Today is a Special Day

[Mermaid]

So what was the surgery? Did you get an implant?
If you did, can you describe what it was like when they turned it on?

I have what is called a cochlear implant. The surgeon placed an array of electrodes near my cochlea (auditory nerve). The outside equipment is a microphone, speech processor and head piece that all fits behind my ear. The speech processor transforms sound into electric signals that travel across my skin to the electrodes that send it to my cochlea that send it to my brain that transforms it back into sound and after all that I say, “I’m fine. How are you?”

When they first turned it on everything sounded like cartoon bells. After twelve years of deafness, I had to retrain my brain to process sound and make sense of it. I would call the public transit to listen to the recording. At first I could only make out a few words but missed most of it. Then after a while I could understand most of it and only missed a few words.

That sounds both exciting and really hard. Having all that background noise has to be so distracting to say the least! It's something that hearing people often don't think about. People are so quick to assume that everyone would want to hear given the chance. I can't imagine being born deaf and then suddenly not being deaf anymore, that doesn't sound pleasant.
Anyway, I am rambling. Thank you for sharing this. Congratulations!