Well, the insurance must already be taken care of because the Surgeon called my house today already. It's only been two days and I didn't expect anything so soon. The Surgeon asked if I was allergic to any medications. Then said that I'll get mail soon letting me know when the surgery will be. So things seem to be moving much faster then I expected.

I think the best word to describe how I'm feeling right now would be anticipation. A little nervousness is there of course but I'm for the most part looking forward to getting the surgery part over and done with.

I just went in for my evaluation yesterday and found out that I am a candidate for the implant and I will be getting one. Right now the paper work is being taken care of for the insurance then they'll schedule my surgery and send me some mail to let me know when.

My audiologist name is Rachel and she was great. She was very friendly and easy to talk to. I found out just a few days before that a friend of mine that already has a Cochlear Implant also worked with Rachel so I had already found out that she was great and helpful.

I took the hearing test. This is nothing new to me. I've had plenty of them in my life. The only thing different about this one is she put some hearing aids on me and testing me while wearing them. I've never had that done before. I usually ended up getting hearing aids after a hearing test but never used temporary ones during the test. I could hear some sound withe hearing aids in but it wasn't like "Sound" to me. More like buzzing that caused my inner ear to tingle and itch a little.

As I suspected, my right ear, even with the hearing aid in could barely pick up anything. When I could hear in that ear it was very faint. So faint that I really wasn't sure if I heard anything in it but I could "feel" something just faintly.

While my left ear wasn't much better it did have a stronger response to sounds. When she tested me for speech I picked up a couple of little "squeak" sounds but I didn't really hear a voice and no words came to me. Just little sounds. So little that I couldn't really tell if I heard them or just imagined them.

So, I'll be getting the implant in my left ear. I don't know when it'll be yet. Hopefully the mail will come soon to let me know.

I've been pointing my friends and family to this blog to share my experience. I just got to thinking that some of them may not know much about what the Implant actually is. So I'll describe it so you'll know what I'll be going through here.

Rather then explaining it all to you. I'll just post a couple of videos and links. No use typing it all over again.

This video is pretty good at explaining what it is and how it works.


This video is the story of a girl who got the Implant. The first half is pretty good at showing the process from Surgery to activation.

While I'm waiting for the 16th to come and find out if I am indeed a candidate for the Cochlear Implant. I thought I'd just share some of what I'm doing and thinking.

All three Cochlear Implant companies have sent me their packages that share information and let's face it, promote their product. I'm not complaining though. I now how business works so I expected them to kind of draw me toward choosing their products.

Right now I'm debating between Advanced Bionics and Nucleus Freedom. Both seem to have good features. It's a tough choice to make and it's an important one. I wouldn't want to be stuck with a product I'm not happy with down the line.

I'm also thinking about what ear I want to get the implant in. I know I'll discuss this with the doctors but I'm already thinking about that decision. From reading around and talking to others who have the implant. There are a lot of factors to consider here. In my case I have no hearing in my right ear and very little in my left. This means that if I get the implant in my right ear then I really don't have anything to loose. But if I get it in my left ear they say there's a possibility that what improvements the implant can provide may be better because there is already some hearing in that ear. Not much but I can hear loud and low pitched sounds. So it's yet another tough decision.

It's still kind of funny to me that my curiosity of sound has awaken again. For years I didn't think about what things sound like because I knew that even if someone attempted to describe it to me. I still couldn't experience it. But now that there's a possibility that I might be able to hear again I'm thinking about that a lot. I just hope I'll get the good news I hope for in 4 days.

I missed my appointment on June 6th. The appointment was in Ann Arbor Michigan (over a 2 hour drive away) at 8:30am. I over slept and didn't wake up till 7am so I didn't have enough time to the Appointment in time.

This was so frustrating because although I knew that all I was going to do that day is take another hearing test (I've had my share of hearing tests in my life), but I had a hard time sleeping the night before. What kept me awake was the thought that tomorrow I will find out if I'll ever be able to hear again. I was hoping that after the hearing test was over they'd tell me that the Cochlear Implant can work for me and that we had to make some decisions such as what ear to get it in, what brand of Implant to use and when to schedule the operation.

The good news is the new appointment is on June 16th at 3pm. I'll post back and share what happens.

My appointment to get testing to see if the Cochlear Implant could work for me is only two days away. Now I know this appointment is basically just a hearing test that serves two purposes. To see if I'm a candidate for the implant and also to be able to show the insurance company that I am indeed deaf. I've had share of hearing tests in my life so I know the outcome will simply be "You're deaf", but I'm hoping that will be fallowed by, "The Cochlear implant can work for you".

