Thursday 12th February 2009 - Swiss Alps here I come!

Today I flew to Switzerland to the Alps for my 6 day ski holiday. I flew from Birmingham International Airport and although I fly on planes regularly, I hadnt flown since getting my CI so I was alittle unsure of what to expect and how the pressure inside your ears when descending to land would affect the cochlear implant.

Inside the airport, when I got to security, I was not allowed to walk through the security thing as we are a cochlear implant user and so we could trigger the alarm on this machine. I had to go round and get searched by a hand held security thing. I always carry my cochlear implant id card with me. I got through security no problem. After wandering around the duty free I then made my way to the boarding gate for my flight to Geneva. I still cannot hear the tannoy in the airport, so still was completely reliant on the flight detail screens to keep me updated about my flight departure.

Finally I got onto the plane and sat down at my seat in my usual place which is in front of the wing, next to the window and on the left hand side. Why I always sit there, I do not know. But I do LOVE the window seat as I am a town planner, I LOVE on clear days being able to look out of the window and see England below and recognising exactly where we are, by looking at the road pattern, landmarks and location. Anyway whilst still docked to the boarding gate on the ground, I kept hearing this bing bong sound on the plane. It did start to annoy me alittle. But I ignored it. Then we were ready to go. As we were taxiing along the taxi way to get to the end of the runway for take off and at a different time to the emergency instructions, I noticed some kind of talking over the tannoy system. I could not make out a single word so had no idea what this was about so took no notice of it. We had to wait for this Irish plane coming in to land and using the runway before we could use the runway for take off. The Irish plane then landed and cleared the runway and off we went. The power and my goodness the NOISE that was made as the engines forceably went into intense acceleration as we careered down the runway and then climbed steeply up into the air leaving the houses and the field and power lines and cars getting smaller and smaller as we ascended. I found the plane far too loud. Mid flight when we were cruising above mid France somewhere I took my implant off. Phew - some peace and quiet!! Also at this point I also started talking to the lady sitting next to me who was also flying to Switzerland for a skiing holiday. I mentioned about the tannoy when we were taxiing along the taxi way to the end of the runway prior to take off. She never heard this tannoy. Then I realised I was picking up the radio communications between the cockpit and the control tower!!

Anyway we came down to land and the descent and ear popping moments that are widely experienced were no different to that pre implant days. There was no problem with flying with a cochlear implant at all apart from the plane being noisy, everything felt normal. One advantage, I do not get affected by temporarily hearing loss that some people experience after landing. With a cochlear implant, my hearing levels remain the same as whats normal for me regardless whether you are trying to balance the pressure in your ears or not after a flight.