How The Cochlear Implant Works With An Apple iPOD Friday, January 19, 2007

Ian and Aphrodite ask how the cochlear implant works with the iPOD. When I first heard about it, I wasn’t sure how it would work either, but here it is.

Auria with T-Mic earhook, DirectConnect earhook, and cable

 

 

Auria with DirectConnect earhook, attaching the cable

 

 

Auria with DirectConnect earhook, attached to cable

 

 

The whole setup, notice the silver middle – that is the evil static-causing connector.

 

 

Mandy figured out that you could remove it and still play it (I take no responsibility if you do the same) NO MORE STATIC! I’m not sure what the purpose of it is, but I think it has to do something with grounding it against electricity.

 

 

What it looks like when I wear it.

 

 

The only thing I don’t like about it is that I have to change the earhook back and forth whenever I want to listen to music or participate in conversation. The only reason why I have to switch back and forth is because I’ve got my Auria programmed to listen to music alone, because with the hearing aid, I hated hearing all the background noise, as I felt it overshadowed the music.

 

With my hearing aids, I could just pull off the boots, or switch back and forth between microphone (hearing both music and the environment), or just music alone.

 

I’m currently looking into other methods of getting the sound to my ears, such as the HATIS Epic. When the Harmony comes out, the built-in T-Coil will eliminate the whole changing-earhooks and the use of a Y-Split for stereo sound.

 

Some ask, why use the Y-Split? It’s needed because I have two different cables, one for my hearing aid, and one for the cochlear implant, to get stereo sound. (don’t have a picture yet as the cable for the hearing aid is missing at the moment!)

 

Be warned, this method with the HATIS only works if you have a telecoil built into your hearing aid and/or if your hearing aid is programmed for it (if needed). I have a Siemens Triano SP digital hearing aid with a telecoil. I would highly recommend, as with any assistive listening device (other than the cochlear implant) to try it out before you buy it (if you can).

 

Personally, I can’t wait for the Harmony, because I’m tired of having to change earhooks, and having two cables of different lengths and colors.

Initial Test Scores for Sound & Beyond Monday, September 18, 2006

There are moments where I miss the simplicity that hearing aids have when it comes to listening to sound in its wholeness, and hate the CI for not giving me that same access to sound. Then there are the rare moments where the intricacies of sound are revealed to me with the CI and revel in the amazement of it, and I fall in love all over again with the CI.

Listening with a CI is *NOT* a quick update or a quick fix to hear music or sound in its entirety. It takes lots of practice to get to that point.

The baseline test scores for S&B from Friday, 9/15
Consonant – 15%
Vowel – 35.42%
Food Words – 94%
Melody – 75%
Instrument – 61.1%
Animal Words – 98%

These scores help the program pinpoint where I should start and what I need to work on. Today, it assigned me to start with Level 2 for vowels, and Level 1 for consonants.

Unfortunately, this afternoon I was feeling frustrated and apathetic. While doing the consonant training, I had to determine which sound was the different one out of three, but had no idea what was being said. I can tell which one is different, more than 80% of the time, but it drives me crazy that I can’t UNDERSTAND what is being said.

It really bothers me that with some words, the only way I can differentiate is to compare how they “feel” and what kind of pulse is happening in my head. Sometimes I’ll hear a speech sound and then the rest of the word is a pulse. This is not what I expected sound to be like. But the point is that I have to train myself to listen to it and just got to keep working at it, and have PATIENCE.

I am also having problems with the sound dropping out, or gaps where there’s absolutely no sound (especially when its really noisy, it seems as if it’s overloaded the CI so no sound comes through), and Mandy realized that Megan had set the RF to manual. She changed it to PoEM, so now program 1 is with PoEM, and program 2 is same as program 1, but on manual. Program three is the same from last week, where we added gains in the high frequencies.

Today, I woke up at what I thought was 16 minutes before I had to leave for my class. I shot out of bed, and turns out it was only 7:17, but I still overslept by more than 45 minutes. I somehow changed the time on my clock instead of the alarm clock to get more sleep. As a result, I didn’t get to do my hair today, and it made it difficult in terms of wearing the CI (especially with wet hair).

