Why did I do it?

‘A cochlear implant?’, I thought to myself. ‘A piece of metal drilled into my skull? Electrodes in the inner ear? And an eternal reliance on a piece of computer hardware never sending me back into the depths of oblivion like Algernon and Charlie? I don’t think so.’

Some people think the decision to get a cochlear implant is a simple one. To hear or not to hear, right? For me, and probably most others, it was a roller coaster of emotions. I had ‘yes days’, when I was all for the surgery, and ‘no days’ when I was dead against it.

I'd cycle through all the different sounds in my memory. There were sounds I could preserve. There were sounds I had preserved. I’d never forget the sound of my mother laughing, for example … and yet I hadn’t heard that sound in over 15 years. I would just have to do the same with the voices still in my life. Remember every little detail so that when I became totally deaf, I’d still be able to call on them any time I liked. Yes, that was the solution. I didn’t need a cochlear implant.

So what did it? What made me choose to go through with it?

It was the voices I’d never get to hear. My future children’s. I pictured their faces in my mind, their lips moving soundlessly, and I felt my heart breaking. I pictured myself in the obstetrician’s office someday, the look on Jason’s face when he heard the baby’s heartbeat for the first time … and imagined the way I’d feel when I couldn’t hear it myself, when we couldn’t share that magical moment together. I broke down in tears that felt like they were never going to stop. 

At that point, I knew there was nothing in the world that would stop me going through with the surgery. There was no risk I wouldn’t take to be able to communicate with my own children someday. No device I’d ever be too embarrassed to wear. I’d made my decision. From that day forward, I never had a ‘no day’ again.

***

In less than three weeks from today, Jase and I should get to hear that little heartbeat.

And I think it’s going to be my biggest 'CI moment' yet. :-)