I had my annual programming yesterday and usually, programmings/mappings are very uneventful and I'm in and out of the soundproof room within the hour.. Not yesterday!
Yesterday, I had a new program added to my choice and this program had the High Res Fidelity 120 technology added to it. Why didn't I have this already? I hear you ask.. Well, four years ago, my brain and my auditory nerve couldn't handle the over-stimulation and richness of sound and I complained that it was too loud! In the meantime, no audiologist had thought of trying it again... But yesterday I had a lovely audiologist who wanted to try something new and see what I thought of it.
Initially, she had to turn the volume down and I was instantly transported back to four years ago, when everything sounded robotic and very strange and I felt emotional again. However, within minutes, the 'roboticness' had faded and although things were much quieter than I was used to, I wanted to give my new program a go. My audiologist said that it's usual for the auditory nerve in people with long term deafness to fatigue quickly and my brain would have to re-learn sounds again with the new program. Great(!) I thought, another four years of getting to a good level of hearing again??
Yesterday's hearing test (before trying the new program) showed new hearing levels of 25dB across most of the range of frequencies!! This is so much better than I ever could have hoped for, but obviously those results do not translate into coping with real life situations; accents, background noise and unfamiliar sounds. However, after a day on my new program, I'm finding that things are changing; I can hear speech on the TV at the same time as my own voice or another voice in the room which is a complete contrast to before, usually the loudest voice would dominate what I could hear. This is exciting, but needs to be explored more!
I wonder what else I will discover with time....??
Thursday, 20 September 2012
Tuesday, 30 November 2010
2 years and 2 months afterwards...
and I love my Cochlear Implant more than ever before.. There's a few reasons for this, which I'll go into now...
1. I can watch "I'm a Celebrity Get me out of Here" without the subtitles! I can hear what Ant and Dec are saying, without the subtitles.. This is a challenge in itself because of their Geordie accents!
2. I have been doing an Introduction to Child and Adolescent Counselling for the past 9 weeks and I've been using my FM system (radio aid for the oldies out there!) to help me hear the lecturer better. The FM system works by a microphone and receiver principle, so the lecturer wears the microphone and the receivers are little wireless things plugged into my Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant. So it sounds like the lecturer is standing right next to me because I can hear every breath she takes and word she says. I've been so happy every Thursday because I can take notes and listen to what she is saying, without having to lipread!!! I can sit there like a normal hearing person and stare out of the window, or fiddle with my fingernails or watch everybody else in the room and still hear what is being said... Of course it helps that the lecturer has a clear speaking voice and there is no background noise bar the hum of the computer and projector.
3. I've been to see an unsubtitled film at the cinema!! I went to see Saw 6 with my boyfriend and apart from not being able to hear the voice on the tapes played in the film, I could follow the storyline and hear what the characters said. It's the first time in 6 years I have been to the cinema and been unrestricted by the subtitled film timings/day. I don't think I could do the same with a crime thriller or a fast paced film where there is lots of information in the audio, but still - it's so liberating and great!
The only downside to having much better hearing than before is the fact that a skill of mine is getting worse... Lip-reading. Without my HA and CI on in the morning or any other time of day, I cannot lip-read my boyfriend! It's because my ears are doing all the hard work now, not my eyes... However hard I try to read his lips, the things I come out with are totally wrong and sometimes hilarious and I go straight to get my HA and CI to put them on because it's hopeless! I'm a little sad about this, because lip-reading is a skill I really value, something I have been doing all my life and I hope it doesn't get any worse - but it's a small price to pay for the above benefits!
1. I can watch "I'm a Celebrity Get me out of Here" without the subtitles! I can hear what Ant and Dec are saying, without the subtitles.. This is a challenge in itself because of their Geordie accents!