In the book, AB suggests shaving around the part where the magnet is (which makes sense, but not necessary in my case as the hair’s already thin there) so the other option is wearing a headband.

I told Mandy it’s a good thing the 80s are back in fashion, because I would be in style with a headband. But first I need to get clothes that go with headbands! I love the 80s, especially the Hypercolor t-shirts!

But the one sentence I understood while waiting outside Mandy’s office, was her saying “thank you very much” as she hung up the phone.

“It’s A Sound Good Thing” Thursday, September 14, 2006

I’ve been listening to music with the CI at home for the last few hours, as opposed to being hooked up to the iPOD. It’s so hard to describe music with the new map now, but basically my mind is just blown.

At 9:07 pm, I heard my first actual “s” in a song. I heard “Sugar baby” in Crazy Town’s “Butterfly”. I know that I can expect the “S” in my mind, but when you actually experience hearing it in a song (especially one that is considered nu-metal/rap-rock), it’s amazing!

I’ve written about listening to music since the day I’ve been activated. With each mapping session, sounds evolve and change over time, that I just get more amazed with each nuance and discovery that I make with the CI. It’s very interesting for me to analyze it, and what I am missing.

Right now, it sounds so much clearer (especially with the HA on at the same time), but I am getting so much more information in the CI ear that I can’t hear with the HA.

The reason I can tell the difference is because I actually can hear or “feel” the stimulation of the sound, whereas the same feeling/sound does not translate to the HA ear.

That’s one way I have learned to compare if sounds are the same, based on the “feel” in my ear (if I can’t understand it). For a person who may not understand or have the appreciation for sound, this may be difficult to understand. You can differentiate between sound, by its own distinct “feel”, and I am not sure how much of a role residual hearing plays in that.

This whole experience with music is kind of disturbing to me, because I consider myself to be a music fanatic. Right now my perception is being rocked to its very core and will continue to do so as I progress with the CI.

I finally heard some more on the 120 channel processor, and its official name is the Harmony. The difference between the Harmony and the Auria, other than the programming strategies, is that the Harmony will have a built-in T-Mic, and be a “power miser” to deal with the battery drain issues.

I excitedly anticipate seeing what it looks like. I cannot wait to stick it onto my head, and have even more fine control over music and the sound spectrum!

As for listening with the iPOD with the HA, I’m about ready to break the door that covers the electrodes off the HA. It is so difficult to plug in the audio boot because it requires a fine amount of dexterity and lots of patience. There’s this whole complicated process to putting it on, but it makes me prefer the audio boot of my old HA, which I could just snap on quickly. It’s frustrating, because the industrial design side of me, wants to take my training out and put it to use redesigning it! The design flaw makes it neither functional nor practical and is an annoyance when I’m moving about and it doesn’t stay put.

On Tuesday, Apple announced several new iPODs, one of which has a capacity of 80-gb! My wish has been answered! There’s something out there that will fit my entire music collection, which currently tops out at 42-gb. Yippie!

“You turned it up like WOAH!”

“You turned it up like WOAH!” – Mandy

I had my first mapping at school today. This morning, Mandy and I were joined by Catherine and Don (the other audiologists that I have worked with), who wanted to sit in on the mapping session. The majority of the CI students have Cochlear, and AB makes up about less than 1/4 of the population here (unconfirmed for 2006-2007), so we had to spend a bit of time getting re-familiar with the program.

The best part of the mapping session today…my brain is definitely ready to utilize the CI!

Mandy, Catherine, and Don were deciding how to best program me, based on my reports that I’ve been making over the last three weeks, and Megan’s reports/programs. The other part that they were curious about is why I had the lower frequencies turned up high, but not the upper frequencies. Speech clarity could be an issue because the upper frequencies were missing/not as strong as the lower frequencies, so they wanted to see what would happen with my brain, if we adjusted it.

So Mandy did speech bursts testing, which is the same as the “beep test” that Megan used to do, except it fired multiple electrodes at once. It was at this juncture that we realized that what I was hearing was soft to moderately soft. This explains why speech has started to sound more distorted over the last week, resulting in frustration for me.

