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

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. ...