I had asked Dr. Cliff about how to find a better hearing care provider. I informed him that my previous audiologist recommended me to get cochlear implants while he insisted that with my mixed hearing loss it would be more difficult to treat but it's not impossible to treat with hearing aids provided I'm not profoundly deaf. And wouldn't you know it, I'm not profoundly deaf, I'm a "Mild Deaf".
This got me thinking about possibly making it so I can use my computer with what I currently have, so I set out for some biohackers in my local area to assist in a better use of my computer to improve my enjoyment of entertainment, music and better comprehension of speech. Coincidentally, it worked very damn well. Super well in fact. I've never heard anything as clearly as I do when I'm fiddling with audio stuff on my computer.
So the question is will hearing aids actually work and are there hearing aids that will benefit me better than the hearing amplifiers I currently use? I'm not exactly sure, my last audiologist apparently sucked balls trying to coax me into getting cochlear implants when I most likely don't need them. Don't get me wrong, when I eventually go see a new audiologist, and get checked up all over again, and using this checklist to help me find the audiologist to go to initially, if they can provide me with a hearing aid and care that matches at least 3/4'ths of what my computer is able to provide me in clarity courtesy of local biohackers, then damn skippy I'll be happy.
If, however, they can't and I still get recommended cochlear implants, I'll bite the bullet and just get the damn implants. What would suck with that, though is that I heavily rely on my residual hearing in order to improve my lip reading accuracy and the addition of hearing amplifiers already making things so much easier on me otherwise. Getting the CI would essentially outright kill my residual hearing, leaving me profoundly deaf, killing my accuracy in lip reading and worse still is I likely won't have them activated for at least 6 weeks.
After CI activation, there is not guarantee that I'll hear anything at first and could take extended periods of time via speech therapy to train my brain into learning how to process the electrical signals from the CI into sound.
We'll see how things go. This is likely to be another few months, probably the start of next year, before I have professional grade hearing aids instead of cheap amplifiers in my ears, and if I end up having to go the route of the CI, I'll bite the bullet and just have the procedure done when it's available to me.