Our experience at CIC Berlin-Brandenburg
„What am I hearing?“ (Thies, 3 years old) - Experiences with the cochlear implant
Our son Thies was five months old (October 2022) when he was diagnosed with bilateral deafness. We began working with the CIC Berlin-Brandenburg in January 2023. At ten months, in March 2023, he was selected for the use of a Cochlear implant surgery.
When I look back, the time before the diagnosis and a shorter time afterwards was the most difficult. There were questions, fears and sadness. Today, more than two years later (2025), I would say that this rather doubtful time was important for everything that followed. Changes in life are always a challenge on a small and especially on a large scale. It helps if you allow for the associated uncertainties but don't lose sight of the future. Support is often advisable, which we receive from various people and institutions. Care from the health and support system is not always immediate and well-coordinated. If you are familiar with this type of care, you can adapt to it better. If you are confronted with it for the first time, it may come as a surprise. In any case, it is advisable to „stay tuned“.
Deaf - what does it mean, how does it feel, how does it come about, what does it do to you here in the hearing world? We asked ourselves questions like these in the course of the diagnosis. We accepted deafness as part of our son's identity. Nevertheless, we decided to fit him with a cochlear implant. Probably the most important argument in our favour is the hearing society in which we live. Most things are geared towards hearing. If you can't hear, you are able to speak and live through sign language, but at the same time you are excluded in many ways. We have decided: The path to silence is further for us than Thies' path to sound. He can always be deaf, but can only learn language up to the age of five.
Our experiences with the cochlear implant and the support at CIC Berlin-Brandenburg
When we were informed of the diagnosis at the hearing advice centre, we were immediately told about the possibility of a CI, which was certainly a very important moment. I remember very well the first time I called the CIC Berlin-Brandenburg, not wanting to wait any longer and not having to wait any longer. With the admission to the CIC and the experienced support there in the run-up, immediately after the operation and since then, a big step had been taken. There was a strength that gave me the courage to go on: We took Thies and he took us by the hand. Sometimes it seemed like we were ten months behind schedule because everything worked so naturally. We learnt about hearing programmes, battery life, AquaPads and CI mounts and much more. Thies learnt spoken language. At around 1½ years old, you could see that something was different, but you couldn't hear it. From the age of two, I was repeatedly told that Thies was developing normally in terms of speech.
How does that work? I won't describe the technology that is responsible for this. It's definitely the basis that works when you use it. Maybe it's luck, maybe it's Thies’ communicative inclination, maybe it's our shared attitude behind „it's different and it's not“, which has led to him accepting the CI very well. Language is our element. „Look at that! What did you just say? Yes, that's right Thies, we're going to the CIC now.“ We were told quite early on that the cochlear implant was developed for spoken language but not for musical experience. The initial worry associated with this makes me laugh today when Thies sings, still wants to hear a song and when I sing along he says: „No, not you mum, I'm singing now!“
Experience report CI fitting | A family reports | As of 16/08/2025