My first hearing evaluation with the audiologist produced an audiogram (chart that documents your hearing, see attached photo) that was very similar to what my personal audiologist had for me. For those of you who may not be familiar with audiograms, I will try my best to explain it to you. Decibels demonstrate how loud or soft a sound is with 120 being the loudest like a jackhammer or an airplane engine and 0 being soft like leaves rustling. The top of the audiogram shows the frequencies, 125 Hertz are low (z, v, j, m, d, b) and 8000 Hertz are high (f, s, th). Normal range of hearing between 0 to 20 decibels. The x's indicate the left ear and the o's for the right ear. So according to the audiogram, I continue to have a bilateral severe to profound sensorineural hearing loss.
Next, Amy and I tackle the incredible maze of tunnels in the lower level of the massive complex to locate the Mayo Hearing Clinic for my hearing aid evaluation. It was a quick evaluation of my hearing aids. Tiny plastic probes were put inside of my ear canals, then my hearing aids were inserted with the probe inside. Then auditory signals were sent from a speaker in the room. The probes measured how my hearing aids responded to the signals. After that was completed, it was declared that I have fabulous working hearing aids (thanks Claudia!) and I can move onto the next step!
Then, I meet with cochlear implant audiologist again for the big test to see if I am indeed a candidate for the implant. The set up for the sound booths are very high tech. The sound booth I was in, had a lot of small rectangular speakers along the wall. I had to face the speakers with a video camera on me. It was kind of weird having others watch me and not be able to see them. In Ann's sound booth there was a lot of technology with a computer documenting all my responses and a monitor for the video camera.
For all the tests, I was able to wear my hearing aids, which is probably why it was important they were working properly :). I was given three separate speech recognition tests with sentences, words and sentences with background noise. The tests were administered through the computer then through the speakers in my booth. Each item on the test was given with a variety of voices, male, female, high, low, children and adults. The sentences came from different directions in the sound booth. It was truly a realistic measure of how I hear in everyday conversation. For each individual test, I was tested with each ear individually and then together. So, basically I had to do nine speech recognition tests. My job was to repeat as much as I could of what I had heard. I felt like I was talking in gibberish most of the time. I believe the computer accepted the phonemes (smallest unit of language) that I repeated.
By the time I was done, I was completely exhausted, mentally and physically. It took a lot of energy to give my best effort to listen intently. The most difficult test was the one that included the random background noises, I could not recognize many voices except for the deep male voices. Throughout the evaluations, the audiologist told me to shut off a hearing aid for the individual ear tests, which I did. A few times after the test started, I would reach up to fiddle with the hearing aid to make sure it was shut off and the other hearing aid was turned on to the right volume. The audiologist had to stop the test and come into my booth to make sure I wasn't turning the other hearing aid on. I wasn't trying to cheat, I swear! :)
My friend, Amy was also in the booth with the audiologist and noticed my percentages go up and down rapidly throughout the tests. It was hard to tell what the outcome would be until the very last sentence was given on the last test. Are you ready to find out my score? Drum roll please... I scored a 58%! So, I made it for the cutoff, but just barely! It took a little bit to sink in. I felt a little better knowing I am near the border of becoming a candidate and that my hearing loss is not that drastic.
The audiologist explained the results more visually on paper and stated that my percentage of 10.5% for understanding with the background noise present was within the average range of someone with a cochlear implant. So potentially, there is a possibility that I would be able to have more understanding with an implant on in a noisy environment. She recommended that I have the cochlear implant on the worse ear, right and continue to use the hearing aid on my left ear. High frequency sounds with a cochlear implant, sound "ugly and squeaky", so the left hearing aid would pick up those high frequency sounds. Together with the hearing aid and implant the gaps of language would be filled in. Lastly, she stated three reasons why I am a good candidate for the implant: I've had good hearing with my hearing aids for most of my life, I have usable hearing after 4000 Hertz and the time period between losing my hearing to getting an implant is not too long. My auditory nerve is still good and my memory of hearing will be strong as well. She gave me information packets of two cochlear implants to choose from: Nucleus Freedom by Cochlear and Harmony by Advanced Bionics. My brother Scotty was implanted with a Cochlear brand implant and has had great success with it. At this point I am feeling very overwhelmed and not yet 100% committed to implant surgery. Next, we meet with the cochlear implant surgeon, Dr. Neff.
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