I didn’t have to adjust the lower frequencies as much, but I really adjusted the upper frequencies, and I am pleased to report that speech is starting to sound AMAZING with the CI, in the few short hours that I’ve been programmed. It is also starting to balance out the hearing aid now, which is a great relief to me, because I was worried that I was going to have to go without the HA, because I should be listening with the CI, not the HA.

Don/Catherine both told me that one other person has mentioned the radio playing in their head. Apparently in the past, CIs used to have RF interference, but it shouldn’t be happening today with the newer models. And feeling like that I’m hearing in my non-implanted ear when I don’t wear my HA, has also happened to a few other people. So that’s some burning questions answered that I was very curious about! I was warned that these new programs may drain the battery even faster, so I need to continue with the battery log.

I hung out in the common area while they had their department meeting, because I had speech therapy 2 hours later, and tried to do homework, but was filling out paperwork instead. After their meeting, Mandy chatted with me while she ate her lunch. It was fun getting to talk about non-audiology related stuff. She’s so cool.

My exciting news from Monday…I was asked to be in a film that the school is making, and part of it has to do with Cochlear Implants and the shoot is tomorrow. Mandy just told me exactly what it’s going to be used for, and it wasn’t originally what we thought it was. Eeek. *nervous* We’re both talking about how we have to look extra-pretty tomorrow, because we are GIRLS who like to look good!

Mango…The Word That Just Won’t Die Monday, August 28, 2006

The word that just won’t die…MANGO.

Megan said she was going to send me a care package of mangoes to me at school. When I come back in a few months, I’m bringing her a kumquat just because. Maybe an onion. But it better not be a combo of mango and fennel. It’s a good thing we don’t have our own cooking show on the Food Network.

Had #7 today…spent close to 4 hours in there. First I had to see Dr. M. for my checkup. The blood is gone from my middle ear and my eardrum is not purple anymore, but it’s still swollen. He had Megan do a test to see if I have any residual hearing, and I don’t, but it’s probably still too soon to tell.

After that, instead of being in the auditory room, Megan set up in the same exam room that I was in the day I got activated. She had both computers, the programming one, and the Sound and Beyond one. She would tinker with my CI while I was playing with the program and listening to words, telling her what sounded funny as I was going through the exercises, but the picture of the rabbit in the food category is a terrible picture! I was doing pretty well, scoring between 85 to 96 percent with the CI alone. However, I started having trouble with some familiar words, such as cat. And while comparing programs, she would say “how does this sound? what time is it? mango.” just to rub it in because I hate that word!

At one point today, Megan was on a mission to find out just how much I am hearing with my CI, and help me see that the CI is working better than the HA and I’m hearing way more than I think I am.

88% with CI alone.
96% with CI and HA.
80 or 84% with HA alone.

Course, I was cheating because I could not hear the laptop very well with the HA, and had my head right next to the keyboard at intervals so I could hear it, until Megan made me sit up and stay put. :-p

The other thing that has been an issue with the CI is that it sounds good at first, and after a little while, it starts to sound bad (even while I’m still hooked up to the computer). Over a few days, I go from being able to hear voices within a room, to only being able to hear within one to two feet around me. I always thought it was because it was because my neuro-adaptation was fast, but that might not be the case due to what AB said. Kim said they had a patient like that, but that was a long time ago. We also experimented with the pulse width, and at times it would sound awesome, almost like the hearing aid, but there would be a bit of an echo. It’s very frustrating tinkering with the CI, because when one thing sounds good, another thing sounds bad. And there are times I don’t know how to explain it. Sometimes I feel like I’m hearing in my left ear as well, because the sound from the CI seems to “translate” to my left ear.

Megan got on the phone with AB and figured out a plan of troubleshooting. She also taught me how to put the magnet on correctly, in a way that doesn’t twist the wire. We ended up having to go into the bathroom to do that so I could see how she was doing it, and walked past a family that was there for a candidate consultation so it was a little funny. I could also hear people speaking, but couldn’t understand them, and Megan said it was because they were speaking Italian.

The Problem Of Missing/Changing Sound – Solution
1. Make sure wire for magnet is secure, and placed on head properly.
2. Change out T-Mic (possible moisture?)
3. Change Battery (possible low power?)
4. Dehumidify it (and I need to stay on top of making sure the crystals are yellow, cuz the moisture from the environment affects it too.)

