I have been really good in the past 8 and half months since my activation day to carry my spare batteries. Mum used to nag me all my life to carry spare battery for my hearing aids but I always never bothered, why... For one I never really heard much through HA's and sometimes don't notice if they are flat and when they are flat I just take them out and leave in my pockets! 2nd thing... they last long time. One battery per Hearing aid used to last me 2 weeks at most so I didn't think i need to carry them all the time so I never paid attention to my mum's nagging.
The Cochlear Implant had changed my life because I took the sounds for granted and I love wearing it. THREE batteries for one implant lasts me 4 days. It gets shorter as my mappings/hearing improves over time.
I have been so busy lately and today is my first day to myself in weeks! Yesterday I was called into work as bit of emergency as we are expecting heavy rains the next 2 days so we needed to get the outside jobs done. While working I heard beep beep.... yep my Cochlear implant battery is going... ok I have half an hour before it goes completely flat... wrong it went FLAT in 5 mins, I think I missed the half hour warning as we were outside and it's windy. I ran to the office... can't find a packet of batteries, so went to the car, yay 2 packets... oh no they both are full of flat batteries. How stupid of me. I faced few hours of complete silence and whitewash noise in my other ear which is bearing a Hearing aid, no birds, no wind, no voices, no dog tags, just completely jumbled up sounds that made no sense at all.
Over few weeks my friends, collegues had noticed that they didn't need to tap my shoulder or shout to get my attention. Yesterday my collegue realised that my Hearing aid (in my other ear) isn't doing any justice and had to tap my shoulder. I felt despair! I was almost in tears and realised that my CI is very important part of my life and I must kick myself into gear and replace all the batteries in the car, my bag and leave couple of packets at work.
This made me realise that prospect of going Bilateral (cochlear implants for both ears), I would love to have 2, I think I would be perfect candiate for it BUT according to NICE guidelines which was renewed recently stating that I can't have another one unless I am under 19, visually impaired or phsyically disabled. Other soulution to this is to fund myself... I don't think so as each implant/device costs £40,000 roughly and there's after care for the rest of my life which could be around £3000 per year.
Oh well lets hope there is something better for my unimplanted ear soon.
Right off to collect old batteries and replacing them with spanking new packet plus an extra packet!
Happy new years 2022
2 years ago
7 comments:
I want to be bilateral too as my HA doesnt work great too!! NICE better let adults have them when its reviewed!!
Have you saved up any money for a 2nd CI? Maybe you can negotiate the costs down or be part of a bilateral case study and get cheap CI in exchange for your participation?
The surgeons here in America will give you a 2nd CI once you have the $50,000. By the time you save up that much there will be much better CIs(imagine 10db hearing!) or some entirely new technology! :D
Hee hee, your post made me laugh. This remind me whenever I go somewhere, me mam nagging at me to alway leave spare batteries for Hearing aids, with me or in car. I am terrible. Now with advanced Bionic, its easy to recharge it to full power every day. I still don't take a spare with me. Maybe I should follow your advice!
i have always tried to change my batteries before they go flat! Sometimes they last a week sometimes a couple of days. i always keep a spare in parents car my mum has one in her bag and in my bag etc hehe
i took a pair down to my bfs house but i accidently left my cochlear implant on all night in the cooler case and i had to batteries! fortunatly my parents had spares! :)
Its so good to hear other mums chidhood naggings are coming home to roost! See we still have our uses HA ha!
Looking forward to coming home for your 9mth assesment.
Mum x
what you like, eh! Now your mum right after all. Ah well, ur not the only one who always forget the batteries. Everyone does it. Most time I used to forget to switch the aid one.
These AB batteries are much better, i never changed them throughout the day which is good.
me too want a second. I'm still waiting, 2 times i've been turn down now, grr
hope to see you very soon xx
Oh how I hate it when I forget batteries! I'm a rower myself and 3 times I already found myself stuck out on the water with absolutely no hearing. It's pretty stressful!
Post a Comment