How a Cochlear Implant works

Nina wearing her Cochlear Implant Speech Processors

From Nina's pre-season interview with Gordon Holmes

http://xfinity.comcast.net/blogs/tv/2015/02/16/survivor-no-collar-nina-sometimes-you-have-to-destroy-relationships-to-win/

Holmes: You’re hearing impaired.

Poersch: I’m deaf. I have a Cochlear Implant, so I wear these little things on my ears and they’re speech processors. They have little microphones. Your sound goes in the microphone, travels up this cord, the magnet attaches to my head that communicates with the computer chip that’s inside my head. And there’s an electrode that goes into your cochlea and that’s what shoots off all of the…I don’t know what they’re called…

Holmes: You were doing an awesome job up until there.

Poersch: (Laughs) Well, it shoots off all of that stuff so I can hear.

Holmes: That’s amazing. I read your bio last night. I knew there was a deaf person in this cast. I picked you up at the holding tent. We talked the whole way over here. And just now I’m realizing you’re the player with the Cochlear Implant. How long have you been deaf?

Poersch: I didn’t lose my hearing until seven years ago. That’s why my speech is fine. I was only deaf for six months before I got the implant.

Holmes: And what made you lose your hearing?

Poersch: They really don’t know. They call it unexplainable hearing loss. Nobody in my family has lost their hearing. I personally think it was from taking too many over-the-counter pain meds. There was a study that came out that said prolonged use of over-the-counter pain meds in your twenties, by the time you’re in your forties you have a 90-something-percent chance of losing your hearing. And that was me, I had rebound headaches, which no doctor ever told me that‘s what it was. But I was taking over-the-counter pain meds at least five days a week and more than two a day. So, when I run across young people, I try to educate them. Because losing your hearing is not something you want to go through.

Holmes: Can you take the Cochlear Implant into the game?

Poersch: Yes. I talked to the doctor that’s going to be seeing us before the challenges. And we’ve worked out a thing for me in case I have water challenges or anything like that. These are running off of disposable batteries, and then I have a little container that takes the moisture out of my processor at night. I take them off at night and stick them in there. Otherwise I wouldn’t be able to play.

Holmes: There was a deaf contestant in “Amazon.”

Poersch: I can’t read lips. So, the only way I can understand people is to hear them.

Holmes: Are you going to let your tribemates know?

Poersch: Yes, I have to. It’s so hot I’m going to have to wear my hair in a ponytail. They’re going to see this. Before challenges, they just came up with this rubber sleeve, so it can be submerged completely in the water. So, I have to put that on. And really, it’s just too hard to hide so I might as well tell them.

Holmes: Are there any issues when many people talk at the same time?

Poersch: Yes, it’s difficult for me to hear.