I am still not used to the concept of older people getting CIs. My experience has been that younger people and children have CIs, but never people who are in their 40s or older. I’ve always seen them with little ITE hearing aids, or just deaf, while us kids have had the BTEs or the CIs. I’m going to have to get used to it.

Kim had to remind me today that I’m doing extremely well with my CI, and that I need to be patient. She reminds me of and sounds so much like mom, with the “no nonsense from you” talk, and knows just exactly how to get me to shush and stop to think, just like mom does. “How long has it been?” “And you’re getting a score of what?”…”3 weeks…and 96%.” “That’s pretty good.” So here it goes…..I’ve got three programs to experiment with for a week and a half to two weeks. It’s going to be a challenge to leave my CI alone and learn to appreciate it without any adjustments in that time period. Patience is NOT one of my virtues as Dad has reminded me.

Kim also told me that her patients seem to prefer Verizon for their cell phones, so that’s something to keep in mind. I’m hoping that my phone can make it until the full-QWERTY version of the Blackberry Pearl comes out in Q1 2007.

In NY news, I talked to Karen, and she’s going to talk to Mandy about how they can best work with me when I return. I’m going to miss seeing Megan, Kim, and Dr. M, but I will see them in a few months. I really don’t like saying goodbye, especially to people that I like working with. Sometimes it’s nice to finish what you started, with the people you began it with. And this is why being bi-coastal stinks…I can’t have the best of both worlds in one place. I always have to say goodbye to a group of people in each place and adapt to a new environment and time zone two times a year, and I hate it (especially when I have to leave my family).

Today’s Sounds List
– Recognizing clapping at a restaurant
– Mom coming up behind me at noisy restaurant and saying “Sweetie”, and me not paying attention

That was my first recognized word on its own, where I’m not paying attention, and able to understand it without having to think about it.

Listening Ability? How Does One Learn To Listen? Friday, August 25, 2006

It’s only been almost 3 weeks, and I’m already worried about the CI and my listening ability.

I wonder if I’m doing the right things to maximize my potential. Am I listening to the right stuff? Am I doing the right kinds of things to try and maximize my speech perception? All these types of questions and thoughts have been swirling around in my head.

I’ve been so used to doing therapy, therapy, therapy, and getting feedback from what I’m doing, that right now I feel like that what I do, on my own, isn’t helping. Everything I do has a visual component to it. It’s difficult to watch TV or read along with books, because I fall back on my “hearing aid” training, and use my vision more than using my brain to listen and understand what is being said. At the same time, I’m not getting the reinforcement of “yes, what I heard or thought I heard is indeed correct.”

On Monday, Susan said that I need to write for myself and not for others (where have I heard that before?). She wants me to write a daily log of my adventures in sound, and what I’m hearing, so that I can look back in 6 months and go “wow, that was a really rough time, but look where I am now and at what I’m hearing! YAY ME!”

I do well with the words in a list format, but have trouble with sentences. Mom did word lists with me, after I saw Megan earlier this week, and she started a new category of vegetables with me. However, I got it the hard way, instead of “mushroom”, “lettuce”, “tomato”, I was getting “portabella mushroom”, “bibb lettuce”, and “roma tomato”. That’s pretty much standard for our house, as we get different kinds of specific veggies for my guinea pig. However, I did get “jalapeno” right on the first try! She’s also been reading my favorite childhood book, “Cars, Trucks, And Things That Go” to me for listening practice. I love that book so much.

Today, I saw Megan for #6 and we tinkered around with the speech program some more. I have trouble with “C” and “M”, and hearing the first part of a word. I also told her about my concerns with listening. I know I don’t have patience (especially for somebody my age, as I was reminded by my dad on activation day!) and want more! She brought out the other computer that had the Sound and Beyond program that was made by Cochlear Americas. I got to play with it for awhile, and it was fantastic. I loved how if you get a word wrong, it repeats the correct word and the wrong word, so you can compare it.

This kind of program is right up my alley because it has a similar concept as the Touch&Tell that I had as a kid. What can I say, I love hands-on learning! It is awfully expensive, 290 dollars, but it might be an investment well worth making if it will help me, and I did enjoy using it…I could have played with it all day if I was allowed to.

