What I look forward to after getting implanted and activated

I've been asked several times since I've been considering a cochlear implant, what do I look forward to after I'm implanted and finally activated? There are many answers to this, but the first and foremost answer would be to be able to hear my kids as they grow, I do NOT want to have a silent world and not be able to communicate with them. It is apparent that my hearing is degrading fast and I need to do whatever I can in the realms of my world to make that happen!

So in no specific order, I will list what I am looking forward to:

• Watching TV without relying on captions! There are times when I'm watching the news, segments are not captioned because it is a live feed or whatever. So I miss out completely on what was being said.
• Listening to music and actually hear the words. I have always just based my choice on music by hearing it on the radio, if I liked the 'tune' of what I was hearing, I'd investigate what the song name was, who is was sang by and then I'd find a way to get the lyrics. When I was younger, I used to record songs from the radio on my tape cassette recorder and get the lyrics and replay the song over and over again, reading the lyrics and memorizing them that way.
• Being able to communicate with my husband without him having to repeat himself several times. He has a speech impairment that it does make it difficult for me to communicate with him. LOL How in the world did we end up together? A hard of hearing person with a speech impaired person? Ironic, eh?
• Using the phone again and not having people repeat themselves so much. I dread using the phone now for fear I'm not going to hear the person on the other end, but I do it anyway when a situation presents that I cannot just have my husband or another family member/friend help me take care of.
• Being around water and hearing my kids and other enivronmental sounds! Whether for safety reasons or for excitement.
• Date night to the movies! I want to go to the movie theatre and enjoy the movie because I can hear!
• To be able to attend a chuch service and actually HEAR what is being said! I have always felt spiritual, but because of my hearing loss, I've never been able to attend a church and understand the service.

I am sure there are some other small things that I look forward to, but these are like the biggest things that I hope to acheive with getting a cochlear implant. My expectations/goals might be set high, but I'm not going to expect that I will be able to do all of the above. But I will work diligently to learn how to hear my world that best I can. All things are possible, without dreams, nothing can happen.

I want to mention one thing that annoys me...  people tend to think its VOLUME that I need increased to understand something. So they automatically say 'well we can turn up the volume' or 'we can get a surround sound system to help you'. It's not that at all, its clarity and the tone. I try to remember that unless you have hearing loss yourself, people will not understand this. While I can lip read exceptionally well, it is still very hard to be in a meeting type atmosphere and understand anything at all. I struggle during family get togethers to understand everyone. And I rarely recognize when someone is actually trying to talk to me until after they've said my name a few times in a louder tone. In noisy environments, its difficult to communicate with someone in person even when they are right in front of me because I cannot block out background noise to understand the person in front of me. The phone, forget it! I have had so much trouble with the phone for the last couple years, I don't even try anymore.

I'm hoping going through with a cochlear implant will open up my world of hearing. It is NOT something where when the processors are turned on that I will hear immediately (maybe I will, but its rare). Getting a cochlear implant does not mean that I'm no longer hard of hearing/deaf, I will always be deaf... just the cochlear implant is a tool for me to help me understand speech. It is not a magic wand that restores hearing. I will be hearing with my brain, which takes practice and perhaps once my brain starts to comprehend that speech I'm hearing, it will work like magic. It is something I will have to work at. While this all takes time and patience, I will need the people on this journey with me (family & friends) will also need to be patient with me as well.
At the end of the day when I go to bed, I will have to take the processors off, I will be deaf and in complete silence! I worry about not hearing while I'm sleeping because of my kids. I know I have my husband that can help me out in this, its just I feel as in a role as a mother, that I need to be attentive to my kids needs as much as possible without the reliance of someone else. This will probably be one of my biggest struggles. But I hope that by knowing this, that I can prepare myself mentally and prepare my husband to know that he will have to be my ears for me at night. I will most definitely need to get some assistive device that will wake me up to get Jared ready for school. I need to look into those options and check into the costs. Will probably be something that vibrates under my pillow or turning my lights on and off... I do NOT want my husband waking me up every morning by jerking me around. I would seriously get highly irritated over that. It has happened when my hearing aid battery has died and I don't hear the alarm, he shakes me and while it does wake me up, it really startles me. I end up confused til I realize whats going on and then I'm irritated by the way I was woke up. So thinking that I need to be looking for another option that will wake me up when needed.