One Year Later

It has been almost exactly one year since I wrote the last post about my cochlear implant. At the time, everything ahead of me felt theoretical—full of hope, fear, and unanswered questions. Now I’m sitting on the other side of it, and the truth is simpler and harder at the same time: this year changed me, but not in the clean or triumphant way I imagined.

The surgery itself went well. There wasn’t much pain, and nothing dramatic happened in recovery. I did have dizziness for a few weeks—enough to make the world feel slightly off, like it lagged behind my movements—but not enough to knock me off my feet. I went to work. I carried on. From the outside, it probably looked like not much had happened at all.

Internally, it felt very different.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the silence. When they detached what little mechanical hearing remained in my left ear and committed fully to the implant, that ear went completely quiet. Not reduced. Not muffled. Gone. After living for decades with at least some distorted input, the silence felt final in a way I hadn’t anticipated. I had nine days before my follow-up appointment—nine days to sit with doubt, to question the decision, and to imagine all the ways this could go wrong.

It reminded me of one of my favorite vampire films called Near Dark. (Bill Paxton is amazing in it.) Mae is showing Caleb the night and describing her perception of it as a vampire: 

• Mae: "The night."

• Caleb: "What about it?"

• Mae: "It's dark."

• Caleb: "I noticed."

• Mae: "It's so bright, it'll blind you."

• Caleb: "I can't see."

• Mae: "Well, listen. Do you hear it?"

• Caleb: "I'm listenin'. I don't hear nothin'."

• Mae: "Listen hard. Do you hear it? The night, it's deafening". 

  
  

I didn’t even realize how much reassurance I needed until I got it. The CT scan showed the implant was placed perfectly. The doctor said everything looked exactly as it should. I felt relief hit my body before my brain caught up. Mary was there, holding my hand, steady and calm, the way she has been through all of this. That mattered more than I can properly explain.

Then came the activation.

They warn you that when they first “light up” the implant, it can be overwhelming. I thought I understood what that meant. I didn’t. Before anything else, we had to figure out how to get the external coil and magnet aligned. “Above and behind the ear” sounds simple. It wasn’t. I fumbled with it far longer than felt reasonable, feeling self-conscious and frustrated, like I should already be better at this. Swelling didn’t help. Neither did my pride.

Eventually, it connected.

I closed my eyes. I leaned back in the office chair. I held Mary’s hand. And I waited.

At first, I heard something I couldn’t identify. We realized it was the HVAC system in the room. Not exactly a cinematic moment. But then I noticed I could hear Mary. I could hear the audiologist. I couldn’t understand what they were saying, but I knew they were speaking. That realization landed harder than I expected. After 25 years, that ear was participating again. I felt tears come—not sobbing, not dramatic—but real. Part relief. Part grief. Part disbelief.

The sound itself was intense. Loud, but not painful. My brain didn’t know what to do with it. Everything blended into noise. As they tuned each electrode—asking when it was loud but not too loud—I became very aware of how subjective and imperfect the process still is. You’re the only one who can answer, and sometimes you’re not even sure what you’re answering. It kinda like going to the eye doctor. "Is A or B better?"

An hour later, I walked out technically hearing.

The ear sounded like a calliope.

We went to Manny’s Deli afterward, which in hindsight was optimistic. I struggled to understand even basic questions. Mary had to repeat nearly everything. I felt exposed and embarrassed in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. It was already clear this wasn’t going to be a simple “turn it on and move on” experience.

The first morning at home with the device was one of the lowest points of the year. Putting it on felt like admitting something I didn’t want to admit—that I needed help just to function normally. I couldn’t get the magnet lined up. I swore at it. Then suddenly it connected and sound rushed in—harsh, electric, overwhelming. I remember thinking, Is this really how this is going to be?

For weeks, I did exactly what they told me to do. Rehab recordings. TED Talks. Listening exercises. Mary would sit in another room using a microphone system, saying words I simply could not understand. Over and over again. I tried not to show how disappointed I was, but it was there, loud and persistent.

I started telling people it felt like physical rehab after an accident. Except instead of learning to walk again, I was learning how to hear. That explanation helped, but it didn’t make it easier. Work meetings became exhausting. Construction sites were brutal, especially in reverberant rooms. I remember one meeting where I tried to piece together meaning by watching lips, relying on my good ear, and hoping the implant would fill in the gaps. It didn’t.

Embarrassment has always been a trigger for me. This year brought a lot of it.

Music was especially hard. It sounded like noise instead of structure. I kept listening anyway, hoping something would click. Sometimes it didn’t. Sometimes it made me feel worse. Panic attacks showed up when I wasn’t expecting them. There were days when I genuinely wondered if I had made my life harder instead of better.

I almost skipped a party at my daughters’ house because I knew the acoustics would be terrible. The room is loud even for people with perfect hearing. I went anyway. I made it through. My kids told me afterward that no one even noticed anything was off. But I noticed. I was exhausted. Trying to make sense of sound takes real effort, and that effort wears you down.

Then, slowly, things began to change.

Not all at once. Not in a straight line.

I started hearing distinctions I hadn’t before. The difference between a G and a J. I walked outside one morning and realized I could hear birds—and not just that they were there, but where they were. Up and to the right. In a tree. That felt like a small miracle.

I found myself standing still in stores, closing my eyes, trying to locate ceiling speakers. I’m sure I looked ridiculous. I didn’t care. Localization was coming back in pieces.

At my first major follow-up after 3 months, they tested word recognition. One hundred random words. I got 74 correct. I was disappointed. They were thrilled. Sentence recognition of specific words was even better—84 percent. They told me it was phenomenal progress for that stage. I told myself I’d get to 100.

I practiced. Then I got bored. Then I practiced less. There were setbacks. At one point the implant felt painfully loud and wrong. We brought the manufacturer in. New hardware. Adjustments. Was it the device? Was it my brain? I still don’t know.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped hiding it.

At the gym, my phone rang and someone asked who I was talking to. I explained that the sound went directly into my brain through electrodes. A kid said, “Whoa, I want that.”I told him, honestly, “No, you don’t.”

So where am I now?

I’m not hearing the way I want to hear. I may never fully get there. And some days, that still stings.

I struggle daily. I think about it constantly. I leave social situations more tired than I used to, aware of the extra work my brain is doing behind the scenes. But I can sit with my family at a restaurant and stay in the conversation. I can be in a loud bar and catch most of what’s being said. I’m present in ways that matter, even when it isn’t effortless.

And then there are moments—quiet, unexpected ones—when I’m in the car, I put on Steely Dan, and for a few seconds everything lines up. The sound isn’t perfect, but it’s close enough to feel right. Those moments still stop me in my tracks. They remind me why I did this in the first place.

I don’t know exactly how much more improvement is ahead. The tests are

behind me now, and the percentages don’t define the outcome anymore. What defines it is that my world is bigger than it was a year ago. Louder in the good ways. Fuller. More connected.

This year didn’t fix everything. But it gave me access again—to people, to places, to moments I would have slowly lost. And that feels like progress worth protecting.

I’m still learning. Still adjusting. Still putting the device on each morning and choosing to engage with the day. And most of the time now, that choice feels less like work and more like possibility.