, I am a professional listener as a trained psychotherapist.  I am hearing more words now, still not putting the sentences together too well, thus asking for a lot of repetitions, but I am definitely making out more words.  Finally, I make out Dana saying that I am hearing my own voice and that is tripping me up a bit.  Tripping me a bit?   What a gross understatement.  The first time I tried to say my very first words via implant, actually the first I attempted to get the letter 's' sound out, I looked around to see who else was in the room, except that I can't see and I had forgotten that.  Remember, my brains are still scrambled, no acid, no drugs, but I swore I was going to have a quick cocktail when this was over and I made good with this internal pledge.  Eventually, I am able to make the adjustment and utter out a few words, constantly asking if my speech still sounds the same, each time hearing a 'yes', the 'yes' sounding as if emitted by aelderly woman who has a whopping case of laryngitis. 
           
Eventually, Dana takes off the processor and I plug back into the world my ordinary way with my hearing aid.  She explains to me that things went very well, much better than she expected and promises me that the quality and the comprehensiveness of the sounds are going to get better and better and better.  She bids me well for the evening, tells me that even the next day I will notice an improvement and assures me that I will sleep like a baby this evening.  The most noteworthy happening this evening is that I discover that I can actually hear my   water tinkling into the water of the toilet bowl.  No more will I have to make lame excuses about mywet pant legs after being unable to aim accurately into that blasted bowl.
           
Sharron and I return the next day right on time at 10 AM.  Again, we exchange pleasantries and march right into her office.   Peter and Melissa are not here today.  The first item of business is a somewhat embarrassing admission that the magnet is not holding to well to my skull, for I fear not only could this mean that I am pretty thick headed, but I may need further surgery to implant a  magnet the size of a silver dollar rather than a quarter.  Dana reassures me that this is pretty typical and simply places another magnet that is about half the diameter of a dime onto the original magnet. 

Then we get right down to business, going through the same procedure that we went through the previous day.  This time we wing right through it, checking each electrode one at a time.  This time I want the volume cranked up a bit, even slightly bordering on mild discomfort.  Next she gives me a sort of a hearing test, to let her know when I first notice the sounds that increase in frequency.  It is amazing to me that I can actually hear those high frequency sounds, even with little decibel amplification.  Then she makes some adjustments with the processor through her computer based on the test results.  She hands it back to me and I place it on by myself.  She begins talking and immediately I notice a tremendous difference.  Although not all the time, I am getting complete sentences, and indeed it really hits me that a miracle has occurred. 

At the follow up session one week later, I sit and listen in stunned amazement, to nothing and everything, noticing that indeed I am hearing better by the minute.  I even hear Sharron weeping, allowing her tears to roll freely and unabashedly.  I also suspect that Dana’s eyes may be a bit misty, professional or no professional.  Dana, Sharron and I, for the first time ever in my fifty-six years of life, are able to engage in dialogue that is not interrupted by requests for word repetitions.  More mind-blowing is that they are speaking in their normal voices and sitting wherever their big hearts desire.  The miracle of hearing, it just makes the miracle of life that more powerful.

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