& Jerome

[Guest guest]

Hi Guys,

When listing all your fears, you forgot, you could DIE on the

operating table, you could be brain dead and live for years, you could

fall off the operating table, you could get hit by a car on the way to or

from the hospital. Hey, stuff happens. Doesn't usually happen with CIs.

Biggest dangers are the risks with any surgery, facial paralysis,

twitching, and device failure.

Biggest advantages are facial paralysis is usually temporary,

twitching can be mapped out, device failure is rare.

Life has no guarantees. If you want to stay unable to hear, and

perhaps lose the job anyway, don't go for an implant. If you want to

stay safe, stay inside, except for the danger of an airplane falling on

your head, STAY off your motorcycle, since more people get injured from

motorcycle accidents than ever have fatalities from CI surgery. So, life

is a game of chance. Choose to play it safe, or go for the gold. When

you have nothing to lose hearing wise, you have everything to gain. Be

aware of the dangers, and there are some legitimate concerns with any

surgery, but the chance of gain is so much more.

Nobody gets out of life alive, so why not have the best time you can

on this go around. Fill the glass more than half full. You deserve at

least 3/4 I'd say. Worrying about what might happen is self defeating.

It paralyses you and makes you unable to make decisions. List what life

is like now, and what it can be like when you can hear again. Decide

which you want to do. It's your life, if you want to let fear stop you

from enjoying it, your decision.

Would that I were compensated for all the volunteer work I do. From

your mouth to God's ear. I'm super happy to hear again, can't imagine

life without hearing, although I spent 6 months that way between getting

deaf and getting implanted. It's not perfect, it's not even as good as

hearing with a hearing aid, but without it I'm DEAF as a STONE, so for me

there was no choice.

Not making a decision is the same as making one.

Nucleus Volunteer

From: " Love " <gelove48@...>

Subject: Re: worse case scenario...

It makes me feel so good to see someone who is as scared as much as I am

about this. I imagine that I will have to learn this entirely new

language that only robots understand and that it will take me 2 to 5

years

to learn it. Then I think, how will I know my motorcycle is running if I

have to take the CI off to get my helmet on. I won't be able to hear the

engine. I also think I will get fired at work for I didn't learn the new

language soon enough. I also think my face will tritch the rest of my

life

and something else will go wrong during the surgery and I will loss an

eye.

I also think sometimes that these people who write this supportive loving

stuff like Alice, , , Hal and all these other people, are

really CI's who hate their CI's, but want to have more people like them

with

them. They have also learned how to make a living by encouraging us to

get

CI's and they are compensated by the CI companies. The list goes on and

on,

but the reality of it all is, that I am scared and my mind has to have an

explanation, a reason for feeling so insane. I am coming to realize that

this is not a head decision, but a decision of the heart - a leap of

faith

as they say. I have always been so bad at making those leaps and

trusting

the believers. Maybe that is why my life has been a glass half full.

________________________________________________________________

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