The Miraculous Life

If you have not read My Cochlear Implant Life Series: The Hopeful Life-Part One and The Blessed Life-Part Two, please, I encourage you to read them first.

…The Miraculous Life was about that Joyce finally heard the first sound with her new cochlear implant processor and begun her miraculous life journey and happiness…

For the last two weeks, after my cochlear implant surgery, I had a big swollen face + my right side of my head. I also had a big black eye with an unknown cause. A week later, I found myself that my right side of face was very numb and wasn’t moving. I also had bleeding in my ear canal. My husband took me to the emergency room at UCSF Moffitt where my last surgery was. In the emergency room, the two male physicians evaluated my face and tongue – and they were surprised that my right side of face wasn’t moving. I had a difficult time to move my tongue; it was so hard. One of the physicians decided that I had to stay at the hospital for one day, because they did not know what caused my right side of face to be paralyzed. All were doing tests on me. Next day, my surgeon and the head chief in the hospital tested my face, it was not moving. Simply numb.

Disappointingly, my surgeon told me that my diagnosis was Bell’s Palsy. It means that I have a temporary face paralysis for awhile. He told me that it could fade away soon. I was a little bit upset, but I trust the Lord for taking care of my face paralysis. And I had an ear infection. He gave me a lot of medicines for my facial paralysis and my ear infection. My surgeon wanted to check in with me for the follow up every couple of weeks. He sent me to go home and stay rested for awhile. Arriving home, I was really worn out and I knew that I disliked to stay at the hospital. However, I was happy to be home. Bell’s Palsy, do I still have it? Yes, but I continue to massage my face and keep exercising on my own. I continue to take my medicines to recover from my face paralysis. I am certain that it will go away within 2-6 months. It takes some time to heal itself.

On the 26th of May 2015, my husband and I went to UCSF Mount Zion, located in San Francisco, California. I was very excited to have my new cochlear implant activated – what an amazing expereince! Activation day means that an cochlear implantee (meaning a person has cochlear implant) has a first opening sounds with a new cochlear implant processor. Let me tell you the story…

On Activation Day…

My husband and I had the worst trip to the office because of the heavy traffic on the Bay Bridge and the Toll Plaza. It took us two hours to get there. We were quite late to arrive but my interpreter was there and left within a few minutes ago before we got there. Luckily, my husband could interpret sign language for me. My audiologist arrived and took us to the audiology room where we could open an activation time for my first time sound. She wanted to check everything with my new cochlear implant stuff and questioned me with the medical issues on some purposes. That was how the hospital policy required.

My audiologist explained how I could have heard from so many different kind of any sounds (e.g. beeping, sweeping, and others). She just needed to test if I could hear any sounds or not. And, she gave me one of the sound testing (soft, medium, or loud) in the testing book. I figured out how to tell if I could hear the soft, medium, or loud. In my mind, I told myself – “So am I overwhelmed about this? Yes. Am I ready to hear for the first time? Yes.” My heart told me that the Lord would take care of me no matter what I could hear or not…

Before the testing got started…

I put my first cochlear implant processor behind my ear. However, my audiologist turned it on. My head was little bit shaking like I was shocked when the sound came quickly with my new cochlear implant processor! My audiologist tested me with so many sounds which I could not tell because I was overwhelmed to try finding what sound was coming from. I pointed on which sounds were coming from – (no sound, barely soft, soft, comfortably soft, comfortable, comfortably loud, loud, or too loud). Most of the time, I pointed to one of the sounds: comfortable. After the testing fabulously succeeded, my audiologist wanted to download the four programs into my cochlear implant processor and backup processor through the computer. All of the programs were so miraculous!

Beautiful.

Lovely.

Exciting.

Joyful.

At last, my audiologist wanted my husband to try testing with his own voice to see if I could hear it or not. Somehow, my husband spoke too loud which caused my attention quickly toward him. I pointed my finger at him! My head was little bit shaking like shocking, because my husband’s voice was too loud. I told him to lower his voice. He laughed, so did my audiologist!

…Click + Watch this video…

Before you decide to get a cochlear implant, you need to do your research, study, question, and try to meet many cochlear implantees in the community via the Facebook group: cochlear implant experiences. If you are late deafened and wish to hear it again, try to do your study first until you choose the right decision. Remember, do not let anyone force you to do anything but – it’s your personal choice and lifestyle. You may hear the sounds or never hear them at all…

Good luck!

… Stay tuned for the beginning in life journey after a cochlear implant continues … if you want to read more articles, then please feel free to sign up and subscribe the weekly newsletter in the right sidebar…