I got 76% on the words when we played with the computer, she said I was doing pretty well for just under 3 weeks. The other cool thing this program does is that it plays music and then lets you pick which instrument produced that melody. I was able to get the piano and the xylophone right. But when it came to the violin, ughhhhhhhhh it sounded horrible! And I used to play the violin! But the piano sounded much better (after 10+ years of playing, I should have an ear for it).

Electrode #13 doesn’t have that special sound for me anymore. It’s so weird, because it sounded nothing like it did the last time. Megan did the beep test again today, and Electrode #6 sounded exactly like my mom’s old car alarm (park avenue) when it goes off. Now I have a way to describe what it sounds like to those who can’t hear what’s in my head!

T-Mic Hook: P1+2 – speech, P3 – 70/30 mix for DC.
DC Hook: P1+2 – iPOD only, P3 – 70 iPOD/30 environment.

I also have a battery log that Megan created so I can find out if I have a bad battery, a bad “charging slot” or if it’s just the program that is draining my battery fast on the CI. I do have powerful programs on my CI which draws a lot of power off the battery. My 18 hour battery is only lasting 12 hours, and I was totally unprepared for that the other day when the CI battery died on me.

Post-Activation…One Week Later (Mapping Session #4) Tuesday, August 15, 2006

I am OH so VERY excited. Although, probably not as excited as Megan or Mom was. I don’t think I’ve seen Megan that excited. Today was definitely an awesome day, because not only did Christina Aguilera’s new CD come out today (which I now have in my possession *squee*), I also got some test results with my CI (even more *squee-worthy*).

The answer to last week’s programming riddle: program 1-pulsing, program 2-sequential.

I now have two new programs, and they are getting to the point where they are starting to sound like my “natural hearing”, but faint. There’s still much more twiddling to do with these, but I am confident KNOW that I will reach that point. Even music is starting to slowly sound better.

After programming, I got to do a pure-tone audiometry test in the soundbooth with my CI, testing program 1, then 2. And I have the results of the audiogram. The vertical column measures how loud a sound has to be in order to hear it. The horizontal column is the frequency (or pitch) of a sound, going from low to high frequency.

 

6/22/06 – professional results

 

This is what I can hear with digital hearing aids. The sounds in the “speech banana” is around where normal people with normal hearing can hear it. This is with my hearing aids, and I still can’t hear the high-frequency sounds, so I am sorely lacking in that department.

 

 

8/15/06 – professional results

This is what I can hear with Program 1. My lower frequency (to the left) sounds have improved slightly, but my high frequency sounds have shot way up. I can now hear F, Sh, Th, K, and some others.

 

8/15/06 – professional results

This is with Program 2. This one is a bit louder than P1. Same results as P1, but with a few minor variations in the higher frequency.

Overall, you can see how I’ve changed, going from a digital hearing aids, to using a CI and the results I’m getting one week later. It’s just absolutely mind-boggling and incredible to me, to be able to hear all these high-pitched sounds that I wasn’t able to hear before. I am very excited, happy and looking forward to what’s next!

As soon as I got those results, I went to surprise mom at work, and her face just totally lit up and she was so happy! While walking back to her desk, she was showing the results off to her co-workers, and everybody was amazed, heh. We then went out to lunch with her co-workers (since it was lunchtime when I arrived), and it was my first time in a restaurant since I’ve been activated. I could hear the differences in people’s voices (at our table), and knew if a different person was talking. I could hear speech sounds with the CI that I wasn’t hearing with the HA. Words were fuller and had more detail (but still didn’t make sense to me).

I also had my first speech therapy session with Susan at 3:30 this afternoon. I am going to have to learn to differentiate between similar words but with different sounds/placement. The other fun thing I will learn to work on is tone of voice without using facial/body cues. Gotta start small, then work my way up! Right now my brain is waking up, learning to interpret what all these sounds are that are coming in, and then eventually will start putting some sense to them. It’s kind of like learning how to walk, except you’ve never walked before.

So far, everything is fantastic. I have no regrets. Everything that I went through in July, was well worth it for what I’m getting now. The only negative I have right now is that my incision is itching like mad and starting to become red. We were going to try to switch it to the other side of my head to give my ear a chance to heal (and get the itchiness to go away), but the cable for the headpiece isn’t long enough to pull that off.

