Here I am coming out of surgery with a MED-EL Sonata TI 100 implanted in my left cochlea. I am smiling because the doctor left my hearing aid in my right ear on, and as soon as I woke up from the surgery, I realized that I could still hear with my right ear using a hearing aid. </br>Read more about the surgery on my blog: The Surgery

I did not really hear very much at first. I could feel the electrodes doing their thing more than I could experience sound. What I heard was kind of like a clicking, or a cricket, or maybe a blacksmith hitting an anvil in the distance. But, whenever they upped the power enough for me to hear, I felt a little dizzy, sleepy, startled and nauseated.
Here are some video links of the activation.

At the clinic, I listened to the drum, the bell and the rattle again, with my eyes closed and with my hearing aid switched off. I was able to tell which was which. So, that is the first step to sound discrimination. I only knew which was which by looking and listening first, though, because they all sound like a cricket to me... just different crickets. So, two weeks in and all I can hear with my cochlear implant is the faint sound of a cricket. Good thing I can still hear with my hearing aid.

Today I went deaf again. Now the only hearing I have is with my cochlear implant. And that just sounds like garble.

I woke up and put my HA and CI on. Later when the CI battery needed to be changed, I noticed that what hearing I'd recovered in my right ear, I lost again! Totally Deaf AGAIN!

For Father's Day I called my dad in the US. I used headphones and skype and was able to talk for 30 minutes. (with a lot of repeating)Read More Here