Right now I'm feeling a combination of both excitement and a bit of fear. I mean if this can work for me I'll be able to hear a voice for the first time in almost 20 years. I haven't heard any music that has come out since the 80's and I have no idea what most of the people I know sound like.

It's kind of funny to me because years ago when I came to terms with the fact that I was deaf (That was an emotional struggle but I got through it). Once that happened I pretty much stopped wondering what things sound like. I mean I remember what things sound like but if I see something that I've never heard before I didn't wonder what it sounds like anymore because of the simple fact that I knew there was no way I could really find out. So I just didn't think about those things for a long time.

Now that I decided to look into my options and after doing a lot of research over the past couple of weeks and reading about how many advances have been made in the last 10 years. I'm pretty hopeful and form that my curiosity of what things sound like has come back. For instance the other day I just happened to see the microwave in my kitchen and I wondered if it beeps or "dings" when the timer stops. I'm asking people things like, "Does this door make sound when it opens?" and "When the light flashes on the phone is the flashing synced with the sound of the phone ringing?" Little things like that are catching my attention because there's now at least a change I might someday found the answers to those questions.

At the same time I'm also getting a bit worried. If I find out the implant won't work for me ina couple of days. My newly reborn curiosity will probably cause a bit of depression. It'll almost be like becoming deaf all over again but probably not as bad as the first time because I've already gone through it before. Still, that's my biggest fear at the moment about this.

Now I'm being realistic about this. I'm not planning on having perfect hearing if the implant does work. But to even be able to to join the rest of society and talk on a cell phone would make a huge difference in my life. Back when I could hear well enough to talk on a phone a cell phone (Called mobile phone in those days) where a rare things because they where so expensive. They where also about the size of a brick. So a part of me has felt left out of all these technical advances. It would be nice to be able to join in it.

I've been talking to other people who have gotten a cochlear implant. Both in person and on line. In fact I found a couple of great sites.
Hearingjourney.com is a site by the only American company that makes Cochlear Implants called Advanced Bionics. They have a forum full of people who either have Cochlear implants or like me and are looking into getting them. They've been a big help in answering my questions and just sharing their experiences and advice. If anyone reading this is in the same position I'm currently in I strongly urge you to go there and check it out.

They also have a free Connect to Mentor program. You can browse profiles of people who have Cochlear Implants and send them a message and ask questions. This has also been very helpful and I highly recommend them as well.

By the time I was in kindergarten, I was almost completely deaf. My family had noticed a slur in my speech and I was also pronouncing things incorrectly. Doctors found this was due, in part, to a build up of fluids in my ears. In the first grade, I had my tonsils removed and had tubes put in my ears to correct this problem. This helped drain the fluids from my ear and gave me the ability to hear.

I can still remember being wheeled out of the operating room in a half conscious state. I was left waiting in a hallway with my parents. We knew right away that my hearing was restored when a nurse dropped a tray and I sat up wide-awake yelling, "What was that?" Never before in my life had a sound caused me to jump. It was very exciting for all of us, but at the same time very scary to me.

Later that day, I was lying in my hospital room eating all the ice cream they would give me, when I noticed a loud humming sound. I asked my parents what it was and they said they didn't hear anything. It became a mystery to me as to what the sound was. I was actually scared to think that I was hearing something and no one else seemed to hear it. After a while we finally figured out that the humming sound was the air conditioning in the room. To me this was a loud and annoying sound, to everyone else it was a sound that is pretty much always there and ignored.

Over the next couple of years I continued to think that I now had "Super Hearing". I discovered small sounds that I never even knew existed. Simple things like the swiping of the windshield wipers in the car, the ticking of the turning signals, and the crunch of biting into potato chips fascinated me. I even remember yelling for my mother to come to the bathroom to hear me pee in the toilet. I didn't know it made a sound and I finally found out why my parents always woke up when I went to the bathroom in the middle of the night. After that time, I quickly learned to use the side of the bowl.

It wasn't until the 4th grade that I learned that my hearing was far from "Super Hearing". In fact I was actually very hearing impaired, but because I was still learning a new world of sounds, no one knew. The school was giving all the students a basic hearing test. I'm sure everyone has had them at some point. They place headphones on you and ask you to raise your hand when you hear the sound. I was very confident in myself when they placed the headphones on me. My confidence soon dissipated when I learned that the other children could hear sounds that I couldn't. I was crushed. I'm sure you can imagine the self-esteem loss at this news. Suddenly I went from the boy with "Super Hearing" to the boy with a hearing problem.

