Roaring Lamb

6 month mark

Six months!  I happened to put on my hearing aid today, since kayaking seemed a bit too risky for my CI.  But even a regular sized boat freaks me out, the idea of an accidental dunking is a bit too much. The sound...well you couldn't call it a sound. I sang, turned the hearing aid on and off...there certainly wasn't much difference.  It made me so happy to know how effective my CI was.

I'm listening to  Mozart, and it is mellower than the other classic music I've heard so far, like Vivaldi's Four Seasons.  After such a long time ignoring music, there's certainly a whole world of sound yet to be discovered.  My friend gave me a music box.  It isn't what you would expect, for inside is a cricket and it was LOUD!  Heh.  It wasn't a real cricket, but I should hear some pretty soon, just need to get out in the country at night...especially when getting back to Oregon for a visit.

I'm getting speech recognition, not dependable, but I'm patient, because it really exceeds my expectations already.  Folks are not going to be able to "talk behind my back" much anymore...perhaps for good in another six months. 

My facial twitching got reduced to a acceptable level at my last mapping.  I could still use volume, but there's enough at my current settings...and it doesn't make it look like I'm winking all the time!

I need my six-month check-up, but I've not been aggressive with getting my appointments and I'll be off-island for a month anyway.  As a matter of fact I don't even know what my score is from my first testing.  Life has been too full to worry about details like that.  But even at the 3 month mark, it impressed me how many words I did get right.

Thank you LORD, I love this hearing!  Thanks to gifted people, this all came about.  I'm not bilateral, and am not yet pushing for one...why not let the technology develop a bit more anyhow.  It took 2 years from my initial discovery of the CI's potential to my activation day.  Those were extremely frustrating days of waiting and waiting.  Now the first six months have rolled along, and all is well.

What do I hear?

This is the toughest question to answer when people see that I'm still dependent on reading lips.  Truth to be told, is that I'm not on any auditory training except to listen to audio recordings that I can read along with.  I'm still hoping to get some software that will help me with training this brain to recognize phrases quicker.  Training to hear with a CI is like learning to type.  Some people learn to type without prolonged typing drills, others take far longer.  I'm like someone who is learning by hunting and pecking the keys.  Other than listening to audiotapes, I keep looking at people for the visual and hearing cues to communicate.

Yet when listening to the radio in my car, I get some of what they are talking about.  This is above the car noise, so even the background road noise isn't blocking my understanding.  However my comprehension would improve if I worked at it constantly.  I'm just learning the slow route, letting sounds come to me, rather than pursuing them.

After numerous years of lip-reading, this listening style is still predominant.  But with my CI, I hear  the differences between women and men's voices.  I hear all the different frequencies one hears on piano, guitar and so on...if they are played without accompaniment.  With other sounds added in, it becomes multi-layered, making it harder to perceive each note alone.  (probably true for hearing people too, but hey, I would I know?)

When sounds are loud, such a band playing, the CI zeros in on that and makes my voice impossible to hear.  Or if the background music is soft, my voice drowns out the music.  This means I cannot sing along with the current settings.  There's little to use for pitch perception.  However the music, the cymbals, guitars, drums, violins all can be heard, along with vocals.  It is like looking at a blow-up of a low resolution picture.  I can "hear" the music, but it has those "square edges" just like a pixelated picture detracts from the overall look.  Even this description doesn't do music justice though.  My hearing is somewhat fragmented because I'm only hearing with one ear.  Also the threshold of some frequencies is limited on purpose to keep my facial nerve from twitching at loud noises. 

My former hearing aid basically only jacked up the static, made the bass sounds louder.  My CI opens the door to all the frequencies, I hear voices, plastic rustling, fans running, cars zipping down the highway.  There's no comparison, and I'll look into getting a second CI when finances allow.

