Whispering In Class and Music On The Radio Wednesday, November 1, 2006

I know it’s bad to do it, not to mention the epitome of rudeness, but this morning was just one of those days. A class where everybody is immeasurably bored that you can’t resist talking to your neighbor, and that was what was going on today.

One thing I’ve never been able to do as a deaf person is to whisper. I either talk too loud in my attempt to “whisper” or I think I’m whispering, but I’m actually making no sound, and the other person can’t hear me, much less read my lips.

I was whispering with my classmate, Jen A., and to my amazement, she could understand what was saying, and I wasn’t being loud that others could hear me. But even better, my lipreading was enhanced by hearing what she was saying.

However, I still find it very difficult to be able to whisper and control your voice/make the sound in order to be understood without having an audience.

At work today, I was standing in the work area, just stretching my ankle because it was sore, and I could faintly hear music playing.

“Kathy, do you hear music playing?”

“I have the radio on, it’s really low though.”

“Are you serious? No way. I can hear that, it’s very quiet. But that is sooooooo cool.”

I was AMAZED because I was a good 15 feet away from the radio, and could hear it distinctly…I could tell the difference between the music and the voices, and I was just impressed as it’s only been 2 months, 3 weeks, and 4 days since activation.

In the middle of my delight at hearing this, Kathy asked me why I asked her that question, as I’ve been asking her and others at work off and on throughout the quarter about noises that I’ve been hearing, and she didn’t understand why I was doing that, as some of the questions struck her as being odd.

What she didn’t know was that all these sounds I that I have been hearing are new to me, and that I was a new implantee. She knew I could hear with the hearing aid, but not that the fact that these were new sounds for me.

It was a very good thing that I could hear the radio from where I was standing, because that is the equivalent of a “normal hearing” person.

I borrowed a different battery charger to determine if the short battery life of one of my batteries is an issue with the charger or with the battery. After yesterday’s dismal “run time”, it’s definitely the battery. So back to AB it will go, because a brand new 18 hour battery should not be lasting 12 or less hours.

I know that in the days right after activation, Susan told me that I needed to document my journey, because as time goes by, I’m going to look back and go WOW…look how far I’ve come in this short time that I’ve been activated. I see it each and every day and am thrilled.

I would not trade one day of this journey at all. I do not regret my decision at all, and happy that I got the CI when I did. The CI has been amazing so far, and I *LOVE* it. Thank you to everybody involved.