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

For most of the last fifteen to twenty years I've been unable to hear an alarm clock.  As a result, I've (unconsciously) learned to simply wake up when I need to.  More accurately, I usually don't wake up at exactly the time that I need, to but a bit before.  Occasionally, when I'm at home, if my alarm goes off because I went back to sleep, my husband will wake me up and then I get up and start my day. But now I'm living at our new house during the work week - it's close to work, and the shorter commute buys me almost an hour a day, and in addition it means that the house isn't standing empty. But it also means that my husband isn't there to wake me up, because he (and most of our stuff) are still at the old house.  So I brought a travel alarm that I've had for years - at least ten years, maybe more like fifteen or twenty.  It's got an attachment that looks like a little flying saucer that you put under the mattress and it vibrates and wakes

Last week I drove to Dallas and back.  It was for a convention called Bouchercon, which is an annual meeting of writers and readers of mystery fiction.  It's also an annual reunion of friends, and three or four days of eating and drinking and talking to people you may not see otherwise. And you know what?  It was great.  Oh, the bar got really noisy, and I couldn't hear everything, but neither could people with normal hearing.  For the most part, though, I could hear, and people were asking me about the technology -and I'm fine with that, I tend to *like* to tell people about them.  And people were noticing how much more I can hear now.   It was almost like being a normal person.  (Well, in one respect anyway!) The drive there and back was even fun.  I took some smaller roads for most of the first day and drove through the fall color in southern Minnesota and Iowa.  I also ended up driving through Madison County, and saw a road sign pointing to one of the covered brid

and fruit flies like a banana, but that's neither here nor there.  The thing is, one year ago, at exactly this time, I was in the operating room having my second CI implanted. Seems like a good time to reflect, even though I've been posting reflections about this process for a year and a half.  But it's still amazing, and probably hard for people who hear normally to comprehend, just how much this technology can bring to the life of someone like me with a profound hearing loss. Two years ago I could sit in meetings at work and confidently assume that I'd miss at least half of what was said.  Now I hardly ever miss anything, and when I talk to others, some of them are missing the same things I do.  Same at home, my husband continues to be taken aback when I can hear him shouting at sporting events on TV, in the other room, with the door closed.  Or hear the cats meow for me to open the door.  And of course, once I do, to open it again so they can leave.  And once I d

How did that happen?  In some ways it feels as though things have been just sort of normal, I go to work, I come home.  I listen to music in the car and in general it's getting better but there are odd changes in what sounds good, so that something that was sounding really pretty good all of a suddens sounds odd again.  My brain can't do a damn thing in a linear fashion, or so it seems sometimes. Just your normal, average summer, I guess.  I go to work, I come home.  Well, there was that one week where, on Wednesday we went Jet-skiing on Lake Minnetonka, which scared the hell out of me before we went, but I put the waterwear on my processors and wore a scarf tied around them to make sure they didn't fall into the lake when I was jumping wakes at 30 mph.  And they didn't, and we had fun.  I've never really liked motor sports, but jet skis and waterskiing are my guilty pleasures, and it was a fun day.  And then the day after that, we bought another house, which I&

My trip to DeKalb went well.  It was a productive meeting and a really interesting opportunity to see the distribution center, which is four huge buildings - and they were able to lay them out the way they wanted to, for efficiency and organization rather than just shoving things in where they fit, which is true in a surprising number of cases. And other than that it's been just going to work, and coming home, the usual cycle of the working person.  We are buying a house out closer to the plant, so that's been going on, and I've been walking on weekends, even though I usually don't like to walk wooded trails in summer because the combination of heat, humidity and stinging insects is really pretty miserable. But I'm going to miss the Arboretum and Carver Park, so I'm going anyway.  And on Saturday when I was walking at Carver Park I was on a trail that goes around a lake (poor planning when one considers that standing water is prime mosquito habitat) and in t

Next week I am going on my first business trip since being implanted.  It's a short trip - driving distance and just two nights, but still, I'll be in a hotel room by myself, so I requested an accessible room for the deaf.  And got it.  I don't know that I really worry that much about hotel fires or any of the other reasons why I'd need to have an accessible alarm, but I'll admit that if there were to be a fire, it would be nice to survive. So that's good. And on the other end of the spectrum I managed, for the first time since implantation, to forget my battery wallet today so when my rechargeables died I had to put in disposable batteries.  They work, and I was glad I had them, but man, I really prefer to use the rechargeables.  I don't like having to throw out (or recycle if possible) batteries every few days.  Note to self:  do NOT forget the damn batteries anymore. And on a completely unrelated note, I had cause to learn just how LOUD heavy rain a

I'll take "Things I Hardly Ever Say Anymore" for $500, Alex. I mean, I used to say that all the time.  "Sorry?  What was that?"  And I happened to have to say it again yesterday and I realized that it was the first time in a long, long time.  It's just generally not a problem anymore. Even at work, where the machines are loud - employees are required to wear hearing protection in some areas, and when you start to get evaluated to make sure you're provided with the best kind for your own ears.  Except for me, of course, I have no hearing to protect. But even so, I'm hearing better than ever and hardly ever have to ask people to repeat things. I just love this kind of realization.

