R.I.P Subtitles..

From watching telly tubbies to songs of praise, I needed subtitles to understand the lingo. So, for years Ceefax 888 was my domain. Anything that didn’t have subtitles was a huge turn off. If you invited a HOH friend over to watch a film and at the last minute mentioned that it didn’t have any subtitles. The colour would drain from your friends face and you'd watch as they’d go to a corner and weep inconsolably. Lol

I know how it feels, your knackered and there’s this film you wanna watch on tv. Your even more excited cause it comes with subtitles. So you change into your PJs, get the popcorn out, draw the curtains and lie spawned across the sofa. The film starts and then a caption appears saying ‘ Sorry, we cannot get subtitles at this moment’..’Arrrrrrrggggggh’ you kick off big style. In the process manage to stub your toe on the coffee table and subsequently scream your head off. Your neighbours four houses down the road, hear you and wonder what the fu*k is going on..lol

So there you are, pissed off almighty and nursing a throbbing toe. Your hearing aid then starts playing up, cause of all the condensation build up. You then throw it at the telly yelling abuse as you do so. The aid reciprocates off the tv and flies out the window. Problem is, you live in a flat and it’s the fourth floor. You then rush to the window and see where it’s landed. Which is akin to trying to find a needle in a haystack. You put on your dressing gown and go out in search for your hearing aid.

As you make your way down the stairs you pass your carer who’s eighty and asks you what on earth your doing in your dressing gown. Lol You explain in your best voice and your carer helps you in your search for the aid. Outside you stare at the tarmac, looking in vain for your beloved hearing aid. ’ It’s over here’, your carer says as she hears it whistling for dear life. You rush over and there you see it, covered in dog shit.

Same old shit, different day…

With my CI though, I don’t need to cry and ask someone to sing me a lullaby anymore. In true bionic fashion I hear what’s being said. I’m amazed myself how this can be so. My mind has gelled with the CI, they are fast becoming best buddies.

It’s liberating and I’m happy to leave that manky hearing aid on the shit pile.

Mission accomplished.

Geez three months sure has flown by, it's been the ride of my life. You may remember my old post Boyakasha where with hearing aids I got 0% on my listening test. Chuckles to himself.. You couldn’t do worse eh?

No I had to read lips in them days to survive. And that’s what life was like, just surviving and existing. I’d go into my shell like, cause that’s what deafened people tend to do. Well, someone has worked a little miracle on me and I’ve been set free from the deaf sentence I thought I’d be confined to forever.

That miracle is my AB implant, I gotten my life back in spades. Right from day one of switch on, I could hear music again and it was emotional. The tinnitus that plagued my life for the last ten years varnished by the end of the first week on switch on.

What I hear with my AB implant is just like what a hearing person hears. My result for the listening test came at 100%. So eat your words doubters..

And it gets better..I hear well in noise too. Thanks to Clear voice which comes with Advanced Bionics, I can understand speech with back ground noise well. Take the other night for an example, we went to this bar and whilst music was playing, I got my girlfriend to whisper in my ear, that’s where the T-Mic is situated. Right by the ear, none of that top of the processor shit. I heard everything that was said right by my ear’ole.

So do I feel deaf? No way and believe me who wants to be deaf, with all that 'what' and 'pardon' crap that comes with cloth ears.

Anything that empowers one to hear well and make life easier, just has to happen. If one fears that a CI will make you look stupid, cause you happen to have a complex with the magnet. Well, I think you’d feel even more stupid if you saw me take a phone call for you that you couldn’t do with your hearing aids.

There’s still a lot of misinformation being bandied about with the Deaf community and the like. I heard recently that someone said a CI seriously damages your health!! WTF . Being deaf seriously damages your health actually. Just take a look at all the mental health problems the deaf have.

For me it’s a no brainer, I went for a CI, cause of all the positive things I heard about them. Sure I had my concerns about how they looked, but on closer inspection they look like blue tooth devices. I’ve held a mirror up and stared at the back of my head and... ok I realise I’m a cyborg. Lol

But here’s the crunch, I’m a cyborg that can walk the walk and talk the talk.

From 0% to 100% in three months, you ought to pay me double bubble. lol