Latest Update

Things continue to go well from my point of view. If I look back at the expectations I had for my CI, I have exceeded them all in a very short time! I was in Vancouver for business a couple of weeks a go and was able to set up an appointment to see my audiologist. It had gotten to the point that I was turning my CI up quite often so I figured I could use a re-mapping. We adjusted the volume on all 4 programs and that has helped alot. I am getting very close to declaring myself a normal phone talking person again. On Christmas I was able to talk to all of my sisters and brother as well as my parents for the first time in 5 years. It was great to talk to them and exhausting as well, but it is getting easier and taking less effort as I move forward. It really does seem to good to be true, I almost take my new hearing for granted but I don't. I do consider myself a bit of a freak, my CI grabs looks of bewilderment from most people. It doesn't help that I wear my hair fairly short so it does stick out and is quite noticeable. I think some people may think it is the latest in cell phone technology and they wish they could get one too. Nobody really ask me about it though, I think they may think I am sensitive to the issue but really I love to explain the technology to anyone brave enough to ask. So far this has been a blessing and I only hope it stays this good or keeps getting better.

New Words.

Time to update what is going on for me. Things have been going pretty good. I like to think they have been going very well as far as my new hearing is concerned. I continue to test the limits of this technology and come to grips with being part robotic. It really still amazes me that I have this tiny computer in my head that is giving me the ability to hear again. It is working well and I am thankful for it everyday. What I have noticed is that over the past 5 years I was exposed to many new words, be them names or just a word I never heard before I lost my hearing. On most of them I was pretty good at getting the pronunciation correct, others not so much. It is funny now to hear those words and say to myself, you dummy, you have been saying it wrong all this time and to boot, nobody corrected me. It's funny, I laugh to myself and add the "new" word to my vocabulary and move on. I have noticed my family is a little more relaxed in situations that before always had them on their toes. An example of this would be me conducting a conversation in a noisy environment, before my wife and kids were always there to catch me when I fell, now they have the luxury of being a bit more relaxed and letting me go it alone while they tend to themselves, I like it! My CI has giving me more freedom, I work at something new everyday and if it doesn't work today, I try again tomorrow because really each day it keeps getting better. I hope my next post is not so long away because I really like the use of this blog as a journal to document my journey and to have the ability to go back to see how far I have come.

Music to my Ears

Had my first month check up this week. Can't believe how quickly it has gone and how much my CI has had an effect on my life. My doctor is really impressed with my progress and was happy to have such a positive meeting. We did some fine tuning to all four programs and increased the volume just a bit which is normal for this visit. Told him I have been listening to radio and watching videos with my CI connected right to my computer and was able to understand most of what I heard. When I mentioned music is slow to come he gave me a couple of tips and set me free to come back in 2 months. I am supposed to listen to music I am very familiar with so I picked Van Halen Diver Down. An hour into my ride home I was singing along and listening to music for the first time in 5 years. Again it is very different than what I heard before but I am now able to listen to familiar tunes and its great! I have come to realize that I really missed music. It immediately brought warmth to my heart and a smile to my face and almost a tear. I got to thinking why I was so happy and had such a good feeling just by hearing music? I didn't think I missed it, it's not one of the things I wanted to regain. But then I realized a lot of my childhood memories are surrounded by music. My dad is an entertainer and he was always playing his guitar and singing. I guess it had an effect on me and I guess I missed music without even knowing it. I still have a long way to go but am happy with where I am after one month and can't believe that it is only going to get better!

Radio!

First off, been really busy so have not had as much time to dedicate to my blog as I would like. I have been getting along quite well for the past 3 weeks. My new CI has already really improved my life! I am able to carry on conversations in noisy environments, where as before it was a lot of faking it and hoping I got things right. I have put myself in many different situations just to test my capabilities and have been very happy with the results. The main thing my CI is picking up is voice, and that is all I wanted. I do hear a lot more environmental sounds than I used to but it's the conversations that seem to be much easier to follow now. Since the CI is so focused on voice it tends to cause a problem when in a crowded room with many people talking at once, but this is difficult for everybody so I don't feel as bad. The voice coming into my ear is still very foreign and nothing I have every heard before but my brain is adapting and making it easier to understand. My biggest success so far is listening to the radio, while I am driving. I have been able to follow what is being said and I love it. It is only talk radio because music is still just noise but I will take this and look forward to it only improving.

1 Week In!

Well actually it's a week and a half. Things are going good. I am hearing things I have not heard in a long time. Like the ticking of the clock in my office, how annoying! Voice is still a challenge and by challenge I mean it. It takes all my concentration to break down words that are introduced to my brain with this new sound. It should get easier as I go along because it has been 16 years since my right ear has really heard anything meaningful. I tried a movie with the kids on the last day before school started. In Kelowna here there is no rear window captioning (RWC) so movies are mostly just visual for people with hearing impairments. I did pretty good, figured I picked up about 25% of the dialog in the movie which is more than I was getting before. It was easier to follow what was going on, and I know this will get better. Didn't get the stereo effect because right now the 2 sounds going into my head are so different, maybe that will come too. Telephone is still difficult and at the present I prefer my hearing aid and we know how bad that is so I"ll keep working on that. Tried to listen to talk radio and had some success but tough to drive and listen at the same time. I know that sounds funny but it is one thing that we take for granted with normal hearing. Overall I'm pretty happy with progress and am seeing improvements daily so that is the direction I want to head in.

