I have a cochlear implant, AMA

[MrsSteveMcDonald]

It helped me to speak to people with one when I was going through the assessment process and am always happy to talk about it to increase awareness of my disability

How old were you when you had it fitted?

If you could have had it from birth (or very young childhood - before you would be able to remember), would you have wanted to? Or was it a choice you would want to make yourself, rather than have your parents make for you?

Do you use any BSL?

How do voices sound? I thought it was a non accented voice, but my friends son who has one has a really strong regional accent. He has been profoundly deaf since birth.
Do you have an accent?

I was 35 when I had my surgery, my loss is progressive though so wouldn't have qualified any earlier

I don't sign, I don't know anyone else who does so there is no point learning as it's expensive and I would forget from lack of use

I could still hear normally when I learned to speak so my voice isn't affected in the slightest, I have a normal Cornish accent :)

I retained a lot of my hearing after the surgery so was able to have an EAS processor which is like a hybrid CI/hearing aid. This makes voices sound so much more natural that standard CI hearing. When I stream bluetooth it sounds completely natural but when listening to things normally I get a slight artificial sound

What caused your hearing loss?

Nobody knows and in the majority of cases, the cause of loss is never knows.

Oh interesting. I had no idea that could happen, aside from ageing. Was it a rapid decline? Must have been quite frightening