Assessment. Day 1. Part 1

The next day we headed to the hospital for breakfast. I was very impressed when I entered the hospital. It was clean and modern. What was most impressive however was that every member of staff I encountered was deaf aware.

Obviously this is where the Cochlear Implant Centre is based so that explains why they are more deaf aware than other hospitals, but I really wasn’t expecting shop assistants and café catering assistants to each attempt sign language with me (which I don’t actually speak). I thought only the staff in the Cochlear Implant centre would know this.

The first person I saw was an audiologist. She introduced herself by making sure I could see her name tag. She asked some questions about my deafness in general and did some hearing tests – the push the button ones that I am used to already. My audiograms showed a very low level of hearing. She explained that today I would see the physicist, have a CT scan and have my hearing tested with and without lip-reading.

The Physician stuck some electrodes on my head. It made me think Back to the Future where Doc Brown tries to read Marty’s mind! I was told to relax and ‘maybe even go to sleep’ as it would take about half an hour. Totally impossible as when the electrodes were turned on, the sensation was like listening to a drill. Not uncomfortable but similar.

We then went for lunch before more tests that afternoon.