For those who are unaware (and the general web-cosmos out there), I’m deaf.  Stone deaf.  Lost my hearing by way of genetic disorder and lost my hearing at 18.  I was implanted with a version of Cochlear’s Nucleus-22 processor (known as the ABI) but didn’t go through with having it “turned on” (so to speak) until October of 2001.

…and if I knew how well I would hear with this implanted device, I would have gone through with it much sooner. 

The thing is, with the implanted device, you have had to wear body-worn equipment to make it work.  Stuff on your person.  And for eight years, I’ve been wearing what essentially is a obsolete piece of equipment.  The Spectra-22 was originally state -of-the-art in about 1989 – give or take a few years.  While the entire concept of a late-deaf person hearing again is fantastic, technology sometimes does limit as much as it enables.   Like in my case.

I’ve been complaining to my audiologist in Los Angeles about hwo I cannot “turn the corner” with sound — while I hear and understand most everyday sounds, noises and what-have-you, I have an issue with understanding spoken word from people.  I’m not all that great understanding generally day-to-day talking.  Watching TV?  I need closed captioning.  Trying to chit-chat with family or friends?  Harrowing experience where I have to do more speaking than attempting to listen.  Group conversation?  Fughettaboutit.  There’s no friggin’ way I follow a conversation that is more than me and someone else.

Part of that is the limitation of the speech processor hardware.  Part of that is a limitation of the implanted device in itself.  Part of that is just me — after all, I started losing m hearing at around age 13 and conversation soon turned to blah-blah-blah unless I really focused.  calling it laziness wouldn’t be out fo the question.  In fact, part of me feels like that’s exactly what it is — laziness and lack of actual focusing on what I hear due to quality.  Oh, I can listen and follow music just fine…  Speech?  Different story.  Different complication.

One that I hope gets appended with a recent change.

In April I started having issues with my now-arcane Spectra-22.  I shot off an email to my audiologist about issues I was having and asked about replacing the device — I did have insurance on my equipment after all.  But my doctor explained that the Spectra had been discontinued as it was now technologically obsolete.

“No…  Really?”   I muttered with thick sarcasm from where I was sitting.  The hearing-noose that the Spectra is/was (and I’m not ungrateful, I’d gladly wear that piece of equipment instead of being deaf) was clearly dated with the technological innovations that were showing up elsewhere in society.  Of course, cell phone technlogy or computing technology isn’t quite comparable to a human prosthetic — is it?  From processors onboard your iPhone or Blackberry to different innovations with software that had certainly taken place since the Spectra-22 hardware was introduced, I have been pretty certain that “turning the corner” with understanding speech was only a speech processor upgrade away.

A couple of weeks ago now, I ventured to Los Angeles on my yearly sojourn to see my audiologist at the House Ear Institute.  This time around, instead of using arcane sofware tied to the arcane speech-processor I was wearing as I entered the building, we were going to be replacing that hardware with the new Freedom speech processor from Cochlear.

Cochlear's Freedom Processor BTE unit

One can see from the processor picture alone that there is a lot less hardware involved in the unit.  Instead of having to wear a body-pack to handle all the technological mumbo-jumbo, it’s all contained within the first 1/3rd of the prosthetic.  The rest?  Audio control and batteries.

It’s taken me a few days to adjust to sound as it’s relayed with the device – and when I mean sound I mean general hearing.  You have different aspects that you can tune with this device (the microphone volume and the microphone sensitivity) that both play into what you are able to hear.  On the Spectra, you only had the option of turning up or down the sensitivity of the microphone on the unit.  That led to a lot of noise clutter even as you used a second setting to reduce background noise.  It was part of why speech was only blah-blah-blah.  Though I must admit that i am yet to master the improvements that I can have with a strong sensitivity without a loud volume and what not.

Practice will make perfect, however.

Yet I had an event, just listening to sound like I normally would, that encouraged me.  Actually two.  One was listening to TV in my hotel room and having to turn off closed-captions due to them distracting me as I tried to listen to a talk show on TV.   Imagine that?  Going through years upon years of needing the crutch that is closed captions and then having to turn them off because they were distracting you.  Mind you, I was not picking up the full conversation that was going on but I was understanding key words being used instead of hearing the throw-away words like and, then, if, to, but that give no perception of what is going on in the conversation.  Instead, I was making out key words that gave me a gist of what was being said.  Add the tone of a speakers voice and their body language and you aren’t on the outside, looking in so much.  You’re at the doorway and you’re eavesdropping.  That’s what it felt like.

The other little ephinay I experienced was simply listenign to my iPod.  Yes, it’s odd that someone who is clinically deaf has an iPod to begin with…  let alone enjoys music at all but here I am.  Listening to music tended to be quite like listening to AM radio with outstanding reception, or FM radio for that matter.  Could have been better but it was great all unto itself.