Too easy to forget

New hearing moments come all the time, they just are not so easy to spot.  I remember listening to a rerun on TV and it played "Silent Night"  I discovered the piano player used a different key, a lower harmony that I'm used to.  But it reminded me of how far I've come.  Before my CI I would just play "the tune I remember" in my head, substituting it for the real sounds from the piano.

I still have mixed results in using the phone.  There's times things are fairly clear, and others where it is pretty muddled.  It is obvious that when there's no pressure to hear them, and I'm more relaxed, then the understanding is much clearer.  How can you relax however when you've been put on hold by those dratted auto-attendants?  It is also a mapping need, because I still have the sensitivity set too high for phone use...can't change it on an auria, and I'm not planning to change my lifestyle to use the body-worn device which does allow for sensitivity changes.

My identity is still ungoing many changes.  Am I a hearing person?  A deaf person? How do I respond to people after the realization comes I missed something critical, but it is in a group situation.  Those are challenges that take time to sort out even nearly six months later.  So it is almost schziophrenic.  Night times and battery changes turn me into a deaf person.  Loud external noises keep me as a moderately deaf person when trying to hear a conversation.  But in quiet places, I'm nearly good as new with hearing on one side.

So patience is the key.  So is the willingness to admit that the cochlear implant, while astounding, doesn't convert me into a normal hearing person.  Hard to describe this, but it sure makes it tricky for personal relationships, because if you believe you hear everything, but your actions show otherwise....they'll still think you are stuck up or not paying attention...  WAah!  Finding the balance isn't all that easy.

A saxaphone

Lots of hearing experiences left to notch on my belt.  A couple of days ago, I "notched" hearing a saxaphone.  I can see how that instrument can stir the blood of those who love the blues and jazz.  At this point I want to hear instruments separately.  They sound fine together, but it is something like taking it apart to see how it works, to know the individual sounds...helps appreciating the big band sound.  I loved it, but violins will remain my favorite.

There's a subtle but annoying glitch in my program two.  It cuts off even quiet sounds for no reason.  The only way to tell is that a fan noise in the distance comes on, goes soft, comes back and so on.  It happened with only a certain frequency, something below the high frequency area.  It is really hard to narrow down.  But it annoyed me enough tonight while sitting at the computer, that I just unplugged my CI...it was close to bedtime anyhow. 

I've stuck with program two for most of this week.  It doesn't do music with the "big band" sound, but does it nicely enough that I have to think about it to realize certain sounds are not as loud as they should be.  But I'm okay with it, since it means the volume can be louder without the annoying twitching of my left eye. 

Oh there's so many CI moments I'm missing just because they seem so normal, my brain doesn't recognize it as a milestone.  I do hear the police siren, but not if the radio is playing loud.  Hey any hearies out there experience the same thing?  Oh now I remember a CI moment.  I've never known a cat was meowing unless they were practically in my face or I looked at them.  I knocked on a door, no one was home except the cat was meowing!  I've babysat! this cat, and wanted to see how much it had grown.  Couldn't see it, but got to hear it talking to me...trying to invite me into the house.

It's great...there are other moments like this, but this 'noggin doesn't remember they are NEW!

Maybe it isn't so bad after all

While I'm not appreciating the loudness of bird chirping on program 2, the advantage of using that program is starting to outweigh the intial annoyances.  It is a mixed blessing, for I can turn up the volume and gain slightly better speech understanding, but the knowledge that the reduced midtone and bass pitches keeps it from being a superior program.

When people ask how I hear, it really is a difficult task.  One example I've been using is that the sound I hear now is similar to a pixelated picture.  You can see the picture, know what it is, but there are rough edges that detract from the overall quality.  After the third month improvements are not that noticiable. 

I've been giving it some thought about headphones.  Music comes through much fuller and pleasing while using headphones, and I suspect anything on TV would become easier to hear if I tried headphones.  I keep using captioning, since it relieves me from having to work to hear.  Not a good stragegy, since it slows down the progress on speech recognition.  Maybe this is because I'm between two camps of thought.  There's a ton of experts and other CI users that say that hearing comes by learning, by working on auditory training.  Then there's others that say "let the hearing come to you"  Because I live on the Big Island where there's little or no auditory training, and would have to sacrifice time and money to travel to Honolulu, I've defaulted into the "let the hearing come to you" camp.

