Just over 7 months..

Sorry guys! Every time I have sat down at the computer I forgot to update this because I have so much to say that I have been waiting for a bank holiday! What a lovely three day weekend, wish it happened more often!

Things with my C.I are now very positive!! The biggest thing to report is that I have had simple conversations on the phone with Anthony and this is so cool because now I can hear what he's saying and he is actually clear, not mumbling like I thought he was and blaming it on the fact that he's a man.. It's such a strange feeling to be talking to somebody on the phone like a hearing person, as I haven't done this for a good ten years and even ten years ago I don't think I could hear on the phone as well as I can now.

Audio books made all the difference.. Once I started (very reluctantly after a kick up the bottom from Anthony after complaining about being deaf and it being rubbish) doing it every day a week later I was able to hear Anthony better and I was noticing that listening to speakers on the tv without subtitles was easier and life was getting easier too! I've been doing the audio books since January and I'm now on my 2nd one "Murder on the Orient Express" written by Agatha Christie read by David Suchet and I'm finding this extremely difficult because of the French, Swedish and American accents in the book! However, I'm persevering because I know it will pay off in the end.

I had a tune up recently as I noticed the high pitched sounds were getting quieter and just generally everything wasn’t sounding as clear as it should. I was pleased that afterwards sounds such as s, t, shh and f were sharper and more pronounced and I’ve also had a really good rehab session recently. I was doing the hardest stuff that they had in their books and understanding most of the sentences! I have a programming coming up in a few weeks which I’m really looking forward to as the sound always improves a few weeks afterwards.

The only negative thing I have to report out of all this is that the hearing in my left ear has deteriorated quite suddenly to more of a ski slope loss instead of a bump then a ski slope. This happened just after Christmas and I went to bed with a severe/profound hearing loss and in the morning when I put my hearing aid in again I couldn’t hear speech as well as I could before. I blamed it on the hearing aid thinking it wasn’t working and so promised to sort it out next time I was at the hospital. It was a long time till I sorted it out and had a hearing test and realised that I had lost 20DB of hearing in the middle range of frequencies which really affects how well I hear speech. So I had my hearing aid adjusted to cope with this loss but also to work with my implant and away I went to get used to the fact that I had lost a lot of hearing overnight. This took me a few weeks to get used to but it happened around the same time that my implant was starting to give me some positive moments so it was a bittersweet time.

I’m so happy that I feel positive about it now because it’s such a marked difference from 7 months ago when I wanted to rip it off and hurl it at the nearest wall and did not want to put it on again. I heard a saying recently and it definitely applies to me now “It’s the best and the worst thing that has ever happened to me.” As long as someone is prepared to put in the hard work and not expect immediate results I would recommend having a C.I. Wow – I never thought I’d say that either!