Today I upgraded.

Nine years with the same implant, the Nucleus 6, and today I finally switched it for a Nucleus 8.

I didn't know what to expect.

I thought it would be a small improvement.
Noticeable, maybe, but manageable.
Something that would feel like a newer version of the same thing.

It wasn't.

The change was radical.

And that's what I still haven't fully processed.

For nine years I got used to hearing a certain way.

I learned to live with that.

I learned not to ask for more, because I didn't know there was more to ask for.

You get used to what you have, even when what you have is limited.

And today, within minutes, I understood that I had spent nine years hearing less than I could actually hear.

That's hard to sit with.

It's not just "now I hear better."

It's realizing everything I didn't know I was missing.

Sounds I didn't notice were gone.

Details I didn't even know existed.

I never thought I needed this.

I didn't even have it in my head as a real possibility.

And now that I've tried it, I can't think about going back.

It's strange to feel this way about a device.

But it's not the device.

It's what the device gives back to me.

I still have adjusting to do.

The brain needs time to relearn how to process all of this.

But the first day already made one thing clear:

nine years thinking I was hearing well,

and only today did I understand how much I was missing.