3-2-1 We have Activation!

[Jeff Fowler]

In 2016 I was diagnosed with stage 3 Testicular Cancer.  It had spread to my chest through my seminal system headed for the pituitary gland of my Brain.  Lance Armstrong the most famous survivor of testicular cancer had it in all three places.  I underwent 4, week long chemo treatments and during my 4 month scan my oncologist told me we didn't get it all!  She sent me from Pittsburgh PA to see Dr. Larry Einhorn in Indianapolis, IN to investigate my options.  We decided to chase a cure!  That chase included 2 rounds of high dose chemotherapy each followed with a stem cell transplant.  Going into treatment the Dr. told me that one of the potential side effects was hearing loss.  which is what brings me to this forum! 

Upon return from Indianapolis, I had an appointment with an audiologist to be evaluated for what would be my first hearing aids.  As time passed that set wasn't doing it for me, so we re-evaluated and my hearing had degraded even further.  I have since learned that platinum based chemo treatments tend to cause continued degradation.  My hearing aids were allowing me to only hear and understand about 35% of the words I heard.  Thus, I was recommended for a cochlear implant.  April 1, 2022 was my implant surgery.  April 28th was activation!  Today As I type this introduction to the forum I have just returned from my 1 month follow up appoint with my implant audiologist.  She put me back into that dreaded sound booth where I had felt every possible emotion prior!   Today was different, TODAY my world changed!  Today for the first time in 5 years I sat in the booth with a certain amount of confidence, not fear like in the past.  Today my audiologist told me that with my implant in the right and my hearing aid in the left I recognized 97% of the words I heard in silence and 85% of them with background noise!  

It just so happens that last month was my 5 year anniversary of being cancer free!  5 years and my oncologist used the word CURED!  CURED with a cochlear implant on the right side and hearing aid on left  to understand 97%!  I am a very blessed 57 year old! 

[Mary Beth]

@Jeff Fowler

It was great to meet you last night.  I am thrilled to see you here in the HearPeers (HP) forum.  We are a great group.  Very helpful and friendly.  I look forward to following your journey.

And congratulations on receiving your 5 year cancer free CURED diagnosis.  I am in my first year of cancer treatments for aggressive breast cancer and hope to be able to post a cancer free CURED comment in 5 years.

I am going to tag you in the topic about our upcoming HP GoogleMeet.  We host this ourselves- just Med-El CI users helping each other directly.  If you are interested just reply to that topic to get added to the invite list.  We are an international group so we meet Sunday morning New York time at 9:15 am.  Which has our west coast members joining in at 5:15 and 6:15 am and our Australian members joining in at 9:15 pm and 10:15 pm.  We have members from 11 countries who have joined in so we hit lots of time zones.  If the timing doesn’t work out, no problem.  We are all active on the forum as well.