2. I have been doing an Introduction to Child and Adolescent Counselling for the past 9 weeks and I've been using my FM system (radio aid for the oldies out there!) to help me hear the lecturer better. The FM system works by a microphone and receiver principle, so the lecturer wears the microphone and the receivers are little wireless things plugged into my Hearing Aid and Cochlear Implant. So it sounds like the lecturer is standing right next to me because I can hear every breath she takes and word she says. I've been so happy every Thursday because I can take notes and listen to what she is saying, without having to lipread!!! I can sit there like a normal hearing person and stare out of the window, or fiddle with my fingernails or watch everybody else in the room and still hear what is being said... Of course it helps that the lecturer has a clear speaking voice and there is no background noise bar the hum of the computer and projector.
3. I've been to see an unsubtitled film at the cinema!! I went to see Saw 6 with my boyfriend and apart from not being able to hear the voice on the tapes played in the film, I could follow the storyline and hear what the characters said. It's the first time in 6 years I have been to the cinema and been unrestricted by the subtitled film timings/day. I don't think I could do the same with a crime thriller or a fast paced film where there is lots of information in the audio, but still - it's so liberating and great!
The only downside to having much better hearing than before is the fact that a skill of mine is getting worse... Lip-reading. Without my HA and CI on in the morning or any other time of day, I cannot lip-read my boyfriend! It's because my ears are doing all the hard work now, not my eyes... However hard I try to read his lips, the things I come out with are totally wrong and sometimes hilarious and I go straight to get my HA and CI to put them on because it's hopeless! I'm a little sad about this, because lip-reading is a skill I really value, something I have been doing all my life and I hope it doesn't get any worse - but it's a small price to pay for the above benefits!
Monday, 8 March 2010
A year and 4/5 months later..
and I still love my cochlear implant! I'm loving the fact that life is easier these days, I don't have to rely 100% on my eyes to lip-read people, it's more like 50%.. At the weekend I visited my great aunt and her sons in Sheffield. My great aunt who is 86, does not move her mouth as clearly as she used to and I hadn't seen her for two years so I was not familiar with her lip-patterns. This is where my cochlear implant really had to work hard and so did my eyes. But I found it so much easier to manage, now that my hearing is much better than with two hearing aids.
I've had lots of times recently where I've heard what people have said without lip-reading and this still makes me jump for joy inside! My family are the best example of this story, the people I'm the most familiar with are the people that I can hear without lip-reading the best. I also have to tell you all about the two times (in the same day) that I had conversations on the phone with complete strangers! I needed to cancel a hair appointment and Typetalk were taking an age to answer my call so I thought "why not try and ring direct?". After all, how complicated could the call get, I'm only cancelling something!? It went relatively well, I did have to ask them to repeat things a few times and this is where my manners went out the window - "whhhaattt??" But I put the phone down and I felt like "I've just made a phone call to a complete stranger, am I insane?!?" Yay!!" Later that evening my dad's car broke down and we called the RAC (through Typetalk) to come out and fix it. The RAC said that they would call when they were 5-10 minutes away so I explained, ok as long as the call is quick and simple, I can answer it.. The RAC man in the van phoned and he asked "What's the problem with the car? What type of car is it?" I heard both these questions really well but we did have a little misunderstanding towards the end of the call and I had to explain to him to talk in short sentences otherwise I could not understand! I thought that he said he could not sort the problem out and it was best to take the car to the garage in the morning and that he was not coming anymore. It turns out (when he arrived 5 minutes later) that he probably wouldn't be able to sort the problem out and it would be best to take the car to the garage in the morning but he hadn't said that he wasn't coming anymore!! I heard half of it right and the guy was very sweet, saying that his hands free set wasn't very loud and he couldn't hear me very well half the time anyway! I haven't got back on the phone again since but it's given me lots of confidence that I hope to do it again when the opportunity arises :o)
My boyfriend can say things to me when I'm leaving a room and instead of stopping, turning around to lip-read him and then leaving again, I can keep walking and see if I hear him correctly and then answer whatever he's said! Nine times out of ten I can hear what he says and it's so nice to be able to do this as it just saves time and makes me feel like a 'hearing person'..