I love my CI, it really means that makes it possible to communicate with "the impossible to lip-read people." of which there were many on the campus.  I still have to step out more boldly and use my hearing, but I get plenty of practice each day anyhow.  For those who never learned to lip-read, take heart because even without that there's plenty of sound information coming in that it will make sense, though you'll feel like a foriegner learning English again in some cases.  Each of us are different.  Without lip-reading, I would still understand plenty, but require repeats.  As of now, I seldom need repeats except on the phone.  This is because my CI has yet to be optimized for use on the phone.

It just works.

changing opinion?

I've been trying out three new programs, hated two of them in the beginning, but one of those is gaining ground, though I can tell there's missing fullness to the sound.  It is a little like turning up the treble full blast, the bass is squelched some.  But I was trying to read and listen to music at the same time, and if I used program 3 the twitching made reading a little difficult.

So many new sound experiences yet to go, I went to Borders today and was totally overwhelmed with where to start in finding some music to buy.  Some good friends of mine gave me a Borders gift card and suggested buying music.  I've listened to samples at Walmart, but today at Borders I listened to a genre I've never heard in my life.  It was Appalachian style music, quite a wide variety. Some of it was vocal, some violin, another in fiddling style.  All of it was entrancing, however my roommate listened  to the music sample and told me she didn't like it.  Then I asked her if it was the music or the words that turned her off.  It turned out to the the words.  I'm not understanding the lyrics except in cases I've heard or sung the song before.  I really don't want offensive lyrics!  So I stuck to some safer choices, one Vivaldi violin concerto, and another CD of various Christian artist.

more reactions

My favorite hearing experience today came while standing at the counter of the mailroom on campus.  I was folding the campus weekly paper, when a friend asked "May I have one?"  From my daydreaming, absentminded state I handed her a paper, and began folding others.  Suddenly it dawned on me that I heard her, and did not even anticipate it at all.  I hear phrases like this and they are clear as a bell.  Now if all the rest of the English language were so easy!

Two of the new programs are not very popular with me after trying them over the weekend.  Program 2 sounds tolerable enough, not tinny or extremely harsh like program 1.  But I still turn the volume up pretty high and that seems to bring on minor twitching, though it is decreased from earlier programs. 

My favorite program is the third one, it sounds mellower and richer.  I hear a huge difference between the programs and it doesn't take me long to weary of the high-frequency emphasis that program 1 and 2 have.  Birds are a major culprit.  With program 3, high frequency sounds are evenly loud with bass or midtone sounds--not true with the other programs

One thing I remembered from my new programs is that I didn't really hear the police siren until it was almost on my tail.  He just zoomed into the right lane to go around me.  Another police car came along, it it didn't seem loud enough to me.  But I did have the volume on my radio up pretty high.  And the rental car is pretty sound-proof.

This CI is wonderful, these problems are minor, and I would live with them anyway, because my hearing is so wonderful, especially those violins I heard recently.

6th mapping and reactions

This hearing experience is both exhilirating and frustrating.  I'm on the threshold of hearing complete sentences on the phone, but need a very quiet surrounding to accomplish that.  But the joy of hearing certain things far outweigh the annoyances.  Such as hearing my parent's voices on the phone, the strange birdsong of a cardinal, and listening to my favorite Bob Fitts CD.  My new sounds today happened because I cook so seldom.  I listened to the ticking of a timer, the boiling of water, and then the pasta boiling over! 

