Roaring Lamb

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.