My next challenge is to go to the cinema and watch a film that is not subtitled.. I want to see how much of the film's storyline I can understand and then perhaps I can go to the cinema more often than I do now.. I'm very restricted to Sundays, which is when most films are subtitled and I'd love to be able to go on a Friday or Saturday night.. I'll let you know how I get on with this! I'm also going to get my new audio book out soon, it's called Death is now my neighbour by Colin Dexter. Watch this space!
I've had lots of times recently where I've heard what people have said without lip-reading and this still makes me jump for joy inside! My family are the best example of this story, the people I'm the most familiar with are the people that I can hear without lip-reading the best. I also have to tell you all about the two times (in the same day) that I had conversations on the phone with complete strangers! I needed to cancel a hair appointment and Typetalk were taking an age to answer my call so I thought "why not try and ring direct?". After all, how complicated could the call get, I'm only cancelling something!? It went relatively well, I did have to ask them to repeat things a few times and this is where my manners went out the window - "whhhaattt??" But I put the phone down and I felt like "I've just made a phone call to a complete stranger, am I insane?!?" Yay!!" Later that evening my dad's car broke down and we called the RAC (through Typetalk) to come out and fix it. The RAC said that they would call when they were 5-10 minutes away so I explained, ok as long as the call is quick and simple, I can answer it.. The RAC man in the van phoned and he asked "What's the problem with the car? What type of car is it?" I heard both these questions really well but we did have a little misunderstanding towards the end of the call and I had to explain to him to talk in short sentences otherwise I could not understand! I thought that he said he could not sort the problem out and it was best to take the car to the garage in the morning and that he was not coming anymore. It turns out (when he arrived 5 minutes later) that he probably wouldn't be able to sort the problem out and it would be best to take the car to the garage in the morning but he hadn't said that he wasn't coming anymore!! I heard half of it right and the guy was very sweet, saying that his hands free set wasn't very loud and he couldn't hear me very well half the time anyway! I haven't got back on the phone again since but it's given me lots of confidence that I hope to do it again when the opportunity arises :o)
My boyfriend can say things to me when I'm leaving a room and instead of stopping, turning around to lip-read him and then leaving again, I can keep walking and see if I hear him correctly and then answer whatever he's said! Nine times out of ten I can hear what he says and it's so nice to be able to do this as it just saves time and makes me feel like a 'hearing person'..
My next challenge is to go to the cinema and watch a film that is not subtitled.. I want to see how much of the film's storyline I can understand and then perhaps I can go to the cinema more often than I do now.. I'm very restricted to Sundays, which is when most films are subtitled and I'd love to be able to go on a Friday or Saturday night.. I'll let you know how I get on with this! I'm also going to get my new audio book out soon, it's called Death is now my neighbour by Colin Dexter. Watch this space!
Tuesday, 8 September 2009
Approaching the ONE YEAR mark!!
Wow doesn't time fly when you're having fun?? On the 29th September it'll be my one year anniversary of having my C.I activated.. I'm so glad I've kept this blog going because already I'm forgetting how I felt in the early days of this experience and things are still changing and getting better. I haven't been to hospital much in the last few months which is such a contrast to the early days when you're pretty much there every week! I had a new hearing aid called Phonak Naida fitted on the 21st July and I got used to that pretty quickly and I was so happy because it boosted my hearing up in my left ear. Going from hearing not very much speech to hearing the gist of everything (with lip-reading) again was lovely. Put that together with my implant and I was very happy!
Things have been quiet on the audiobook front because I've got out of the habit of doing it before I go to sleep at night and because most nights I'm so tired I just want to turn off the light and sleep so I've hardly done any listening practice.. Once I'm back into a proper routine I'm sure I will continue it!
The best thing about this implant recently is hearing what people have said without lip-reading in a quiet situation (one situation in a car!!) and this is such a good feeling because it makes me feel like a 'hearing person' haha.. I heard my boyfriend's father (sitting in the front driver's seat and I was sat behind him while the car was moving) say: "If there's nothing there, we'll just go to Ikea!" before we all went for a walk around a park.
