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

  Relying on technology to hear means that though you get current and top of the line equipment, research continues and new models get released and before you know it, your cool new tech is old. I had a version of that going on when I was using hearing aids too - I'd get new ones on average every five years, and every time I did I was amazed at how much better they were - and it was a good think too, because my hearing was degrading.  For a while it felt as though they kept up with better performance, but then of course they didn't, and I ended up getting implanted. And if I'm honest, my processors have been wonderful, they gave me better hearing than I ever though I'd have again.  They sounded good - I listen to music whenever I'm in the car (well, mostly when I'm in the car alone), and they're reliable.  I was provided with all kinds of replacement parts in case I needed them, and the only things I've had to buy were filter covers (for the air filters ...

  Last year I drove into the city a couple of times to participate in some studies being done at the University of Minnesota that were designed to help the researchers understand how people with hearing impairments - and specifically, cochlear implant recipients - fill in the blanks, so to speak, when the speech they're hearing isn't understandable. Knowing how we can successfully fill in those blanks better from context could lead to the development of ways to help CI users develop that ability.   Today I received an email from the audiologist that I worked with in the study, and she sent me a link to the paper that they published.  I'll admit that so far I've just skimmed it but just receiving it, knowing that this study, this learning, could result in better speech comprehension results for people with CIs is just wonderful.  I've been lucky enough to participate in studies to improve cochlear implants themselves, at the MedEl offices in North Carolina, and now h...

Six years into this whole CI thing, I find that I have far less that prompts me to come here and ramble on.  My CIs have just become a fact of life, something that I'm used to and rely on but don't necessarily go around reacting to everything as though it's new, because, hey, it's been six years.  It's not new. But sitting there listening to the odd noises that my husband is making in the kitchen (seriously, you don't want to know), it occurs to me that a part of this journey that's still active is learning what justifies getting up and running to make sure he's not unconscious or sitting in there with the components of half our dishes on the floor. I just don't have the judgment about sounds that hearing people do. Things that sound alarming to me just generate a "nothing, I just bumped a pan on the stove" or "what, I'm just talking to myself" from my husband.  Which may or may not be normal behavior - I don't know.  I kn...

  I had another opportunity to participate in research that should help improve understanding of how people with cochlear implants hear.  Not the mechanics - that's well understood, at least by the manufacturers, but how the brain interacts with the device. This time it wasn't MedEl's research team, though, it was at the University of Minnesota's Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Services.  It was just two and a half hours or so, listening to speech with varying clarity and responding, while a camera recorded the changing dilation of my eyes, which is correlated with how difficult it is to hear and understand - when you focus and try to hear, your eyes dilate. It didn't take all that long, and I don't mind going to the University campus at all.  I was an undergraduate there, all those years ago, and I love the campus, and I like the atmosphere at a university, all the young people having some of the best years of their lives.   And then we had an e...

  Well, not really.  I don't sing much, I am almost certain that when I do I'm not in tune, and I don't need to inflict that on other people.  But I do listen, and I sing along in my head. As Bruce Springsteen said, the best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.  In my case, what I'm facing is walking for anything from 60 minutes to 80 minutes a day - I have to do weight-bearing exercise to keep my bone density up.  And since I have no wish whatsoever to spend my old age being carried around in a bucket (OK, this is me we're talking about, it would probably be a 55-gallon drum and a forklift), I do the exercise.  It works, too, I had a bone density scan a couple of weeks ago any the density is better than my last scan. But man, does it help to have music to listen to, so I have an mp3 player that I usually connect to my CI processors via a neckloop - it connects to the mp3 player via Bluetooth and to my processors via t...

  After our success in attending live theater in February, we decided to give a movie a try.  An actual movie in an actual theater.  My husband wanted to see "Oppenheimer" so he asked if I wanted to go.  Sure, I said, but let's go to that theater in Waconia that has captioning.  I know I'll miss things if there's no captioning. So we went online and bought tickets (it's also one of those theaters with recliners rather than tiny little theater seats, which was quite nice, though not nearly as comfortable as the recliner in our sectional at home).   Then we drove an hour.  See, we live outside a small town.  There are two theaters in town, but neither has captions (according to the websites, anyway, and I think if they had it they'd say so).  So we drove to a town that's an hour from home, but is increasingly becoming less of a town and more of an outer-ring suburb of Minneapolis. When we arrived I asked about the captioning, and it appear...