Ready for Activation
Tammy's activation day was Thursday, August 11, 2005. After a few weeks of healing since surgery (Tammy Gets an Implant, Part 5), Tammy was feeling "pretty good" except for some minor dizziness when she bent over. Actually, according to Tammy, you are not supposed to bend over following implant surgery. Physically, Tammy felt back to normal except for the numbness and taste buds.A few days before activation, part of the incision area felt swollen and tender while the incision itself was almost completely healed. Tammy could feel some internal stitches that had made their way to the outside skin. In addition, there was some itching on the surgical site. After almost four weeks of not being able to hear anything, Tammy decided that "whatever was to happen today, that if it did not work it would not matter because I kind of liked not hearing anything at all by now."
Thoughts Before Activation
Tammy (as warned by other implantees on a forum) did not get much sleep the night before activation day yet she had to be up at 3:00 am. Her head was swirling with all sorts of excited thoughts:- "I will not return as the same person"
- "A new world and new journey are upon me"
- "Scared and elated at the same time"
- "Half expecting the day to go terrible"
- "Anxious and alive"
- "Stomach doing flips"
Waiting for Activation
Tammy could see Bob, the senior audiologist, getting the room ready for activation while she waited. She watched him pass by a few times, carrying chargers, the speech processors, etc. Bob chatted a bit with Tammy's husband and an Advanced Bionics representative, Amy Stein, joined in.The surgeon (Dr. Shao) and the anesthesiologist examined Tammy's surgical site. Dr Shao commented that the incision was still not completely healed yet but was mostly scabbed over. He told Tammy to keep running water over it to speed the healing. Even without complete healing, Dr. Shao said they could go forward with the activation.
Hook-Up Time
Bob displayed all the components and explained each item to Tammy and her husband. He demonstrated how to put the Auria speech processor together. The parts consisted of the processor part, the battery, the small short cable and tiny headpiece. A t-mic attachment sits on the auria but can be replaced with any number of other attachments that were given to Tammy to hook up to a CD, FM or IPOD, etc. Tammy thought it looked similar to a hearing aid, but "prettier."Bob helped Tammy put the processor on her ear and showed her where to fit the headpiece under my hair. At first, the headpiece would not “take” because the magnet was not strong enough. He took the headpiece apart and put a stronger magnet in the headpiece then tried again three or four times before it would fit snugly to her skin and explained that swelling often necessitates a stronger magnet. It felt odd to Tammy to have the headpiece on the side of her head without falling off easily. The ear hook keeps the magnet in place. Bob said not to expect too much from the first turn on as "most people might not hear voices right away."
The bottom of the processor was attached to a cable linking the processor to a laptop computer. The laptop initialized, programmed and fed the Auria processor with the information necessary to make it work. He told Tammy she would start hearing some slight beeping or whirring and she did. Everyone was talking but she couldn’t hear anyone even though she tried to participate and ask questions.
As Tammy was talking, the implant was suddenly activated. The first thing Tammy heard was her own voice. She exclaimed "Oh, my god, I sound terrible." Then she sat there laughing hysterically because everyone else sounded like Daffy Duck or Darth Vader when they spoke. According to Bob, this was a very normal reaction when anyone hears voices for the first time!
Hearing More Sounds
After a few seconds, Tammy could hear a "Ch Ch Ch" sound. She could not figure out where it was coming from, and the others in the room were trying to figure it out too. Then everyone realized it was coming from Tammy's child, who was on the floor coloring with a marker. Tammy was hearing the sound of the marker being pushed. Tammy smiled, trying not to cry as she remembered that sound from kindergarten.Programming the Processor
Bob programmed the processor with three programs and tested three programming standards:- Hi-res P
- Hi-Res S
- High Res P with volume intensity