Well, another month-long gap between posts.  I guess I've been a bit busy.  This year Memorial Day weekend was four days, so naturally R and I both caught a bug that's been going around - he thinks he caught it on the plane and gave it to me, but the day after Memorial Day I went to work and about five other people had it so I suspect the contagion field may be a tad wider that one 787. It made my hearing sound a little off - at least, once the sinus congestion set in.  It was a bit odd having the echoes seem amplified, but it's tapered off now that the congestion cleared up. Then I started a new job - and after two weeks, it's still new, though I'm starting to be able to find things in the plant without a map.  This is the company's largest domestic manufacturing site and going by my Fitbit I walked about three and a half miles just going to three different meetings yesterday.  It's a BIG place. But it's going well and people are nice.  No one has

We just got back from vacation - eleven days in France, during which I didn't do any of my normal listening - no TV while on the treadmill, no meetings at work (oh, sob) - lots of talking to my husband but not so much with other people. Except you do, of course.  We talked to people in restaurants and in museums.  And neither of us speaks French, but I heard enough even in a week and a half to start putting some credence in the immersion method of learning a language.  On the way back I went into the restroom at the airport and a woman came out of a stall and turned to me and said something.  It took a minute to sink in but I actually realized that she was telling me that the stall was out of paper. Pretty cool for me.  I'd bet anything, a year ago I wouldn't even have heard her, let alone understood and certainly not understood in French.   And now I'm back home, have worked a couple of days.  Today I went out to run some errands (actually this translates to buyi

I'm within a week of being one year from my first activation.  I'm also very close to being six months from my second one.  The second CI complicated things.  Having two makes your brain start over with rehab, and it's kind of frustrated doing the same thing twice in the same year.   But you know, it works.  So yesterday I had the last of my scheduled audiology appointments - from now on I have to request an appointment when I want one.  I'll probably go in later this summer, and soon I'll be just checking in annually. But yesterday we did some testing, and I learned what I already knew:  that despite the frustration and the imperfect sound, things are going really well.  So to recap my last hearing test and add yesterday's results, I give you this:   Prior to implantation, with two hearing aids:          19% comprehension Three months after right side implanted:               89% with CI only                                                          

Recently I posted about a phone call and then a long meeting, both of which I could hear and do well in. There was a tiny detail that I left out.  The phone call and the meeting were both interviews, and I  will be starting a  new job in June.  Same company, but a different site and a different role.  It's going to be new to me, and after a lot of years where I am now, I'm looking forward to a new challenge.  I'm also much more confident than I was a year ago that I can function and hear people. In fact, today I went to lunch with five other people from my current job, and we went to a restaurant that I've always had trouble in.  it's just a huge room, and it's noisy.  But again, no trouble at all, we had a good time and a good discussion. It still doesn't sound perfect, but in general so much is easier now - and I'm getting used to it.  It's really a cool thing to be starting to reverse nervousness and frustration that's been a significant

One year ago today - at this time exactly, I was in the operating room at the University of Minnesota clinic surgery center, having my first CI implanted.     This was momentous.  When I woke up after surgery, it was a whole new world, though I didn't really start experiencing it till after activation.  Since then I've learned to listen with my CI, received my second implant, learned to listen with that one, and then began working with the two of them together. And it's amazing.  I've been rabbitting on in this blog for over a year now about how astounding it all is and what a change it's been, but it seriously cannot be understated.  I had been getting progressively more hard of hearing since birth; in recent years my ability to navigate the world was becoming more and more restricted and I was, to a significant degree, isolated by my inability to hear. Now, due to losing my remaining natural hearing in surgery, I'm almost completely deaf.  And I hear bet

Recently I've been noticing that my ability to hear things that I couldn't before has been getting steadily better.  I suspect my word comprehension now may even be a bit better than the 89% that I got in January.  Last week I had a half-hour phone call and heard the whole thing - and that's huge, I've been avoiding the phone for fifteen years. And today I had a series of meetings, including some time in a very noisy production area, and had no trouble hearing throughout the day.  It's actually kind of difficult to maintain a professional demeanor when what you really want to do is just up and down exclaiming, "HEY I HEARD THAT!".   I haven't started making voluntary phone calls yet, but in the business calls that I'm in I'm hearing more than I have in a long, long time.  It's really amazing. I also heard from another recent implantee that she has trouble hearing for an hour or so after flying if she sits in the window seat.  I have o

