Scared and excited

My mother is going to have surgery in January to have the Cochler implant, well, implanted into her inner ear.

What is a Cochler implant? Here’s a link but essentially the implant allows a hearing impaired person to hear sound in a way that hearing aids can’t provide. As they explain on the site “Hearing aids are designed to amplify sound. To a person with severe to profound hearing loss, amplification won't provide much hearing because sound is still being delivered through a damaged part of the ear. A cochlear implant doesn’t make sounds louder – it bypasses the damaged part of the ear and sends sound directly to the auditory (hearing) nerve to provide a clearer understanding of sound and speech.”

Sounds cool eh? It is and I’m excited for my mother who is also really excited. As someone with only very slight hearing loss, I can try to imagine how I might feel knowing that the possibility of somewhat normal hearing might be available to me. As my mother could tell you, hearing loss is a very isolating disability. Not only are you isolated from joining in people’s conversations and experiencing the world in the way that others do, but you also isolate yourself. You avoid people and situations where your hearing loss will be a disadvantage to you. You worry about not hearing something and being made a fool of or ignored. It happens all the time and it’s often perpetuated by people who should know better.

So yeah, the possibility of improving that situation for my mother is damn exciting. But I’m also scared. I’m scared something will happen to her during the operation. I remember being pretty much anxious through her entire last two pregnancies thinking that something would go wrong. I’m also scared the implant won’t work in the way she expects and maybe she’ll be disappointed.

So, scared and excited. If that’s how I feel, I can’t imagine how she feels.