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[Guest guest]

Hi ,

Best luck to tomorrow.

You might want to check out the cochlear website: www.cochlear.com and

go to the section marked Reliability. It should put your mind at ease,

when you read the comparison between the Freedom and other brands. And

your son will be getting the Freedom, not the N24 C. It's the most

current from Cochlear, and has been out for a bit over a year.

It's unfortunate that you weren't given a choice in the matter, but

the Freedom has lots of features that are unique.

9 years ago I had to choose between Nucleus and Advanced Bionics. I

chose Nucleus because it had a behind the ear processor available at the

time. Turned out to be a good choice for a lot of other reasons as well.

Let us know how does.

The Original

From: " robertbudder " robertnj63@...

Date: Sun May 7, 2006 2:42pm(PDT)

Subject: cochlear brand

My son matthew is being implanted tomorrow morning at childrens

hospital in philadelphia. After 4 months of reading thousands of

postings i was faced with having to make a decision on which implant

to choose. I tormented myself over every facet of information.

Torwards the end of my decision process it became apparent to me

that most of the postings i read were from people who were advocates

from one brand or another. Here i sat, night after night, hanging on

every word thinking i was reading unbiased info, which in fact maybe

it could of been, but all in all i feel i was being naive in

believing they cared about the newcomers faced with this decision. I

was so ready to go with A/B, liking everything i read, but my

hospital recommended the cochlear brand and the hospital i got a

second opinion from ONLY did cochlear brand. At the last minute, i

gave the go ahead to switch to cochlear brand, feeling that the

hospital would know. NOW, just this weekend, after reading the rest

of the current posts, i almost feel like everyone is saying the

cochlear is a very old technology and in no way compares to the

advances in the A/B implant. Here i am, preparing the cars for all

the necessary gear to go to the hospital early tomorrow and i just

have no idea if i made the right decision, this is my child and i

just wanted him to have the best, and now i read all these postings

that greatly outnumber anything good from cochlear......

i remain tormented..

sincerely, robert budnick