I’m starting to wonder if I’m already getting used to this program, because things are starting to sound really quiet once again, so I may be making a trip back to see Megan sooner than later.

Starting today, my hearing aid has started to give me an attitude. I think we have a raging case of jealousy right now, and an unwillingness to coexist peacefully.

New Sounds List
8/14/06 – the word “Now” while listening to Harry Potter.
8/14/06 – hearing benny purr with CI, and realizing it that I couldn’t hear it with the HA.
8/15/06 – differentiating between voices at my table, while in a restaurant

Mapping Session #3 – What’s the difference between rat and dog? Friday, August 11, 2006

Today I had mapping session #3 (and it’s only day 4 of activation!)

I showed Megan yesterday’s entry and she was laughing at the different sounds that I was hearing. We started off with the beep test again, and I was able to better differentiate the frequencies between the beeps. My threshold has also gone up. I heard the most beautiful beep, that I absolutely loved out of all 16 beeps. Turns out it was electrode #13! My lucky number!

It was tricky today because I would reach the threshold where I thought it was loud enough, and then I would think we had moved to the next electrode, and I would tell Megan that it sounded soft. Turned out we were still on the same electrode, and my tolerance for that sound had changed during the testing, so we came back to it later. It was interesting cycling through/jumping from different frequencies. The most difficult part was determining if the volume across all the electrodes were the same, because loudness versus frequency seems exactly the same to me.

After that was done, we did the animal words instead of the months. I can’t tell the difference between dog/rat and horse/sheet (yes, I said sheeT, not sheeP). I got fish and cat right away. We tweaked with the program some more, and then I couldn’t understand cat, but could understand elephant. It’s frustrating when you can understand something with one setting, and then no longer can understand it. The other problem is that with one program, I can hear Megan but I can’t hear myself/sounds close to me very well, and then vice-versa with the other program.

I’m still having some crackling sounds, but not like before. It’s possible that it’s environmental sounds that I haven’t identified yet, but it is annoying to me because it overshadows everything else. Electrode #16 is the only one turned off now, because it seems to help reduce the crackling. After we were all done, and I was ready to go, I started to have trouble with hearing, so we had to hook me up again and do some more tweaking. I can’t wait till speech starts to sound so much better and not so distorted.

Megan is tricking me because I know that program 2 is the new one, but program 1 she will not tell me how it is different. I have a feeling that it is the one that I came in with, just louder. My homework is to experiment with both programs until I see her on Tuesday, and tell her the differences between the two of them.

The other part of my homework is to be listening to speech instead of music. It’s hard for me because I am more familiar with music than speech, so I would rather be listening to the music. I need to find some simpler audio books like “Cat In The Hat” and read along with it. The Harry Potter I checked out from the library the other day is not a good idea because it is read with a British accent. No wonder why I was having a difficult time following along with the words in the book. That and I didn’t have the DirectConnect 70/30 mixing program in my processor yet, which didn’t help with understanding sound.

I found a fellow CI user’s website in which he posted sound files on the differences in sound between normal hearing, hearing aids, on activation day, 2-3 days later, and 2 weeks later for him (doesn’t mean it applies to me). I know my hearing friends would appreciate this.

I went to drop something off at my mom’s work today, and her coworker Doug wanted to try placing magnetic objects on my head. Oy vey. That makes two.

I wish I could find my Touch&Tell from when I was a little kid. I kept some of those toys that I used for listening therapy, and donated the others for other deaf kids. This calls for an attic-raiding this weekend, I’m positive it’s up there. If not, I’m going to buy it off of eBay because I loved that thing.

Some resources that I found online
Auditory Training Resources and Guides (gonna get started tomorrow)
Mapping Sound Descriptors

I now officially love my cochlear implant. Today’s Adventures In Sound! Wednesday, August 9, 2006

As of 9:22 pm Mountain Standard Time, I now officially LOVE my cochlear implant.

