Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go

  When I was implanted, I received my first CI in my worst ear - my right ear hadn't heard much at all for years.  I did have a hearing aid in it, but mostly that served to bring my sounds from the right side of me (my hearing aids talked to each other, as though there was a little wifi bubble around my head).  But there really wasn't anything there. When I had my second surgery, we were implanting the ear with all of my residual natural hearing.  This worried me a bit, as my friends who've been reading this for some time will recall (and that is putting it mildly, as they'll also recall).  But I was hearing so much better with the CI that I realized, finally, that my residual natural hearing wasn't worth worrying about.  The surgeon told me that there was a 50/50 chance that I'd lose what hearing I had in that ear when we implanted it, and I figured, yeah, OK.  I'm not losing much. Afterward I was focused on rehab for a long time, and didn't think abo...

  Winter arrived this morning.  It began with freezing drizzle and is now cold enough to snow.  Not a lot of accumulation yet, but we've hours to go according to the forecast. And the wind is incredibly strong.  Our flag is spinning almost straight up like a whirlwind.  I can hear the wind moan as it whips around the house, and I can hear the sandblast-like sound of the snow and ice pellets hitting the house. I mean, on the one hand I can hear all that, and on the other, well, at least I don't have to leave the house till Monday.

  And here we are in December.  It's been such an odd year, I guess another oddity shouldn't be surprising.  It's nothing related to anything else (so far as I know) but it was annoying. I have tinnitus.  My ears have been ringing since 1973.  Usually it's pretty much stable, it's the same ringing at a manageable volume, for all that time.  Once in a while I get a different sound but it passes and gets back to the usual ring.  When I have my processors on and get external sound it's essentially not there; so it's really just a nighttime phenomenon.  But I'm used to it and it's not usually a big deal. Last night was bad, though.  The volume was much higher than I remember it being before, loud enough that it kept me awake much of the night.  It was Friday night so I didn't have to work today, but still.  A nuisance, and I'm not particularly fond of lying awake and trying to fall asleep for hours. Earlier this evening I got on my trea...

It's been a strange year, 2020.  Covid-19 has prevented a lot of things:  travel, restaurant meals, seeing people.  Between October of last year and February of this year I was in the new house part of the week and in the old house part of the week.  Then in February my husband (and our cat) moved to the new house with me, so at least we're together.  But since they moved out here we've had a chance to visit relatively few people.  My brother came to dinner one night in May, and a friend later that summer.  Another friend in late summer (she had to wait till her dog recovered from surgery) and two more friends in September.  And my brother-in-law and his wife last week.  So, 7 people since the beginning the year, basically.  And though I do go to work, I spend a lot of time in my office with the door shut.  We have very few in-person meetings, and the ones we do have we're required to sit distanced and wear masks and so forth. So we...

So, it's Saturday morning, and I did what I usually do:  slept late.  Stayed in bed even later, because my cat was sleeping between my side and my elbow and it's illegal to move your cat when she's comfortable, sleeping, and cute. But eventually I got up.  Went upstairs (we have a weird house, our bedroom and a bunch of living space is below the kitchen and living room and some other rooms).  And I made coffee, opened the shades on the glass door, and am sitting here looking out past our yard and the the soybeans and the cornfield to the trees along the creek, and it's quiet and peaceful and beautiful.   But very quiet.  My processors are on the table rather than on my head.  As much as I love hearing, and for the most part I want to hear everything there is (though honestly, I never knew how much noise my husband makes when he's cooking).  But it's cool, and I even enjoy the snippets of conversation that I overhead when I walk through the cub...

Med-El, the manufacturer of my CIs, has a forum on their website for CI recipients, and potential CI recipients.  It's mostly people who've been implanted with Med-El products, but a lot of people who've just learned that they're candidates come there and ask questions, and there are a couple of people with AB or CA products as well.  It's not a problem, it's all about providing people with a chance to ask questions and learn how others dealt with the process of learning to hear this way. And in the process, a lot of the people who post there regularly start to feel like a community.  It's an international group - lots of Americans and Canadians but people from all over the EU as well, and some Australians. A week or two ago one of the women suggested an online chat.  I immediately recoiled, because anything like talking on the phone has been a source of frustration for me for most of the last twenty years.  But I decided to give it a try, because I'...

Generally, the first six months after receiving CIs involve many and frequent audiologist appointments.  But by May of last year I was past that stage and was planning to go in and have an appointment every six months. Last time I actually regretted doing the re-mapping - it had been sounding really good, and I knew that each time we change the mapping it takes my brain a long time to get that back.  In fact, I'm just now getting back to the same sound quality that I had last October before we did the new mapping. So I had been planning to ask my audiologist not to re-map.  Usually she checks the electrode function and we discuss how things are going, but basically the mapping is the primary function of the visit.  But I was going to go in, make sure everything else is okay, and then ask her not to re-map, which I know is okay because we talked about it last time. But my appointment was for next Tuesday.  I don't know if the state will be lifting the shelt...