My First Day into the New World

On May the 17th I went to get my Cochlear Implant turned on. I was so excited, sad, nervous, and everything you could possibly imagine. But most of all I was happy and very excited. But I will tell you this - if you are getting the implant PLEASE remember this.... Your parents WILL cry and get very emotional. I know this because my mom is a very strong woman, and she will do everything in her power to keep me happy. When I got into this, I made her promise me to not cry because I hate to see her cry. And what does she do?? She cries. She cries a lot. I think all parents would cry a lot when their kid is going into surgery. But just for the record, be aware that your parents, or your husband or wife will get very emotional from getting the news of having the implant to getting turned on.
But anyways, when my Mom and I arrived there we went into David's (my audiologist) office. It was just like any other appointment, we say hi and ask questions, look around, etc. But the first thing we did was that we got my implant out - most people would probably have to sit there and put it together - but you know me...I just had to put it together the day I got it to see what it was going to look like. I put all of my colors on it just to see what they looked like too. lol. And they all looked cool. But we I put it on my head I was sad. Because it was big. It was a lot bigger than I was expecting but I got over that because as soon as I thought about me hearing everyone and everything that "normal" people hear, I was excited!! I just couldn't wait to get turned on. So we got the implant out and hooked it to the computer with this long cord. Then we did some tests to set the volumes right and see if my nerves were "working". Basically in the test, you hear a bunch or sratchy noises and beeps and the computer reads weather or not your nerves were working. Then we did another test for me to tell how loud the noises are. I got this piece of paper with blue circles in a row. From smallest to the biggest. The smallest being the softest sounds and the biggest circle being the loudest sound. So we went through all these beeps and noise and I had to figure out if it was loud or soft or medium. That was really hard for me because I had no idea what would be really loud or what would be really soft for me. But to some people that may be easier. I don't know. So anyways the turning on point was here!!! David said he was going to turn me on so I waited and waited. David and my mom was looking at me wondering what I'm go to do. Finally I asked "was that it?!?!". I didn't even know he turned me on until they started talking a little bit. All I could hear were beeps for every syllable in a word. For example "Jon-a-than" I was hear "beep..beep..Beep". So I was quite surprised when I found that out! My mom was almost in tears, and I was! I was so sad because I was expecting to really hear a little bit off people talking, not beeps!! So later on we went home and we didn't say much because we were still shocked about what had happened.
But it gets better, and I'll tell you the rest in the next time I blog. Ok?? I guess I'll talk to you later!