I’ve had it on for almost all day, except for about an hour where I took it off to let my scalp rest for a little bit. The “pulsing/shocking feeling” that I had been complaining about in my last entry doesn’t bother me as much anymore, and is almost at the point of being non-existent. Instead it has been replaced with a “crackling” sound. I think Program 1 is my favorite, and I’ve got it turned up all the way to max, because I’ve outgrown the limits already.

Tomorrow I meet with Megan again to do my 3rd Mapping session in 4 days! And Susan (the speech therapist) emailed me today, and I am now going in for a post-activation evaluation and starting therapy next week because I can do it now.

This morning I came downstairs to get some juice. I pulled the glass out of the cupboard and set it down gently on the granite counter, and I could distinctly hear it go “clink”. Mom was happy, because that means I will stop banging her poor dishes onto the counter!

After that, I ventured out to the public library and got some audio books and CDs to practice listening with. After that, I came home and listened to music all day. When I first started listening to the music (I got tired of NPR for today), I swear that everything sounds like TECHNO! At one point I heard this noise that was different from the music, and realized it was the phone ringing, and right after that, I heard the clock started chiming at the hour! And then there was the clacking of the keyboard keys and the clicking of the mouse buttons. That was VERY exciting.

Throughout the day, I kept telling Jen that the song that just came on sounded like 2 Unlimited’s “Get Ready 4 This”, and that I was positive it was the song. (wrong on all counts!) I finally gave up because I was starting to be able to tell the differences between songs. I also tried to listen to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, but I was having a hard time hearing the words, because I need more clarity/definition in sound. I was also holding Benny today, and he was complaining (quietly) and I was able to hear the quiet meows as compared to yesterday’s loud meows.

When Mom came home from work, I told her about thinking that every song was sounding like the beginning of “Get Ready 4 This”. She wasn’t sure which song I was talking about, so I attempted to imitate the beat and tone that it sounds like. And then I put the song on for her, and she was surprised, because my imitation was very close! I’ve never been able to do that. I think this will help me tremendously with my piano playing and any other instrument that I decide to play.

While we were talking and eating dinner, I heard this sound coming from the other room. I asked mom, what’s that sound? She wasn’t sure, so I was tapping in rhythm with the sound, and it turns out it was the dog drinking water from her bowl! I couldn’t hear that with my hearing aids either! *lap lap lap lap lap* Mom looked so happy and like she was about to cry!

I’m listening to music again, with my favorite songs (250+) on shuffle. I was able to get 3 out of 5 random songs (in a row) correctly identified by artist and title! Some of the songs I was able to identify by the words (Jimmy Buffett’s “Apocalypso”)! Others I was able to identify by the beat and some of the melodies that I can hear. I was a little disappointed when I couldn’t recognize Groove Armada’s “But I Feel Good (Audio Bullys Dr. Feelgood Mix)” (mp3) because that’s one of my most favorite songs.

My other favorite sound discovery for today is the sound that toilet paper makes when you wipe yourself. I didn’t know the paper rustled that much!

Other than that, Jen is in trouble with me because she is on a mission to collect and find magnets that will stick to my head. She’s obsessed with the thoughts of magnets (other than my CI magnet) having the potential to stick to my head. ^.^ I didn’t even think about that till she brought it up! :-p

I’m amused and grateful that my friends are taking such an interest in this whole thing. Not only that, they are willing to help me in whatever way they can. I can’t even REMEMBER the last time that I’ve had hearing friends actually take the initiative to learn more about it on their own, without me having to explain it all to them.

And I got the best email from Dad today about this whole thing, which made me cry. Dad, I love you very much and thank you for what you said.

It wasn’t till 10:09 pm that I finally identified “Get Ready 4 This” correctly! I knew it as soon as it came on!

The Discovered Sounds List
Aug 7, 06 – Mom + Dad’s Voice
Aug 8, 06 – Benny’s (cat) Loud Mrrreeow/”talking”
Aug 9, 06 – Glass Clinking On Counter
Aug 9, 06 – Clock Chiming at Hour in Office
Aug 9, 06 – Phone Ringing
Aug 9, 06 – Keyboard clacking/Mouse clicking
Aug 9, 06 – Elizabeth lapping water in her bowl (from the other room!)
Aug 9, 06 – Hearing myself whistle
Aug 9, 06 – Starting to recognize some favorite songs
Aug 9, 06 – The sound toilet paper makes when you wipe yourself

