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

Since I received my cochlear implants, I've had no residual natural hearing.  I'm completely deaf, except that with my implants I hear better than I have in years. But I don't sleep with them, which is fine - I'm not usually talking to anyone while I'm asleep anyway (though my husband informs me that I was talking in my sleep the other night - first time that's happened, that I'm aware of). But in my dreams, I can hear.  I don't know if my brain thinks I can still hear unassisted or what, but it's kind of cool, it's the only time I can be like everyone else.  The fact that it's never when I'm conscious is unfortunate, but there we are.  I use my CIs and it's fine. But last night I had a dream in which, for the first time, I had cochlear implants.  In the dream, I didn't have my processors, though, and I could still hear, so if this is my brain adjusting to the reality of what happened eight years ago, it's doing it in an add a...

Twice in the last two weeks I've had people ask me about my CIs - how are they different from hearing aids and how do they work.  It's happened before, but not all that frequently, but I suspect that as they get a bit more common, people become curious and wonder what the deal is. So I explain, in fairly general terms, how the implant is surgically installed in our heads, and then in even more general terms, now the electronic signal goes from the microphones on the speech processors in to the auditory nerve and what a revelation it is when it turns out to work, and you find that you can hear better than you expected to ever hear again.   Within the restraints of how much time we have, of course - one of these people was a young woman working checkout at the supermarket (and no, there wasn't anyone behind me) and the other was a guy who runs a nice cafe we sometimes go to in our county town.  It's fun for me - I like talking about this and what a great thing it is, a...

  This may seem like something of a nothingburger to most people, but I just made a phone call. I've avoided the phone for most of the last twenty years.  The most frustrating moments in my life have been trying to hear and understand on the phone.  It affected me personally and professionally (I actually used to have people who worked for me come to my conference calls with me so we didn't miss anything).  Once I was on a call about a contract that directly affected my site, and the legal team was asking me questions about how to structure it and I couldn't participate in the call functionally.  I had to pass it off to my colleague from corporate sourcing - and then I hung up the phone and quietly lost my %$# for a few minutes.  I've had co-workers on calls with me, and when I was trying to schedule my CI surgery, I had our HR manager, who was a friend, on the call so I could hear. I LOATHE telephones. But I needed to make a call today.  We booked a t...

  Today was my second trip to the University of Minnesota campus in a week; today I went to the big medical center where the audiology clinic is and had a bunch of testing done to see if my hearing is still what it should be after the new processors. My last scheduled appointment was for early 2020, and never occurred because of Covid lockdown.  I just never got around to scheduling another appointment, because everything seemed to be working. Then I submitted my request for an upgrade, and the insurance people insisted that I see my audiologist, and when I was in to see her about the upgrade she suggested that about a month after I received and started using my new processors I should go in for a round of testing. So I did, and it was fine - the results were comparable to late 2019, and as noted in the title up above, the audiologist said I really should come in at least every other year. So I will.  And maybe in two years some of the road construction will be finished. ...

  Here I am again - seems like this is my CI summer.  Today I drove into Minneapolis again - I got an email from K at the university, where they're doing studies to learn more about how cochlear implant recipients hear and understand with their devices.  Basically, it's the interface between the implant and the, er, wetware inside the head. Although it was a bit last-minute, I thought, well, why not?  I'm retired and don't have a schedule to speak of.  The only accommodation needed was for us to do our Costco run to St. Cloud yesterday so I could go to the U today.  And the only real drawback was that summertime in Minnesota is when they do highway construction.  Lots and lots of highway construction.  In the area around Shevlin Hall (where the hearing labs are) there are two roads closed for construction, overburdening University Ave, Washington Ave, and Oak St., which are all main arteries on campus.  So I tried to avoid it by going around....

  So as noted, I received new processors a couple of weeks ago.  I've been slowly learning what all they can do (other than sound better) and today I decided to test out the connectivity features. The processors themselves have Bluetooth, so depending on the device I can pair directly and have the sound delivered wirelessly.  I know that Bluetooth isn't new technology, but it's new in my processors, and it's exceedingly cool. First I paired them to my phone.  I have Audible on my phone - I'm not wild about listening to books rather than reading them, but I did it as part of my rehab when I was first implanted, and I kept the app (though I don't subscribe - Audible does too much without telling me, which I don't care for).  But I opened up one of the books that I already had and listened for a bit, and it's incredibly clear and easy to hear!  Maybe I'll consider audiobooks on planes?  Possible.  Though books are portable too. Then I tried to pair t...