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.

Minor Set back

Had a tough week, started out on Tuesday experiencing some pain from what felt like behind my implant. Was sensitive to touch but the area looked okay? Wednesday came and the pain seemed to be getting worse with even more sensitivity. Spoke with my Doctor in Vancouver and he said the pain is probably part of the healing process nothing to worry about. On Thursday that changed! Skin broke open and started to bleed right on the implant. By this time I am an emotional wreck, waiting for 6 weeks with everything going so well, the incision had completely healed and then all of a sudden we get bleeding and pain. My doctor in Vancouver had a new concern, the implant may be infected and there was a chance I could lose it if I didn't get to Vancouver right away. I live 400 km away so that's a bit of a bugger. We decided to attack it a couple of ways. We took pictures and emailed to the doctors in Vancouver to look at, I went to my local family doctor early on Thursday and then my local ear specialist later in the day. I went from waiting excitingly for Monday for my "Turn On" to maybe having to postpone until this wound heels, to the possibility of losing the implant all together! Like I said it was a rough couple of days. As it turned out I had a stitch abscess. One of the dissolving stitches that were used during my surgery poked through the skin right on the implant. It caused the sensitivity and bleeding but as long as it wasn't infected should not be a big problem. I was put on antibiotics as a precaution and we are back on for my "Turn On" for Monday.

Dog Days

It's the dog days of summer and it is really dragging on. Especially due to the fact that I can't wait for August to end. Well 10 more days until I get my "new sound" and it seems like this has dragged on forever. Feeling really good and just want to go to the next step. I did work up the courage to watch a cochlear implant surgery and it is quite interesting and graphic. If you want to watch, just click here. I have been in contact with the cochlear team in Vancouver and we have got all the details worked out for "turn on" week. My doctor keeps me pretty level headed, making sure I know what to expect and not have very high hopes for immediate success. I know I get the external hardware on the 27th but that will just be the beginning of another long journey that will have a happy ending. So the dog days of summer drag on......

Half Way

Three weeks after surgery and 3 weeks to go until "Turn-On". As we get closer for some reason my expectations have diminished. I have followed and talked to many other people that have received a cochlear implant and they all rave about hearing things like the door squeak, a bird sing, their footsteps and other environmental sounds. I really am not hoping to hear those things, I'm sure it will be nice but what I am really after is to hear voice again. I want to hear my wife say I love you in the dark, my daughter singing from the backseat of the car, my son call me from the other room to tell me the game is on. This is what I am hoping for. Voice will be the most difficult thing to master with my new hearing but I will not stop until I have succeeded.