I've come home with three new maps, one very similar to the program used for the last two months, and two softer ones created with NRI.  I can't explain NRI, but somehow my implant senses when my hearing nerve responds to the electrical stimulation and maps out a rate of stimulation that isn't overpowering.  I am a power junkie and immediately noticed both of these NRI maps were softer.  Other differences will come as I listen to them over the next weeks.  I can already tell that on program one, with a narrower pulse rate (can't explain that either) is too lightweight, focusing on high frequencies correctly and not pulling in enough mid or bass sounds quickly enough.  Voices can be heard clearly, but music quality suffered.  Program two is much fuller, but it is  program 3 that is most similar to the one for the past two months.  It sounds more orchestra-like.  More range of sound.  For example:  I live close to a moderately busy highway, and with either one or two, I could clearly hear a bird piping away constantly, and the traffic faded into the background (not a completely bad thing, but this is just an example) When using program 3, all sounds seemed to be equally loud, not just the high frequency bird song.

My highlight was talking on the phone without using CapTel.  I still struggle with topic changes, but once the topic is clear, I can move along by piecing together the words I do hear clearly with some educated guessing as to the rest of them.  Makes me humble though for the wrong guesses.

When talking to hotel clerks, or cashiers, I seem to need repeats,  usually in noisy environments.  However, in most cases my lip-reading skills and my new hearing make a perfect team for speech understanding.  And my hearing progresses, not as quickly but definitely for the better.

Another mapping tomorrow

Now that work has slowed down enough, I'm heading back to Honolulu for another mapping.  When calling my audiologist, he let me know that an Advanced Bionics specialist would be coming...this WEEK!  OH!  Well, it is a chance to see if I can get good quality sound and get rid of more of this facial twitching.  I cling to music, so hopefully the changes do not sacrifice the quality of the sound, but actually improves it.

I still need a noise program, and probably want to keep one program similar to the current one if the new map changes my music enjoyment.  So that leaves only one more program slot for the tech, except they can give me some others to put on my platinum to try at home, since I can switch to it for listening to my CD's

The appointment came so quickly, it turned out to be Memorial Day weekend in Honolulu.  Guess what, the hotels are packed!  Hopefully the appointment will allow me enough time to fly back to Kona, but oh dear, there's a pack of people coming over to Kona, so the planes are full.  So that means a overnight stay in that case.  Hurray for Honolulu.  But I won't know until tomorrow whether it is an overnight stay or not.  Got a cool rental car for cheap, but can't use it if they find a return seat to Kona on the same day as my appointment.

Yeah, mappings are intense, you can't hardly decide if you like what you hear in the quiet surroundings of the audiologist's office.  But I'll find out real soon, tomorrow morning.  I gotta go pack.

Talking from different rooms

Now most of you have done this all your lives, but this is a new thing for me.  Just the concept of understanding someone from another room is very foreign to me.  Yet the chance to hear a compliment from someone in another office without her having to get up to talk to me...ah well if you haven't been deprived you might not see it as the major milestone that it is.

I can also hear my audiologist over the phone pretty well.  He's got this deep clear bass and it is a pleasure to talk on the phone just like anyone would.  However this captioned telephone I have at work is spoiling me.  I really need to go cold turkey and not use the captioning, but I'll wait until the mappings clear things up a bit more.  But I did handle part the phone business at home regarding the installation of a new appliance.  I've avoided the home phone, but that morning, since it was the expected arrival day, I answered the phone.  It came through as the Lowe's deliveryman telling me that they would arrive in 10 minutes.  It was quite the relief to hear that much.  I figured if there were any other questions, the deliveryman could ask me upon his arrival   

Then the phone rang again, this voice not so easy to hear, but I recognized it as the needed technician to install the gas to propane conversion kit.  Since that person wanted to talk to my roommate, I just gave them her number and let that one go.  But I need to be in a position of making "cold calls" like that.  But it would be nice to practice on software, but I'll just have to hunt up some 800 numbers that have lots of dialog with a machine...not a person...just so I can listen. 

Well that sums up today, though I did also hear every word of a person sitting beside me, but when she got 10 feet away, it became far harder to understand.  The room is not conductive to clear dialogue with its high ceilings.