I’ve told people it was today, a year ago, that I was switched on.

Actually, as my Mum pointed out, the appointment last year was on a Monday, therefore it must have been Tuesday… alas, it’s still a year ago this week even if I’m blogging on the wrong day (I was waiting for today to write!)

I am finding it really hard to get going with this post. I’m very emotional today but that’s not just due to this anniversary.

It’s been a year though, a WHOLE year since I was switched on and wrote that first post utterly terrified at what I was hearing. As it turned out, what I heard through the implant that day didn’t change at all for months and months and in the end, we called it a day.

What was supposed to happen, was that the sounds I was hearing that day, should eventually have got clearer and clearer. Like they do for everyone else who has a Cochlear Implant. I’ve not met anyone yet, who had the same thing.

I still have moments of doubt, where I think “Did I REALLY give it a good go?”. Especially when I hear of CI users say about how hard they found it, and they talk about how they “pushed through it, gave it all they had, worked the hardest they ever had to work” and it worked out for them in the end making it all worth their while… this makes me feel like they’re implying I didn’t push through it, I didn’t give it all I had and I didn’t work very hard to make it work at all. But I really did, honestly. You know how much I wanted it to work.

I also have moments where I think “Why the hell me?”. Why also, did it happen, that only days after the consultant mutually agreeing with the audiologist and hearing therapist, and me, that we’ll call it a day, that the hearing in my very precious other ear, disappears completely resulting me with absolutely no hearing but unbearable Tinnitus for an entire summer?

Thankfully, and every so gratefully, some hearing did return in that ear once the Tinnitus subsided and I was able to make use of my hearing aid again. It’s not at the level that it was previously, but it’s still light years better than the Summer.

I went back to the audiology centre after I was confident that my hearing had settled. I asked them to turn my hearing aid up some more to try and recoup what I had lost. Unfortunately, I was told that my hearing aid was at the very highest it would go, and the blow was, there isn’t a hearing aid more powerful than the one I have now.

All my life, there has always been a better hearing aid to go on to. For the first time, I’ve reached the peak of technology. and cannot go further despite needing to. I guess if I had been someone else, the next question may have been “Have you considered a Cochlear Implant?”

You know what though? This may sound utterly daft. I’m quite happy now. It’s been a few months since everything went utterly pants and I have adapted. I love the word adaptation and the meaning through it – people really do adapt to their situation with a bit of positivity, can accept things for how they are. I decided that I would be positive.

Good things to be positive about include the fact some hearing did return after all – it didn’t have to! Other things to be positive about are, my friends and family will get me through whatever happens and I have an ACE Audiology team supporting me. I also have GLITTER in my earmould – could it be any sweeter than that?!

So I have adapted, I’ve got used to what I have now, and am making the most of it. Listening to music in the car will never be the same again, so I’m just jacking up the volume and feeling the beat instead. My children’s voices were very wobbly sounding and far too quiet for some time, but now I’ve just decided, that’s what they sound like. They’re still cute!

As for the Cochlear Implant, well I remain confident that it is still by far, the best hearing aid there is on this planet. I am by far, in the absolute minority where it hasn’t been successful. I still have absolute faith in the procedure. So much so, that actually – I still hope it’ll work for me sometime. As proved in the summer, and in my hearing history, my ears shift all the time. The amount of Tinnitus that I get tells me that! So perhaps, you never know, when things have settled down, I’ll give it another go – they may even have an even better processer to try with even more flexibility to make it work for me.

I live in hope, because I still have my life to live. I am 30 this year, I have to make the most of what I have, which is a huge lot. I might not have the hearing I hoped to have and the changes that I hoped the CI would give me, but I do have a huge amount of other things.

Here’s to 2011, and a different kind of switch on x