It was kind of strange that until that time, I wasn't aware of the things I couldn't hear, but after that I started noticing a lot of things I had missed before. My parents sent me to a hearing specialist and I soon got my first set of hearing aids. They also sent someone to my school to teach me lip reading. That was a strange process. The teacher spends the hour saying things to me but making no sound with her voice. My job was to repeat what she was saying. At first she would say simple words. Then I moved into sentences. Then eventually she would read a whole short story and I had to give an outline of that story.

Looking back, I now realize that my hearing difference seemed a burden at the time. In many ways it actually encouraged me to accomplish things that I may not have if I didn't have that difference. I constantly strived to make others see me as someone "Normal". I refused to let them put me in any special education classes like they usually did for people with a disability of this kind. Not that I'm against that, I know a lot of people need those classes, I just didn't want anything to make me seem different or "broken." I've always been the type of person that does everything possible to accomplish something once I set my mind to it. At a young age, one of these passions was to do things that I wasn't supposed to be able to do because of my disability. I played musical instruments, sang, took up acting and mime. I even tried ventriloquism. It wasn't until one of my older brothers passed away while stationed with the Air Force in California that I found what I feel is my calling. I found magic, or rather, magic found me.

My family and I went to a memorial service for my brother. We weren't in much of a mood for site seeing, but friends of my brothers did show us around while we where there. So it was that chance visit to California that I found my first magic shop. I left with a bag full of tricks and worked to master them when I got home. Sometime later I found a magic shop in my hometown and it became like a second home to me. I'd spend all the time and money on magic tricks and books. I also found that all the skills I've learned over the years could be incorporated in my magic performances. In other words, Magic was it for me.
(I still thank my brother Paul for that. I honestly believe that he had something to do with me finding this magic shop).

Magic gave me a lot of confidence. I have a very loving and supportive family, and a lot of great friends. But I found magic filled a space in my life that I didn't know needed filling. Here I am, someone who once felt left out in rooms full of conversations that I couldn't participate in now often becoming the subject of conversation. As I perform for groups of people, I have the pleasure of seeing their eyes full of wonder and amusement. As they give their appreciation through the laughter and applause, the need to feel "Normal" no longer exists. It's replaced with the fulfillment of not only being accepted, but also appreciated.

I couldn't honestly say that my hearing difference hasn't brought forth certain challenges as a performer. As I'm getting older my hearing has decreased to the point where I am now considered truly deaf. I have no hearing in my right ear and very little in my left. Hearing isn't measured in percentages, but it's safe to say that I have about 15% hearing in my left ear at certain pitches. The problem is, I can't hear the pitch that most speech is in (This is what makes me deaf. The inability to hear speach to communicate).
It's even harder hearing the high voices of women and children. As a performer who loves to interact with my audiences, this can be an obstacle to me. Even now, I need to have some things translated to me from a person I can more easily understand, like the parents of a child may need to repeat what their child said. I've had to become skillful at ways to present myself that doesn't offend anyone in the process of translation. I've also had to overcome the matter of my speech. Since I could hear a lot better at one time, my speech is quite understandable. I do however have a slight slur from time to time. This is something I sought to improve. I wanted my audiences to understand me.
To remedy this, I'd read out loud to a trusted friend or family member and ask them to tell me when and if I'd say anything unclear. I would then work on that word or sound. It usually was a straightforward matter of repeating the word slowly. This has been a great help for me. I've gotten to the point now where I have casual acquaintances that have known me for years yet never knew of my hearing difference. My girlfriend knew me almost a month before she did, and someone had to tell her then!

When I perform, I feel it is important for my audiences to know of my deafness. I usually do this in a subtle humorous way. As I mentioned, I love to interact with them. It makes them feel a part of it all. This is why I feel it necessary to let them know of my hearing difference. Otherwise, they may mistake my inability to hear them for negligence or arrogance. This may well seem an easy task, but in truth, it's the most difficult of all my challenges. The last thing I want from my audiences is pity or sympathy. I want to be remembered for my proficiency as a magician that happens to be deaf. I strive for the reaction of true laughter and wonder, not the response, "Your great, for a deaf guy".

Because it's very hard to feel two emotions at once, I share a little humor on the subject of my deafness as I perform. This helps people know where I stand on the subject. Hopefully, I can erase any thought of pity in the process.

You may be able to see that in many ways my hearing difference has actually been somewhat of an inspirational tool for me. For with out it, I may never have had the drive to become what I am today. It is that passion that has made me a better performer as well as a person. I suggest everyone, for we all have our hurdles to overcome, to find some kind of passion. The feeling of accomplishment is worth all the time one might invest in it.

In closing, I've always had the passion of accomplishing things that one might think impossible. What better field to do that in then Magic?

Magically yours,

Ron Jaxon