bilateral!
Today was the day: activation! First I had to meet with my surgeon for a post-op exam ("looks fine") and then I had an appointment with my audiologist to activate the second CI.
I kind of drew the short straw when it came to appointment times. Most of my audiology visits are in the early afternoon, but for whatever reason I ended up with 8:15 with Dr H and 8:30 with audiology. Because the clinic is on campus at the University, this meant driving into the city during morning rush hour. Rather than face the worst of it, we got up early and left the house at 6:30. There was still some traffic, and it took an hour to get there, but there's a little cafe on the first floor and we went there and had breakfast prior to heading upstairs.
The appointment with Dr H was, as noted, really short. She looked at the incision, poked a bit at the implant site, and looked into my ear. She said everything looks good, I thanked her, and then it was off to audiology.
The first thing we did with my audiologist was test the hearing in my left ear. Without the processor it's definitely much worse than before the surgery. It's possible yet that I'll regain a bit of it when I'm completely healed from the surgery - there's probably fluid in my inner ear affecting it, and that will go away over time. But it's also possible that this is it, and I can't count on hearing (right now the only things I hear without my processors is my hair dryer and my sonic toothbrush).
Then on to activation and at that point we learned that we didn't have my kit --when you get a CI activated you get your processor, batteries, dry box, recharger for the batteries, some spare microphone covers and ear hooks and other little doodahs that have to be replaced occasionally. At my clinic we also get a second processor so we have a backup, and we get an accessory. When I got my first CI the accessory was a thing called the Roger pen, which can connect to the CI via FM, and then bluetooth to your cell phone, so you can use the phone with a direct signal. Or if you don't pair the bluetooth it can just be used as a remote microphone - if you're in a class you could put it on the podium and have the speaker's voice sent right to your processor.
But I had none of that, because someone put the wrong location code on the PO and it got sent to the U of M hospital instead of to the clinic. The hospital people sent it to the surgery wing thinking, apparently, that it was an implant. The surgery people looked inside, said what the heck? And sent it back to Med-El.
So today we used my backup processor from the right side and a magnet that my audiologist had in her office.
Right away it sounded quite different from the first one. I could hear voices, but instead of the beepy Mickey Mouse sounds that I had in my right ear, instead I have a medium-to-high pitched constant tone that sort of floats above the voices. It's peculiar, almost like tinnitus that's cadenced exactly like the voices that I hear. But I'm sure it will go away with rehab, like the other did.
What surprised me was how much better the two sound together than either of them do alone. I had been wanting to ask for a remapping of my first CI because I was hearing an echo - quite a prominent echo - all the time. But they don't do that, when you activate the second one you don't mess with the first. But the effect of having two of them was to reduce the echo just a bit and boost the clarity on the left. Overall the sound is fuller and the volume is higher.
It's not anything like fully integrated. The weird high pitched sound in the new processor is still there, and when I called in to a conference call just now, it was hard to understand - the sound clarity overall is not there yet.
But it's enough to let me understand what's coming, and I'm really happy with that. I think with more rehab, and once the left side gets clearer, it's going to be fabulous. Not like having normal hearing.
But you know, when I was just hearing impaired I never heard and understood even close to what I'm hearing and understanding now that I'm essentially completely deaf. The next few weeks are going to be really interesting.
I kind of drew the short straw when it came to appointment times. Most of my audiology visits are in the early afternoon, but for whatever reason I ended up with 8:15 with Dr H and 8:30 with audiology. Because the clinic is on campus at the University, this meant driving into the city during morning rush hour. Rather than face the worst of it, we got up early and left the house at 6:30. There was still some traffic, and it took an hour to get there, but there's a little cafe on the first floor and we went there and had breakfast prior to heading upstairs.
The appointment with Dr H was, as noted, really short. She looked at the incision, poked a bit at the implant site, and looked into my ear. She said everything looks good, I thanked her, and then it was off to audiology.
The first thing we did with my audiologist was test the hearing in my left ear. Without the processor it's definitely much worse than before the surgery. It's possible yet that I'll regain a bit of it when I'm completely healed from the surgery - there's probably fluid in my inner ear affecting it, and that will go away over time. But it's also possible that this is it, and I can't count on hearing (right now the only things I hear without my processors is my hair dryer and my sonic toothbrush).
Then on to activation and at that point we learned that we didn't have my kit --when you get a CI activated you get your processor, batteries, dry box, recharger for the batteries, some spare microphone covers and ear hooks and other little doodahs that have to be replaced occasionally. At my clinic we also get a second processor so we have a backup, and we get an accessory. When I got my first CI the accessory was a thing called the Roger pen, which can connect to the CI via FM, and then bluetooth to your cell phone, so you can use the phone with a direct signal. Or if you don't pair the bluetooth it can just be used as a remote microphone - if you're in a class you could put it on the podium and have the speaker's voice sent right to your processor.
But I had none of that, because someone put the wrong location code on the PO and it got sent to the U of M hospital instead of to the clinic. The hospital people sent it to the surgery wing thinking, apparently, that it was an implant. The surgery people looked inside, said what the heck? And sent it back to Med-El.
So today we used my backup processor from the right side and a magnet that my audiologist had in her office.
Right away it sounded quite different from the first one. I could hear voices, but instead of the beepy Mickey Mouse sounds that I had in my right ear, instead I have a medium-to-high pitched constant tone that sort of floats above the voices. It's peculiar, almost like tinnitus that's cadenced exactly like the voices that I hear. But I'm sure it will go away with rehab, like the other did.
What surprised me was how much better the two sound together than either of them do alone. I had been wanting to ask for a remapping of my first CI because I was hearing an echo - quite a prominent echo - all the time. But they don't do that, when you activate the second one you don't mess with the first. But the effect of having two of them was to reduce the echo just a bit and boost the clarity on the left. Overall the sound is fuller and the volume is higher.
It's not anything like fully integrated. The weird high pitched sound in the new processor is still there, and when I called in to a conference call just now, it was hard to understand - the sound clarity overall is not there yet.
But it's enough to let me understand what's coming, and I'm really happy with that. I think with more rehab, and once the left side gets clearer, it's going to be fabulous. Not like having normal hearing.
But you know, when I was just hearing impaired I never heard and understood even close to what I'm hearing and understanding now that I'm essentially completely deaf. The next few weeks are going to be really interesting.
This is so very exciting to follow -- thank you so much for letting us watch the process. In this entry, for personal reasons, this bit really jumped out at me: "... if you don't pair the bluetooth it can just be used as a remote microphone - if you're in a class you could put it on the podium and have the speaker's voice sent right to your processor." That's almost science fiction stuff.
ReplyDeleteYup, exactly, Sherwood. People do just that. It's pretty remarkable.
ReplyDelete