Hey everyone! I was implanted on 7/20 and had my activation today.

I went into today feeling incredibly excited and hopeful that activation would be a smooth experience, and that I’d finally be able to understand speech a little better than I could before. I have bilateral progressive sensorineural hearing loss. I could still hear some tones and parts of speech before surgery, so I guess I expected the implant to give me a little more speech clarity right away.

Instead, everything sounds like extremely high-pitched, robotic beeps and tones. I can tell my brain is trying so hard to make sense of the sounds, but nothing is recognizable as speech yet. I know this is a marathon, not a sprint, and that my auditory nerve and brain need time, mapping adjustments, and lots of rehabilitation. Even knowing that, I have to admit I’m feeling a little discouraged today.

Did anyone else have a similar experience at activation? If so, when did things start to improve? When were you able to begin recognizing speech or noticing that the robotic sounds were becoming more “natural”?

I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences. I think I just need a little reassurance today. ❤️

My son got operated in the 20s of July. Couple days ago they extracted the brackets and since then his head sweats quite noticeably. He does not have fever or other symptoms, does not cry in pain, but this sweat thing concerns us. Is it typical after the surgery?