Last week I had a mapping - we reduced the volume of the high frequencies on the left CI, reduced the volume of the low frequencies on the right CI, and also on the right, redistributed the frequencies along the electrodes a bit. It usually takes a couple of weeks to adjust, and I'm not there yet, but it does sound better than the previous mapping.  Quite a lot, in fact, so while I don't think this is the end state by any means, I do feel like I'm heading in the right direction. I have another mapping next month, and the manufacturer's clinical specialist is going to be there, which should be interesting. But in the meantime I'm pretty happy with the progress.  Today a friend who has been living on the East Coast for a couple of years was in town, and we had lunch.  He told me that he could tell how much better I was hearing just from the conversation that we had at the crowded and fairly noisy little Mexican place we were in. He's right, of course - I&#

It's kind of odd, that most of the noticeable advances I've made in my ability to listen to music have been while I'm watching TV - background music, more or less.  There was the singing a few weeks ago, and then last night there was a song in the program I was watching while I was on the treadmill - just a guy singing, no band or anything, and it sounded wonderfully clear. But that only ever happens when I'm listening with both CIs.  I do, for the most part, but I'm still trying to do rehab with the left because it's not really completely stable yet.  At my last mapping we ended up reducing the volume of the lower frequencies a bit - not by design, but because that's how it ended up using the standard mapping process.   But I think it was too much.  It's been over a month and the high frequencies are still distorted, and it doesn't really even sound like what I've been used to in the early stages.  On the right I had the beepy Mickey Mouse s

I think I've figured something out.  I'm not absolutely sure, because I haven't been in to see my audiologist, and she's the person who could confirm it.  But I've been wondering why, after my January appointment - in which we decided not to change the mapping in my left CI - the unintegrated high frequencies suddenly became so much more prominent. I mean, why the need for aural rehab when there was no change to the mapping?  But the brain's a complex thing, and it's actually happened before, though not nearly so prominently. But I wonder if what we did on the right side affected what I hear on the left.  Because we did reduce the volume on the lower frequencies in an attempt to reduce (or even get rid of) the echo on the right.  And if the lower frequencies are reduced in volume, that means the higher frequencies are comparatively a higher percentage of what I'm hearing overall. So maybe that affected it.  In my February appointment we remapped bo

I'm still working on my second CI.  It's been sounding a lot better in the last couple of weeks, but it's not up to the right when it comes to music yet.  Most of what I listen to in the car is rock, or old folk stuff, or blues and a couple of old country pieces.  As I've noted before, some of them sound not too bad, but the more complexity there is, and the more instrumental accompaniment they have, the less likely they are to sound really good, at least so far. But another thing I do for aural rehab is watch videos, with my left CI only, and since that's primarily voices, it's starting to sound pretty good.  I recently started to watch a show called Code Black at the recommendation of a friend, and just now watched an episode while I was on the treadmill.  The program takes place in a trauma center in Los Angeles, and in this episode, a singer was brought in with pain in his throat.  Turns out he had an abcess, and it was lanced and he was just waiting out t

First things first:  I had my three-month post activation (second CI) check today.  This involves a 90-minute appointment with my audiologist and a battery of hearing tests in addition to the usual mapping of my processors. The results of the hearing test were great - and a good reminder to me that even though it's probably good for me to keep on moving the goalposts - to increase my own expectations - that the progress made so far is (according to my audiologist) better than average CI recipient results, and in comparison to what I was hearing this time last year, an order of magnitude better. And that's the main thing.  Will I ever be able to hear what people with normal hearing do?  Probably not.  But the improvement over what I was hearing (or more to the point, what I wasn't hearing) prior to implantation is astounding.  The fact that this is my new normal and I want more, more, more?  Well, that's okay, and I'll be working on it.  But it's already incr

I've been struggling a bit with the sound in my second CI; on the 16th I had an audiology appointment and we made some changes to the map on the right CI to try to reduce the echo, but didn't change the one on the left because it was sounding pretty good. Two days later the tinniness increased exponentially.  It was ugly, to the point of distorting the sound I was hearing.  Since we didn't remap that processor, I know it wasn't the CI (also, I was experiencing the same problem with both my Sonnet and Rondo2 processors, so this was clearly something that I had to rehab my way out of). So for the last week and a half I just kept on with the rehab on the left.  The tinniness is finally abating a bit - which of course just means that now the echo on the right is prominent again.  Sweet. But I was talking to a friend this weekend who is having some issued with hearing loss and made the comment that I've been trying to keep my social media posts and my blog posts up

This week - just the last couple of days, actually - I've experienced some changes to the way I hear with my newer CI.  It's following the same pattern the first one did, and I think it's taking about the same amount of time, but because it felt a bit like starting over, it's FELT as though it's been a slower process. And that makes the step-changes I've had this week that much sweeter. I went to a party on Saturday.  I can't even remember when I went to a party and was able to talk to pretty much everyone.  I went from group to group and I could hear their discussions, and take part.  I didn't really think about it much while it was happening, but when I got home and started digesting all the wine, I realized, " Hey, that was actually fun, and I didn't have to work to hear!"  And then I was amazed in retrospect, assisted, I think, by the wine.  But this was one of the things I've been waiting for, and it was incredibly gratifying.