Roaring Lamb

Do I like this map?

Got stressed out with the new map, yet I did really well on the phone with a co-worker.  I heard her voice before seeing the text on the screen of the Cap-Tel phone. In the midst of getting this wonderful hearing, I still have to tell myself to just relax and let the sound come to me.  Even my old map seems to have changed, but it really is just a matter of perception.  My next mapping (adjusting the frequencies loudness and softness) will be at the three month marker.

In trying to describe this stress to hearing people, it must have sounded that I was ungrateful.  Yet it happened once before.  On my second mapping, I experienced the twitching for the first, the cars sounded like they were squealing and nothing seemed to sound "comfortable."  That evening and the next day really set my teeth on edge.  Sound has the ability to soothe, but also to irritate.

Another illustration of my sound just came to mind.  Ever try enlarging a picture off the website and you see it looks really grainy?  When I've had a new mapping, I seem to "see every grainy spot" in my hearing.  It doesn't seem right.  Yet the picture does show the people or scene well enough.  That's what happens with my sound.  I take the "magnifying glass" to the sound and it seems really grainy and off.  But with time some of these sounds that irritate actually make sense and the "threat" reaction dies down.  Just as soon I quit holding the "magnifying lens" to the sound, it is just like my brain fills in the missing half-frequencies (I made up this term) and I can enjoy the music again.

Well that's enough analysis for today.  Besides, this habit of mine of writing at midnight isn't doing my face any favors, by the looks of the bags under my eyes in the morning!
 

 

Fourth mapping

Just returned from my one-month tune-up.  My three programs have differences that will take time to figure out which one sounds best.  None of them gave me instant gratification.  Aw shucks!  Nothing awful about any of them.  None of these programs pops out as giving the best quality sound for speech comphrension. 

Two thrills today:  My hearing in quiet took a huge leap over any score I've probably ever had.  My comprehesion of the sentences probably didn't break 50%.  However the single syllable words came in pretty clear.  I'll know the results of that hearing test later after my audiologist prepares them.  Sure gave me a jolt of confidence that my new hearing is awesome and will continue to improve.  The second thrill came upon discovery of a grand piano inside the Macy department store (in Honolulu) playing wonderful melodies.  The piano keys went up and down, controlled mechanically (automatic piano for a lack of a better term), but sounding wonderful.  Someone came up and said something about how good it sounded, I responded with "I haven't heard piano like this in years."    Out of the blue, the tears came. Did I ever hear piano like I did today?  Not likely, though there are lots of memories of hearing piano in the low frequencies that my hearing aid boosted.

Overload

Tonight I listened to a woman speaker who was much more difficult for me to hear than the fellow who spoke Thursday evening.  Finally decided to turn up the CI volume even though my eye would twitch more.  Overloaded my poor nerves.  Funny thing happened though.  The twitching grew "quieter" as time passed.  I'm listening to music and the twitching is barely perceptible now.  So turning up the volume gave me some clearer speech sounds, yet high-pitches are still hard for me to comprehend.  There is a definite preference for male singers than for women singers.

Best way to put the "glitch" in high-frequency voices is when it gets louder, it becomes squashed, loses its distinctiveness and grates on my nerves!  A child's scream at the top of his lungs becomes "visible" only on the warbles that aren't as loud.  It is almost like going in and out of clear sound, a radio that is cutting in and out.  The sound doesn't stop, just the distinctiveness of it.

I feel grateful for the sound at the same time as scheming what needs to be changed.  I want to sing and hear my voice in midst of a choir.  Sounds need to be smoother.  Fine-tuning to eliminate the restrictions that I sense would take it to a higher level.  I don't want high-frequencies to dominate, but those are the ones that seem to have a quick-cut off point.  Sounds are not allowed to get louder at a pre-determined point.  All the same music has the power to bring tears to my eyes.  To hear and enjoy music is a privilege I'm spending lot of time catching up on.

Another post after midnight.  I really need to get some sleep.

