Which Ear to Implant?

I've always said from the beginning - I will only accept the CI if they implant my left ear. My reasoning was always along the lines of - well if it doesn't work (an inserted CI will destroy what little residual hearing you have left) I wouldn't not be bereft of speech.

Granted the left ear has the worse word recognition score, it also hears all the low environmental sounds. When I take my left hearing aid out: I miss the phone ringing on my desk, I miss the beep the Eazypass Scanner makes as I pass the Toll Readers on the M50, I don't hear the warning noise my car makes when I leave my lights on... The right ear always picked up the speech tones and high frequencies. If I had a choice of one ear to keep it would always be my right one. Until the next time I leave the lights on in my car that is!

I always assumed this weird notion that my right ear was my 'best' because I was pre-dominantly right-handed. Although I use a right-foot first and right arm/hand motion for signing, it wasn't until I had my eyes tested that I realised I was wrong! My right eye was slightly worse my left... and in the hearing tests my left ear outshone the right with slightly higher readings in the low-mid frequencies.

But several links including this one, in Ballenger's Otorhinolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, advocates implanting the 'better ear' over the weaker counterpart on the grounds that the dominant ear with more residual hearing exhibits a better nerve reaction with a 'possible' higher success rate for CIs.

And nearly 95% of the people I'm meeting with a CI are implanted on their right not the left! Eeek! Am I making the wrong decision here?

Then I found an opposing school of thought that poohs this idea that a CI works better in one ear over the other. Howard Francis MD reported in the 'Ear and Hearing' Journal August 2005(yes... there IS a monthly journal that is published specialises in Hearing and Ears!!!) that the brains ability to distinguished electronic signals sounds does not matter as to which ear is implanted plus preserving the 'better ear'

"There is growing evidence that the amount of hearing in an ear prior to
surgery is unrelated to a patient's ability to interpret speech using an
implant, says Howard W. Francis, M.D., lead author of the study and an
associate professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery. Therefore, the
better-hearing ear could be saved for the continued use of a hearing aid or
future technology to complement a cochlear implant, Francis says."

Small reassurance there! All scientific reasoning aside there's several minor issues that factor in my decision to pick my left ear:

• I drive a lot, which I love, but I cannot have a conversation with someone in the car unless I'm looking at them. My children often get frustrated with my inability to communicate with them. We drive on the right hand side, so having a CI on my left would optimise hearing... but will it be the opposite if I am a passenger? Guess I'll just have to position myself behind the driver!

• I sleep on my right side, there's a strobe house alarm/fire warning alerting light in my bedroom and I have always slept 'facing' this light (the CI will be switched off and removed at night) This probably won't matter in the long run, but in the early days Post-implant a good night's sleep vital to me and sleeping on the scar will be difficult. I've a fear that if I sleep on my right the light won't wake me if I have my back to it... I don't see myself changing this habit unless the position of the light gets changed... no matter how hot the guy sharing my bed is!

• In my work place my desk is to the far left of the room, with all the bustle/chatter on the right. I already find this bustle/chatter a distraction, a CI on the right would be a killer to my concentration!

• And there's the possibility of a second implant (or better) in the future... it would make more sense to start with the left then move on to the right... I'll worry about the strobe light if and when this happens!

Hmmm. Yes, I'll take the CI on my left ear... pretty please!