Juliet England: My cochlear implant dilemma

Friday night and I’m doing one of my regular volunteer front of house shifts at my local theatre, struggling as usual to hear the customers – especially if they have an odd question. (A colleague has to step in when someone actually asks if it’s OK to take his coat off, a query which is so charming yet bewildering that it was no wonder I was left befuddled and unconvinced that I’d heard accurately.)

The commission structure for volunteer vendors of ice creams and programmes is surprisingly brutal. So I’m doing my best to meet these demanding targets, but can’t help noticing an elderly patron clearly sporting a cochlear implant.

I abandon my ice cream sales to ask him about it. He is immediately earnest.

“Oh, do it,” he says, grabbing my wrist. “It’ll completely change your life.”

He goes on to explain the difference the CI has made to him, the music he can hear now, and in truth he is a delight.

Yet his extolling of the benefits of his implant may inadvertently have heightened rather than resolved my dilemma.

I first started toying with the idea of a CI in recent months, after the audiology team at my local hospital told me my hearing aids needed upgrading to the strongest available on the NHS.

After that, only a cochlear implant would make any difference.

The kindly gent at the theatre isn’t the only person I’ve spoken to who swears by their CI. I’ve even covered someone’s ‘journey’ (sorry, I know, I know, I hate that word, too) from initial consultation through to op and switch-on, for another publication.

So I’m well aware of the life-changing benefits. I’ve heard the thing about being able to appreciate birdsong many times, so I get that. (It’s always about the birdsong, for some reason.)

And I think of all the ways a hearing loss such as mine (which isn’t even profound deafness) can affect daily life. The struggle to catch a simple request for chocolate-chip flavour when flogging those ice creams. The battle to call my gym on a Saturday morning with some excuse or other for bunking off my body pump class and cancelling, yet again.

The problems caused when the supermarket online delivery van drives off because I haven’t heard the doorbell, leaving me with an empty fridge.

And yet, and yet…I also know all the potential snags only too well.

The fact that having an implant means major surgery and the inevitable risks that go with that. The fact that, once completed, it cannot be undone. The month or six weeks I’m told you have to wait for the thing to be switched on, during which time you must live in complete silence.

Clearly, inevitably, it would also be a huge leap into the unknown, with zero guarantees, and, surely, the chance that it could actually make my hearing worse rather than better. One thing it could never be is a miracle cure.

Getting used to the thing wouldn’t be easy, either, and could take ages.

I also have no reason to be vain, given that my face is hardly likely ever to constitute my fortune. But I keep my hair long to hide my hearing aids, even if I do point to them in frustration if someone seems to think I’m being difficult rather than actually hard of hearing. (This happens surprisingly often.)

And so, while it appalls me to say so, I have to admit that cochlear implants just look so big, so obtrusive.

I’m also very aware of the controversies among some in the deaf community. (I just typed in the words ‘deaf community against…’ in Google and cochlear implants came up straight away.)

If I did plump for a CI, I could well get one sooner rather than later. As we reported a couple of months back, more people now qualify for a CI in the light of updated guidance from National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE).

Perhaps somewhat belatedly, this was reported on by the BBC and ITV this month.

However, as with my charming theatre-goer, unfortunately the easier availability seems to make my dilemma harder, if anything. Both stack up a couple of points in the ‘For’ column, closing the gap with all the ‘Against’ factors.

In truth, I am a coward when it comes to making the big life decisions. And I’m not sure I’d even qualify for a CI. It’s one of those things I keep meaning to get around to finding out, while consistently avoiding doing so.

But it’s as though it’s always there in my head, whispering its promise of potentially better, clearer hearing, of being able to actually follow the Today progamme on Radio 4 rather than just having it as background noise.

As ever, I am no nearer to making a decision.

Juliet England is a partially deaf freelance writer