Closing my eyes and singing along

Another first!  At a dinner for 350 people, someone played the violin.  If I concentrated hard, I picked out the notes from the hubbub of conversations.  But the main thrill came when we stood to sing and I recognized the song.  I could sing with my eyes closed and still stay with the other voices.  Some people looked at me and I kind of assume my voice was very off-key.  I'll feel better when my voice is discernable from the pack and I sing on-key to the notes being played.  Not sure whether is possible, but with God anything is possible.  I've dreamed of singing along with my eyes closed and this truly will be a memorable moment.  I recognized the tune of another song, but couldn't remember the lyrics. 

One of the students has a sister with a CI, apparently got it about eight years ago.  I suggested that they check into getting another one, since the newer ones do a better job of producing sound.  Besides that she is tied down with a body-worn processor, and she shoves it into her bra!  This is typical (sorry guys!)  but the freedom of a BTE (behind the ear) model is worth the disadvantage of not having a sensitivity control.  That control deals with how much background sound is picked up by the microphone.  You can set it so that it picks up only sounds close to the microphone.  This is preset by the audiologist if the person is wearing an Auria or BTE processor.  I really notice the difference when using this switch on my backup processor, a body-worn model.  However to get the full range of music, the sensitivity needs to be all the way open, allowing all the sounds to come in.

Can't wait to see if music improves as dramatically as it did from my last mapping (adjusting frequencies and more) appointment.  Next mapping session takes place Tuesday and I need to write some notes down for my audiologist.

Hearing an audio tape

The dream that the cochlear implant would allow me to hear audio tapes came partially true today.  The audio of the man who spoke last Thursday contained several quotes that I wanted to write into a story.  Several phrases that weren't in my handwritten notes became clear to me as I listened to the MP3 recording.  It took several attempts with rewinding the recording in selected spots and a tiny bit of help from my roommate, but when it "clicked" it was awesome.  Maybe the audiologist will test me at my appointment next Tuesday, then I'll know what percentage of words I hear in the quiet and in noise.  In noise I suspect that my comphrension is quite low yet.

At a seminar today, I could sit quite some distance away from the speaker and still follow her speech.  It is being done with lip-reading, but the sound makes everything much easier.  Twas very nice to laugh along with everyone else when the speaker cracked a joke.  Speech comphrension takes more effort than lip-reading.  However in the days of wearing a hearing aid, I would grow tired after the effort of concentrating so hard.  This time after three solid hours of teaching, I came away energized.

There actually is a little pinging whine that's there if I listen for it.  I forget about it now, it is like a sound you tune out, but it sounds just like the high-pitched whine that drove me crazy the first week or so.  During one of the listening exercises, it pinged like a soft microwave beep after each one syllable word.  During the conversations in the seminar it wasn't even noticeable.  Sounds from high-pitched children and women still seem strange, out of place.  I ask myself do they really sound like that.  Some women sound fine to me, others don't.   

For sure any conversation in a noisy room sounds a bit fake, it really is hard to comphrend how to describe this sensation.  It is the same effect that my original map made with losing voices when the instruments played.  It doesn't seem that the voice is just soft compared to the louder sounds, it gives off a "ghostly" feel.  Again this one is pretty hard to describe.

Awesome to be able to listen to audio and comphrend several phrases.  The day is coming I'll be catching the content in the radio and recordings.  When that's true, I'll be phoning lots of friends to share the joy.

That BROOM!

Tuning out sounds is an art form!  Amazingly enough I now understand how hearing folks get irritated with each other about noise!  Just sitting at the computer minding my own business when this extremly scratchy sound kept repeating itself.  Yes...a new sound...and very annoying when I'm trying to get some writing done at work.  Finally got up to see what it was and it turned out to be a broom!  A co-worker used the broom on the flat carpet to get up everything from spacking and a dead mouse.  Heh.  Well the broom certainly was quieter than the vacuum would have been.