And yet I listened to the typical stuff on my MP3 player — The Doors, REM, Counting Crows, Aerosmith, the Beatles, what not…  the quality was closer to CD quality than I’d ever had before.  CD Quality!  CD Quality!

That’s encouraging!  More than encouraging.  Sure, everything isn’t going to be perfect any time soon, but I look forward to trying to get there.

Technology can indeed be grand.

I’ve stayed the last few years north of the Mid Wilshire center, not quite Hollywood, not Downtown, not Wilshire and not that great a hotel but it worked in it’s simplicity. This time around, I pampered myself and stayed downtown at the Westin Bonaventure. I haven’t stayed at a hotel that nice before and a three star rating from certain online travel companies seems cruel. At any rate, the location is extremely centralized — blocks away from subway access, shopping, Union Station (Flyaway is a blessed thing) and what not. It was a bargain compared to my normal hotel – so I paid a few extra bucks to stay there.

What I didn’t take into account was being out of shape in my post-op condition. I also didn’t take into account my unfamiliarity with the building would lead to blood, pain, and embarrassment.

2400 miles from home without anyone to hang out with – I go stumbling around the Galleria in the first few floors of the hotel and try to find a skybridge to other buildings and there shopping offerings.

Cuz what else are you going to do when you’re bored and have a little cash to spend besides shop?

So I find this exit to a skybridge — whoo hoo! — and start walking down a long corridor with skylights. I ignorantly think I am on the skybridge itself (the Bonaventure has several and ALL are uncovered) when in fact I am walking beneath the pool deck/patio of the building.

So I come to the end of that hall and find a pair of double doors saying thank-you, leaving-the-hotel, blah-blah-blah…. I can see a flight of stairs down and a flight of stairs up a short distance in front of me. I swing those doors open and walk a few steps — never observing the two steps down immediately in front of me.

Anarchy ensues.

I tumble and smash my face into a concrete-ornamental-edging at the side of the wall. I wither and moan in pain. I’m shaking, I’m bleeding, I think I’ve broken my nose.

2400 miles from home, no family in the greater Los Angeles area… The gimp-with-a-limp has worked himself ineptly into a fine mess.

I try my best to collect myself. Standing up — no, more like staggering to my feet. I get my bearing and see those stairs I missed, I also see the blood all over my hands and mutter a whiny “Oh shit” in response to this. I stagger up those steps back to those doors I mentioned… I find them locked from the outside. Imagine that.

Looking back, it feels like an eternity trying to decide what to do — go upstairs to who-knows-where or down to street level? I chose the former as to the latter and I find the pool deck of the hotel. I’m too shook up to really know if anyone who I passed spoke to me or even acknowledged me as I walked back to the hotel with blood flowing from my nose.

The fallout of all this is me walking bloodily to the lobby and asking for help, and the hotel springing to action to take car eof one of their customers. I appreciate the hell out of that but I’m stille mbarassed by being there while a convention was gathering and people checking in and out and what not. Of course, hotel security took care of that by getting me behind closed doors and takign care of me…

Probably the most anecdotal happening in LA in my time visiting the City of Angels on my lonesome. This would only have been better with company

You see, Rush did something that was stupid – really stupid. If he had watched what he said and had found another way around the issue, he could have gotten away with it and gotten props from many around the country. Instead? He played the race card and he can now eat shit and die for all the country cares – because he committed the crime of trying to suggest a great quarterback was over-rated because the media wanted to paint a black QB as great.

Two sides to it this:
In defense of Rush — Donovan McNabb being over-rated is something that me and my friends have mused about over the years. He’s also a killer QB when he is on and I have nothing but respect for him. We talk about how the media kisses up to certain quarterbacks — Michael Vick is the current wonder boy, Chad Pennington also last year — and that Donovan has gotten put on a pedestal – which imay or may not be above his abilities. Would I willingly trade Brad Johnson for Donovan McNabb? I’d be at war with myself trying to make that decision but McNabb end’s up winning that battle… Yet I still believe the guy gets over-rated at times. If Rush Limbaugh had focused on the idea that certain quarterbacks get propped up and named names – he could have avoided everything.

In revile of Rush — What the fuck were you thinking bringing in the race card?! Don’t spew your “liberal media” bullshit, because that ain’t it. That’s the remarks of a racist — not of a commentator which you tried to be with ESPN. Listen, you have an interesting mind but you have a shitty way of drawing conclusions and therefore you got just what you deserved — getting chased out of this job because you can’t keep your political leanings and staunchly, overly in fact, conservative views from upsetting the viewing public.

In closing: Keep the race card out of the NFL and pro sports in general. If a guy can play – let him do it. If a guy has no talent, keep the bum off the field… and if Rush Limbaugh applies for a job with you — only hire him if it’s a non speaking role.