Sounds of the Night

Being able to hear again was so exciting and joyful that I didn’t think about what lies on the horizons of research for the deaf and hearing impaired. Eventually the subject came up and I heard that cochlear implants like mine, without the outer apparatus was the future. Everything would be contained under the skin, totally implanted. I thought “Why, what for?” I was so thrilled with what I had in my new situation that I couldn’t think about having more!

Six months have passed since I felt that way and now once in a while I do think about it. I have thought about how nice it would be to wake up to a regular alarm clock, or hear the water running in the shower. It would be comforting to have hearing in the night when I am home alone.

And then there are pleasures I remember from the past. Being a late deafened adult, I have memories of sounds in the night. Not so long ago, I was reminded of quiet talks in the dark. My husband had come to bed a couple of hours after me. I was still awake and a question for him popped into my head. I didn’t bother to ask because I wouldn’t be able to hear the answer and it was so late I didn’t want to turn on the light and put on my cochlear implant processor. At that moment I missed the pillow talk from the early years of our marriage. I laid there thinking about the joys of quiet talks in the dark.

Then my thoughts went to the deaf children with implants. They hear the sounds of daytime and silence in the night. I thought of my own childhood, when I had almost normal hearing and remembered campouts and lying in my sleeping bag listening to the chirping of the crickets. Talking with my siblings, friends or cousins till the wee hours of the morning and sharing our innermost secrets in the dark of night, or laughing and giggling until an adult would holler, “Hey, get to sleep.” Sounds of the night these children will never know.

A couple of times I have experienced the pleasure of taking sound with me as I drift off to sleep with a rare but wonderful Sunday afternoon nap on the couch and my behind the ear (BTE) processor still on. On one occasion I was awakened by the shrill ringing of the phone. Of course taking off my BTE would have given me the benefit of uninterrupted sleep, but then I would have missed an enjoyable chat with my daughter.

Someone once said to me that it is an advantage to be able to silence the world, to shut it off. Trying to make this person understand where I have traveled emotionally, that I didn’t agree, seemed a daunting task at the time. She said to me, “You just don’t know.” I was thinking the same thing.

I am so thrilled to have this technology that allows me to hear the birds in the morning and listen to the music of my youth. And for the future, for those who will experience what I have experienced, for the children, I hope for the totally implanted system that will give them pillow talk and the sounds of the night.