I'm Back!

Yes I am back home and really back in more ways than one. This may be a long post as I will summarize the week after Monday's turn on. Tuesday started with the elimination of one of the programs. The first 2 programs or mappings as the are called were very basic and an introduction to my new way of hearing. They were to determine at what speed my ear was more comfortable processing this new sound. We eliminated the slower one and added a quicker one on Tuesday morning. We also added a program called ADRO which is supposed to automatically adjust to keep sounds at a comfortable level for maximum clarity. We entered this program based on the mapping of the before mentioned program one. I should mention at this time things are going pretty well. I am still only using my new CI and the clarity of voice is excellent. I can't believe that I can hear people talk so soon and my doctor is impressed with the early results. At the end of the day we do a speech test and we have promising results. We conducted the same test with my hearing aid last spring and of 50 words listed I was able to correctly repeat one of them. On Tuesday afternoon, with only 2 days of my new CI, I was able to repeat 26 words! Very exciting and promising as it should only get better. Returning on Wednesday morning after an exhausting 6 hour day of testing and programming on Tuesday I came to the conclusion that my ear liked the sound I was getting at the medium speed so we eliminated the fast program and started to focus on fine tuning the program I was comfortable with. We left the basic program in and added a program called ASC, which is supposed to automatically reduce the background noise that interferes with understanding speech. I find this program to be very useful in noisy environments and am astonished I can hear Belinda talk to me on a busy downtown Vancouver street. We also add a another program and it is called Whisper, it is supposed to help to pick up soft sounds when you are in a quite environment. So by the end of Wednesday I have all 4 program slots used up, understanding speech better and starting to feel comfortable with my new sound. Because it is just that, a completely new sound, it still is like nothing I have ever heard before. I am not complaining though the sound is very foreign but it is bringing speech to me better than I have heard in years. We are progressing nicely so my doctor suggest we put back in my hearing aid. I put it in and right away I figure something is wrong with it. It sounds terrible, muffled, unclear, I think that maybe the batteries are bad so I replace them, but it doesn't help. Then I come to the realization that this is how I have heard for the past 5 years. I can't believe I have managed. I want to take it out and only use my CI but I am encouraged to have patience and that they should eventually compliment each other and besides this is what I wanted isn't to hear on both sides. As usual my doctor/audiologist is right, I start to get used to both sounds and we do some testing and I am doing well so off we go. We had dinner with some family on Wednesday night. There are 7 to 9 people there at different times and all through the dinner I am doing my own little experiments seeing which programs are better for what and observing how I am doing. At the end of the night I come to the conclusion that my new CI has really just giving me the ability to lip read better. It picks up sounds that are more important for speech, the softer sounds so it makes it easier for me to follow conversations. In situations where I could not see the speaker it was the same old really, pretty difficult to follow. Thursday morning it is determined that this will be my last day of testing and programming. My doctor is pleased with my progress and we seemed to have reached my maximum as far as volume that my ear can take. We eliminate my basic program and add a new one called BEAM, it is supposed to help me in situations where I want to listen to the speaker in front of me. It will shut down sounds behind and beside me and pick up in front only. We also do some telephone testing and I do ok, but it doesn't sound that great. I finish up my physical testing, which we have done all through the week to make sure that everything inside is working and responding and all of those have checked out 100%! My doctor sends me home at lunch on Thursday, a day early and tells me to come back in a month. Each morning I wake up I want to say I am excited to put on my new CI, but I'm not. It's a very hard and foreign sound and takes some getting used to each day so its always toughest first thing in the morning. I have tried and use all programs that have been installed. I find that each has it's own benefit and helps in different situations. I know it is still early and people that have had their CI long term say they are still improving 20 years later so I can't believe that it will only get better because it has already exceeded my expectations.

I'm On!

Wow! This is a whole new experience. I tried to prepare myself for what I would hear, but I came nowhere near. I'm hearing again from my right ear. It is a sound like nothing I have heard before. When I was first turned on it was a constant noise of nothing, continuous noise of nothing just everything. I have put my hearing aid for my left ear away for now and all I hear is coming from my new cochlear implant. We had a 5 hour session today and put 2 programs on my CI. Environmental noise is just that, noise. Cannot tell one thing from the other. Voice is very difficult to hear and describe. Right now it is like someone talking through a microphone in an empty room after they have inhaled helium. But I can hear that messed up voice and am able to have a conversation in a quiet room still relying on lip-reading. I count this as a success and look forward to it improving daily. Tomorrow we start working on fine tuning and hoping we can get something nailed down before I head back. Today went beyond my expectations and we are very happy.