Last week while sorting files and catalogues with a colleague we were having a conversation and I spent most of the time looking at what I was sorting, not at her lips!
I'm finding most of the time that if it's a quiet room and what the person says is in context to what we're doing - be it cleaning, talking about a topic or 'pass the ketchup' at dinnertime - then I can mostly hear what the person has said. It's great to not look at the person who's said something/ asked a question, give an answer and then look up to see their astounded face when I've heard/ answered correctly! Tee hee! However, none of the above applies when I'm tired or in a noisy situation - this is where lip-reading comes in very handy.
My only complaint about the Advanced Bionics C.I brand is their batteries. As I've completed my first summer holidays with an implant I'm now aware of a practical problem. My batteries only last for 9 hours which means I need two batteries a day (more, if I'm going to be awake into the early hours at a special party or up early for a long day). As AB only give you 4 batteries to rotate this means I need to charge all of them every other day or charge two every day. Sometimes (and I've done this twice now) I forget to put the charger on at night to charge all 4 batteries and so I wake up in the morning and I have no charged batteries to wear! Luckily I'm peripatetic and spend a good hour in my car first thing so I can make use of the in-car charger which plugs into the cigarrette lighter compartment and I can charge maybe one battery. Also, I went away for 4 days and took the charger but OH NO I forgot thee three other batteries which were at home on my bed in the little black zip up holder and which blended in with my black duvet cover so I didn't see them and forgot them! I had to spend 4 days charging the battery overnight, not wearing my C.I until after breakfast at 9am and then charging the poor one battery whilst I was eating my dinner at 5pm and then I could hear for the rest of the evening. I do wish I had chosen Cochlear or Med-el simply because of this battery practicality as they use disposable batteries. Why did I have to be so vain (with the colour caps) and environmentally friendly (with rechargeable batteries)!? When I go travelling or camping in the future, charging my batteries is going to be a problem that needs to be carefully thought about... grr!! Advanced Bionics - change to disposable batteries please!!
Things have been quiet on the audiobook front because I've got out of the habit of doing it before I go to sleep at night and because most nights I'm so tired I just want to turn off the light and sleep so I've hardly done any listening practice.. Once I'm back into a proper routine I'm sure I will continue it!
The best thing about this implant recently is hearing what people have said without lip-reading in a quiet situation (one situation in a car!!) and this is such a good feeling because it makes me feel like a 'hearing person' haha.. I heard my boyfriend's father (sitting in the front driver's seat and I was sat behind him while the car was moving) say: "If there's nothing there, we'll just go to Ikea!" before we all went for a walk around a park.
Last week while sorting files and catalogues with a colleague we were having a conversation and I spent most of the time looking at what I was sorting, not at her lips!
I'm finding most of the time that if it's a quiet room and what the person says is in context to what we're doing - be it cleaning, talking about a topic or 'pass the ketchup' at dinnertime - then I can mostly hear what the person has said. It's great to not look at the person who's said something/ asked a question, give an answer and then look up to see their astounded face when I've heard/ answered correctly! Tee hee! However, none of the above applies when I'm tired or in a noisy situation - this is where lip-reading comes in very handy.
My only complaint about the Advanced Bionics C.I brand is their batteries. As I've completed my first summer holidays with an implant I'm now aware of a practical problem. My batteries only last for 9 hours which means I need two batteries a day (more, if I'm going to be awake into the early hours at a special party or up early for a long day). As AB only give you 4 batteries to rotate this means I need to charge all of them every other day or charge two every day. Sometimes (and I've done this twice now) I forget to put the charger on at night to charge all 4 batteries and so I wake up in the morning and I have no charged batteries to wear! Luckily I'm peripatetic and spend a good hour in my car first thing so I can make use of the in-car charger which plugs into the cigarrette lighter compartment and I can charge maybe one battery. Also, I went away for 4 days and took the charger but OH NO I forgot thee three other batteries which were at home on my bed in the little black zip up holder and which blended in with my black duvet cover so I didn't see them and forgot them! I had to spend 4 days charging the battery overnight, not wearing my C.I until after breakfast at 9am and then charging the poor one battery whilst I was eating my dinner at 5pm and then I could hear for the rest of the evening. I do wish I had chosen Cochlear or Med-el simply because of this battery practicality as they use disposable batteries. Why did I have to be so vain (with the colour caps) and environmentally friendly (with rechargeable batteries)!? When I go travelling or camping in the future, charging my batteries is going to be a problem that needs to be carefully thought about... grr!! Advanced Bionics - change to disposable batteries please!!