How precious the gift of sound.  I would saturate myself in music, yet I'll have to build up a music library first.  Internet radio works pretty well most of the time, but today it was a pain--too time-consuming to find a clear station.  Yet at the meeting tonight, I sang my heart out with everyone else, and could follow the song without the written words.  FREEDOM!  Goosebumps rose on my skin.  Oh that precious moment of knowing a song, meaning every word, following the beat, with only minimal "lip-checking" with others about me to see if I'm still in synch (not in tune yet though, but I don't care)

People are testing me.  One called out my name as she sat at a table outside the library, tis sweet to recognize my name again.  As long as there is no other major babble going on, it works...yeah it really works.  (There's lots of people at this university, never know when someone will call out my name)

Helicopters and jackhammers

Yup, there was a helicopter flying overhead.  Since it made several passes over my apartment, I wondered what was going on.  Never did find out, but it was cool to guess the sound correctly.  However I misjudged where the jackhammer was, thought it was just beside our building, but it came from the construction site just down the road.

My facial twitching is going away at this setting for program two, which my audiologist said was a very strong map.  Some voices trigger it, but it is not easy to pinpoint what it is.  Hey I just noticed something...when I trigger three keys at once, my computer beeps at me.  Now that's a new one! (Update: Now I can't make it do it anymore...very strange)

This post didn't make the midnight deadline, as it was too fun to listen to my music, read the blogs, do some listening exercises.  Study Dog is a free program that uses a woman speaker quite a bit of the time, and that's why the conversations were hard for me to decipher.  There's no visual clues, but that doesn't break me from focusing on the cartoon character's face as if there'a way to lip read these guys!  It really is exciting to pick up more of speech, the difference is very noticeable.  I just remembered this is the map with the 70 IDR that's on my body worn processor.  This one is going on my Auria at my next appointment, that's for sure.

During my writers' group meeting today, it was easy to follow along with the author who read outloud.  My attention was focused on the paper.  Sometimes I stopped and jotted a note on their paper and then started listening to see where they were and finding my place.  Pretty awesome, and these folks are so unaware of my joy at being able to do this.  Another thing taken for granted by hearing people...you know.

This cochlear implant is awesome...what a blessing....what a miracle.  Thank YOU, Lord.

Noticeable improvement

In a post two days ago, I mentioned how hard it was for me to tell the difference between the word lice and rice.  They are much clearer today.  While my score wasn't 100%, it probably doubled from the first trial.  Also today while listening to women's voices, they were a lot more realistic sounding than I thought.  One of the same voices I heard yesterday as being too Chip 'n Dale-like actually has a higher pitched voice. That woman told me that she sounds young, like a child.  No wonder.  I thought the CI was distorting it badly, but it wasn't.  But screams are still weird, I asked someone else if scream increase several frequencies and not just volume and found out that was true. 

Seems to be a matter of trusting the sounds from the CI.  Sure the sounds will continue to improve, but it is giving me some very realistic clues to pitch and volume.

I'm still trying out the program with wider dynamic range (IDR) and still believe that this will be my go-to map.  I don't use it all day because it is on the Platinum body worn processor, so I'll be asking that it be put onto my Auria as a backup program.

Awesome stuff.  Really.  I've been catching conversations with great ease unless it is in noise.  That's a common problem for everyone, so that's not a biggie. 

I can catch high pitched whines that drove me crazy the first week, but it is reduced to a back ground noise.  I seem to have that bubbling sound which is coming from somewhere, it might be from the water circulator on my 10 gallon fish tank, but I don't think so.  I think I actually hear the water falling into the tank, a different sound.  The static/bubbling noise is one reason why I keep music playing or the TV on.  I did the same thing with the original high-pitched whine.  My computer is a laptop, so the fan doesn't come on all that often.  I can sometimes hear traffic that's at least a football field away from me.

I did try listening to co-workers talking about moving stuff out of an office.  Caught some words.  It always feels like my comprehension is about to kick in and make sense of these conversations, especially since they sound like they are talking right beside me.  For sure I'm hearing people's accents now.  One person I met today sounded like someone from the east coast to me, and yes she turned out to be from South Carolina.  Now I wonder if she sounded southern or not.  Don't know the difference yet.

And that's all folks...til tomorrow.

