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.