Monday, 4 May 2009
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!
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!
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
3 months and counting
It's been more than a month since I've written on here, how I've neglected my poor blog.. I haven't written because I feel not much has changed, I feel I'm not having many "what's that?" moments and because I've been waiting till I felt positive to write on here. Even though I feel the above, things have changed, it has improved and I'm now probably hearing about the same as I was before with two hearing aids. I have been spending a lot of time wearing my H.A together with the C.I in really noisy situations (such as the pub, or a party - there's been lots of those in the lead up to Christmas!) and this helps to keep me sane because I just cannot manage in noisy situations with only my C.I. Music through the C.I has really improved, there's more melody as opposed to when I could just hear the voice of the singer, the beat of the drums and another instrument. It's still better with the hearing aid but it's always changing and I can't keep up with it!
I can hear the birds when I walk out to my car in the morning and I could never hear high pitched birds before, I could only hear the 'coo,coo' sound of pigeons.. Now I'm hearing lots of different birds - my only problem is locating where they are! I turn to the direction I think they're in and they're not there, so I turn to the opposite direction and they're still not there! Half the time I think they're hiding in the bushes to torment me as if to say "we're here but we're not showing you where we are!!"
I still can't really hear my car engine but there is a huge difference between the amplified sound of the car engine I get through my H.A and the quietness I get through my C.I. It's SO noisy through my H.A! So when I'm in the car I'm quite happy to turn my H.A off and have some peace and quiet..
My rehab sessions at the hospital finished about 3-4 weeks ago although I had one last week which was interesting as I hadn't been for what felt like a long time so I was interested to see what the results would be considering I hadn't done any concentrated listening for some time. It took a while for my brain to get into listening mode but once it did, I got some really good results. I can hear most of a sentence in the environment of the soundproofed room and the rehabilitationist read two paragraphs about the country of Bali to me. I picked up two-three important words in a sentence which gave me the gist of the sentence and I was pleased to understand most of what she was saying. Translate this into the real world however, with background noise such as the tv and it doesn't quite work the same way! My boyfriend's voice is still the hardest to listen to, but that's because I don't see him very often and so don't get much opportunity to get used to his deep voice. Everyone else sounds 'normal' though and there's no computerised sound to their voices anymore - I'm pleased to say!
I have my 4 month programming on the 13th January and I can't wait to see how much it changes after this..
I can hear the birds when I walk out to my car in the morning and I could never hear high pitched birds before, I could only hear the 'coo,coo' sound of pigeons.. Now I'm hearing lots of different birds - my only problem is locating where they are! I turn to the direction I think they're in and they're not there, so I turn to the opposite direction and they're still not there! Half the time I think they're hiding in the bushes to torment me as if to say "we're here but we're not showing you where we are!!"
I still can't really hear my car engine but there is a huge difference between the amplified sound of the car engine I get through my H.A and the quietness I get through my C.I. It's SO noisy through my H.A! So when I'm in the car I'm quite happy to turn my H.A off and have some peace and quiet..
My rehab sessions at the hospital finished about 3-4 weeks ago although I had one last week which was interesting as I hadn't been for what felt like a long time so I was interested to see what the results would be considering I hadn't done any concentrated listening for some time. It took a while for my brain to get into listening mode but once it did, I got some really good results. I can hear most of a sentence in the environment of the soundproofed room and the rehabilitationist read two paragraphs about the country of Bali to me. I picked up two-three important words in a sentence which gave me the gist of the sentence and I was pleased to understand most of what she was saying. Translate this into the real world however, with background noise such as the tv and it doesn't quite work the same way! My boyfriend's voice is still the hardest to listen to, but that's because I don't see him very often and so don't get much opportunity to get used to his deep voice. Everyone else sounds 'normal' though and there's no computerised sound to their voices anymore - I'm pleased to say!