Women's voices still sound funny

Men's voices seem pretty normal to me, but at times women's voices sound like the high-pitched Chip 'n Dale voices.  While I like a lot of things about this current CI map, the quality of women's voices is still "out to lunch."  While talking to my mom on the CapTel phone, she asked if I heard her voice better than my dad's voice.  My dad's voice seemed a little easier to understand.  Another thing I've never known...it seems like phones do a number on people's voices.

During our phone conversation, the "new" problem cropped up again, I hear a phrase but couldn't answer until I read the whole thing on the text that seemed to arrive 60 seconds later.

One CI moment today came during an ad for television show "House." A surgeon wearing a mask reacted to a question by saying  "I don't know...Alright" in an exasperated tone of voice.  I asked my friend if it was correct, but she wasn't paying attention.  Aw shucks.  Well as all lip-readers know, doctors and dentists can't wear their masks around us.  But at that moment the barrier came down.

I'm still playing one CD over and over again, and occasionally a certain lyric becomes "visible" to my brain.  I actually heard what the singer said.  However, I'm not trying to figure out the lyrics because it is better to just enjoy the music than to think about it.  However when the air-conditioning conks out on my car and I've got the windows down, I've given it some thought to what my radio is broadcasting to people on campus!  Hopefully the lyrics on radios are better than what they sell at the stores.  False hope?  I don't even know.

My former hearing  barely let me "peek" into this world of sound.  Yes I could hear my own voice, but not the inflections, the volume, the detail.  The sound of a ringing phone went from a loud noise to a musical chime, or all the unique fluctuations that went totally unnoticed before.  Before I only heard my own phone right beside me...barely.  Now I can hear just about every phone in my part of the building.

My novel is taking a backseat to this journal.  Too many decisions to make as a fiction author.  For example, should I have my main character...a hearing impaired teenager encounter the miracle of a CI in the first book or make it wait for the next book?  Hundreds of decisions crop up, and since journalling is much easier...

It is time to give my eyes, head and ears a rest...stay tuned for more on this gift of hearing...

Oh Lord...thank YOU

Comfort sounds

Been noticing that I'm looking for familiar sounds.  Yes this is a world of new sounds for me, but there are a few sounds that would bring great comfort if they sounded similar to sounds from the past.  In a previous post I said the ocean sounded like a crowded room of people all talking at once.  Today I went back, the sound changed from two weeks ago, but it still wasn't the familiar roar, slapping, or spraying sound.  It actually didn't sound much different than a bunch of cars passing me as I walked.  Cars sound like pouring rain on a tin roof.  I really have to guess at some these comparisions, but at least cars are not squealing or sound like radio static.

So my comfort sound comes from listening to this Bob Fitts tape, or from singing or humming familar songs in a quiet place.  If a piano was handy, I'd probably sit down and try out one note at a time, looking for resonance with remembered sound.

My friend told me I sang higher notes at church.  Singing with the CI it is a matter of stepping out in faith, because it is impossible to hear my own voice among the others.  The speaker spoke so fast that I would normally have tuned him out pre-CI, but this time it was borderline, heard his points, but not his one-liner jokes.  He spoke so fast it seemed like someone hit fast-forward on the video!

The annoying noises turned out to be the bathroom fan, the refrigerator and a motorcycle.  All are sounds I've picked up over the past three weeks, they just seemed to bug me today.

But the vocals and the guitar of the singers really stood out this week compared to my last map.  I've noticed the longer twangs, that are still a mystery to me, but I like that sound.  If I could create it, it just might annoy everyone around me, but turn into a comfort sound for me.  Not likely to stay that way, because this hearing shifts into new territory every week.  For example, the sound of birds used to overpower everything, but now they are softer compared to the rest of the sound world.  I'll bet the volume on my device is still the same for the frequencies the birds are on, but for sure the audiologist increased all the lower tones and middle tones.

Yes I love this world of sound, and I also notice that my sense of security is being shaken. There's no way I'd go back, but it isn't much different than entering a new and foriegn culture, and there's sign of culture shock.  Seriously!  It will settle down, it gets better, yet right now it isn't comfortable.  Yup, I'm going to keep looking for sounds of comfort, and they'll be there for "I know whom I have believed"