It is our privilege to serve humankind and the Lord through the hearing loss community.
The ride has been tremendous and the opportunities continue to come.
I am one of 160,000 plus cochlear implant receipt ants.  At a recent lab experiment, Dr. Ray Goldsworthy an adjunct professor of the House Ear Institute saw from his analysis I was getting the maximum out of my implants.

I went from deafness one day to to hearing when my first cochlear implant was activated November 2005.  Not everyone who is implanted is able to have full understanding immediately.  Cochlear implants broadcast from a speech processor behind ones ears to an internal device under the scalp then by-passed all the broken ear parts and transmit directly to the brains nerve ending lying next to the cochlear. Twenty two channels from computer chip broadcast to the cochlear.  From the nerve ending by the cochlear a signals travel up to the brains hearing center. These signal are in a different format, which are digits.

Normal hearing people hear by percussion.Therefore when the format is changed to digits . This can manifest itself sometime in strange sounds, i.e. a squeaky voice, thunder, many other uncommon sounds.  To overcome these unusual sounds a newly implanted person may have to train the hearing center to understand the new digital format.

I have worker at  for seven Universities doing research labs participating in studies, which has various presentations in different setting.  The goal of each is to improve hearing for cochlear implant receipt ants.  At the University of Texas at Dallas, we are working on a different cochlear implant carrier format.  Not percussion or digits. Dr. Phillip Loizou at the University of Texas at Dallas enlisted him to work on the PDA project.  He has been to the Texas lab eight times.  He is active in recruiting for this labIt uses algorithm formulas to transmit to the brains hearing center.  The current carrier for cochlear implant device is digits.  At UTD, they are using algorithm formulas to transmit to the brains hearing center.  In August 2011, we had a major, major break through with the algorithm formula.  One of the difficulties with cochlear implants and hearing aid users they have difficultly hearing one single voice in a crowd. With a PDA, which has speech processor attached, John was able to eat lunch in a noise-filled cafeteria and understand the lab people who were setting at his table.  An 85-90 suppression of surrounding voices was achieved with the new formula. See the video on this work: http://www.utdallas.edu/news/2011/1/28-8401_NIH-Grant-Enables-Cochlear-Implant-Breakthrough_article.html) Second video:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p4odUg3NXg
Dr. B. Robert Peters http://www.dallasoto.com/ John’s surgeon launched him into research by suggesting he make application at the University of Wisconsin lab at Madison in 2006. 
 He has been to the University of Wisconsin at Madison http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/bhl/ to participate in studies on many occasions.  Dr. Ruth Litovsky is the Principle Investigator at this lab.  He just returned from his seventh visit in January 2012. He has been asked to return in fall of 2012. Additionally he does recruiting for the Adult and children’s study programs at the U. of WI.  Here he enlisted individual cochlear implant receipt ants to consider participating in a study. John feels that by doing the recruiting he is freeing up lab people to preform more research as opposed to administration.
Dr. Richard Tyler heads one of the lab at the University of Iowa were He has participated in tinnitus studies (Ringing in the ears or head).
Virginia Driscoll MA, MI-BC U of Iowa, has had him working on a music instruments perception project for cochlear implant people.  He scored extremely high in the ability to recognize what instrument was being played.
Dr. Michael Dorman is the director at Arizona State University where he has been a participant.  This lab has embarked on a five-year program to find ways of improving cochlear implant performance.  Additional he does recruiting for ASU.
Dr. Fran Gang Zeng is director of the research lab at the University of California at Irvine where he has working on a study with researchers Dr. Tom Lu and Payton Linn Ph.D.

Dr. Matthew Goppell at the University of Maryland had John to working at his new lab this past March 2012.    http://www.bsos.umd.edu/hesp/facultyStaff/goupellm.htm
John recently was interview by the Texas Baptist Standard a publication of the Baptist General Convention of Texas.  In the interview, John tells the story of a minister who lost his hearing and subsequently his church position.  John was instrumental in directing the minister to a source to obtain a cochlear implant
http://www.baptiststandard.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=12544&Itemid=53
He is a frequent writer in Deaf Research Foundation’s Hearing Health Magazine.  Winter 2011
http://issuu.com/hearinghealthmagazine/docs/hh_winter2011_final_singlepages_010411   Page 29
Winter 2010 page 47-48
http://issuu.com/hearinghealthmagazine/docs/hearinghealthwinter2010issuurev3
Here has been assisting the Editor Yishane Lee with identifying potential contributors.
He has been nominated for the Marie Mathis Award 2011 outstanding Texas Baptist Layman’s Award.
Radio Station KERA’s Editor Shelly Koffle recently interview John.  http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/kera/news.newsmain/article/0/1/1863100/North.Texas/Engineering.Hope.Smartphone.App.Opens.New.World.Of.Hearing
John has been a guest speaker at several Dallas Ft. Worth area cochlear implant support groups.  At the Charlton Methodist Hospital in Dallas John has spoken to a support group.
 Dallas International Airport’s Hyatt Regency Hotel was the site for hearing loss equipment suppliers meeting.  The group was from a number of companies who provide hearing loss test equipment for the industry.  John was asked to share with the seminar what is like to use one of the products in the hearing loss industry. He was one of the five cochlear implant people nominated by his peer on the Cochlear Americas Community Network as a “Hearing Hero”.
 John is excited about what opportunities may open in the future