I have my 4 month programming on the 13th January and I can't wait to see how much it changes after this..
Monday, 10 November 2008
I'm now HA free most of the time...
You'll be pleased to hear I've spent the majority of the past week without my Hearing Aid! I can manage in a work situation without it and generally know how loud/quiet I should be speaking. What I don't have is surround sound so I'm looking forward to the time when I can wear the two together and have bilateral sound again. After a discussion with my rehabilitationist I decided I'm going to pursue with just my processor for another couple of weeks and see how it goes day by day. I wear my HA when listening to music as this keeps me sane, I miss music too much to go without it and it just doesn't sound right through the processor yet.
I had a tuning last week which made an incredible difference to how much low sound I can hear. The physicist didn't change much on my map but adjusted the rate that the information is going through to my nerve at.. he increased this twice and after the second adjustment I could hear how deep his voice was. Up until that moment he sounded like any other person but now he sounds like I remember him sounding with a hearing aid. I couldn't cope with all the information that was coming through in the beginning so they had to turn my rate down, but now I've had more experience with listening I can manage the world again! In a rehab appointment after this tuning I was able to hear sentences when I had the context and usually able to grasp a sentence if I had an important word in it. In a more recent rehab appointment I improved even more and was able to hear sentences on at least the first attempt. The rehabilitationist went through all the months in the year to see if I had any difficulties with these but I'm pleased to say I had none. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!
I've actually just noticed typing on my laptop keyboard for this post that I can hear the lower sounds of my fingers hitting the keys. When I was first switched on I didn't like the sound of typing as it was so high and sounded like a woodpecker going "tt,tt,tt,tt,tt," in my head. Now it sounds more like a soft thudding sound. I was relieved after a conversation that I had with the rehabilitationist that the lower sounds WILL come through eventually, my brain is still getting over the shock of hearing high sounds again that these are dominating the lower sounds. I was starting to worry that I would never hear my car engine properly again but I've just got to give it time.. I have so many quiet realisation moments like the keyboard one above that I can't remember them all to write about them on here. I'm getting used to speech and can't wait for the day when everything sounds balanced and no one sound is more dominant than another.
I had a tuning last week which made an incredible difference to how much low sound I can hear. The physicist didn't change much on my map but adjusted the rate that the information is going through to my nerve at.. he increased this twice and after the second adjustment I could hear how deep his voice was. Up until that moment he sounded like any other person but now he sounds like I remember him sounding with a hearing aid. I couldn't cope with all the information that was coming through in the beginning so they had to turn my rate down, but now I've had more experience with listening I can manage the world again! In a rehab appointment after this tuning I was able to hear sentences when I had the context and usually able to grasp a sentence if I had an important word in it. In a more recent rehab appointment I improved even more and was able to hear sentences on at least the first attempt. The rehabilitationist went through all the months in the year to see if I had any difficulties with these but I'm pleased to say I had none. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy!
I've actually just noticed typing on my laptop keyboard for this post that I can hear the lower sounds of my fingers hitting the keys. When I was first switched on I didn't like the sound of typing as it was so high and sounded like a woodpecker going "tt,tt,tt,tt,tt," in my head. Now it sounds more like a soft thudding sound. I was relieved after a conversation that I had with the rehabilitationist that the lower sounds WILL come through eventually, my brain is still getting over the shock of hearing high sounds again that these are dominating the lower sounds. I was starting to worry that I would never hear my car engine properly again but I've just got to give it time.. I have so many quiet realisation moments like the keyboard one above that I can't remember them all to write about them on here. I'm getting used to speech and can't wait for the day when everything sounds balanced and no one sound is more dominant than another.
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