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

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 ...

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...