Songs That I Recognized Today (When I First Started Making The List)
* the first 3 were out of 5 in a row
* All-4-One – “The Bomb”
* Green Day – “Burnout”
* Everclear – “I Will Buy You A New Life” (words)
Jimmy Buffett – “Apocalypso” (words)
S Club 7 – “It’s A Feel Good Thing”
Rage Against The Machine – “Bulls On Parade” (the trigger point for me loving the CI due to the intricacies in some of the notes)
Bowling For Soup – “The Bitch Song”
Van Halen – “Jump”
Sublime – “What I Got”
The Bloodhound Gang – “I Hope You Die”
Vengaboys – “We Like To Party”
Rick Astley – “Never Gonna Give You Up”
Cherry Poppin’ Daddies – “Zoot Suit Riot” (words)
KC And The Sunshine Band – “Get Down Tonight”
The Prodigy – “Firestarter”
Smashmouth – “All Star”
Lenny Kravitz – “Black Velveteen”
Queens Of The Stone Age – “Feel Good Hit Of The Summer”
Boz Scaggs – “Love Me Tomorrow”
Foo Fighters – “Everlong”
*NSYNC – “Bye Bye Bye”
Vitamin C – “The Itch”
The Refreshments – “Down Together”
Jewel – “Who Will Save Your Soul?” (words)
Lou Bega – “Mambo No. 5 (A Little Bit Of…)

2nd Mapping Session less than 24 hours after the 1st one! Tuesday, August 8, 2006

Today I went back to see Megan (less than 24 hours after I had my first mapping session!) to fix some things that were going on with my implant.

I told her about how I emotionally fell apart last night, right after we got home. Both Megan and Kim reassured me that it’s normal to react strongly, and that I’m not the only one who has fallen apart after getting activated. That, and I think the stress of everything since June (mom’s back surgery, my two surgeries, etc.) finally caught up with me. They also told me that other patients were unhappy from anywhere between 1 week to 6 months before they finally liked the way the implant sounded. I also talked about how I felt like I had a radio playing in my head after I took the implant off, and she thinks I may be hearing phantom noises.

They also said that I could come in tomorrow, Thursday, or Friday if I needed to, and we could play around with the implant some more. I felt bad because I didn’t want to take up all their time, because they have other things to do, only to be told “No no no. You’re not taking up our time. We are here to help you and we want you to do well. In fact, our favorite thing to do is Cochlear Implants! So don’t feel bad! And we’re free most of this week.”

Megan started off with trying to eliminate the problem with the “shocking” sensations I was having. We turned off each electrode to see if the shocking would go away, and if things sounded better, and going back and forth. Eventually we turned off electrodes 1, 4, and 8. Electrode 1 sometimes happen because it’s the very first one to enter into the cochlea, and sometimes it’s too deep to provide stimulation. Electrode 4 we don’t know why but we will try again in a few days or weeks. And Electrode 8 was not a surprise to her, because it is right next to where the doctor drilled the hole for the implant, and he did have to drill it 1mm wider 2 weeks ago. She had trouble with getting a response from it in surgery, due to a gigantic air bubble that was present. Hopefully it will clear up soon so we can put it into use.

The volume was also turned waaaaaaaaaay down, and the threshold levels were also lowered. I went up too high too fast with the electrodes, (but it sounded great yesterday!) and when I got into the real world (which is completely different from the quiet and calm of an audiologist booth), I was overwhelmed and getting painfully shocked to the max. My ears are power-hungry and have always been, because they’ve had power Hearing Aids for their entire listening life. Mandy (the audiologist at school) also told me this as well, because I kept wanting “more power!” Kim and Megan talked about how I may not need as much power with this to “listen” because more power = more distortion. We also got rid of all the static that I was hearing with the implant.

Megan also did some more of the words that we used yesterday to see if I could understand them. I’m doing better today, and starting to hear more of the differences in sound (like ‘ch’ in March). Identification is still spotty, but it was better than yesterday. I’m also starting to feel the “sounds” moving around in my head, instead of just on the top of my head…sometimes I “hear” it in my left ear, or on the back of the left-side of the head.

In addition to the fine-tuning, I got new processing strategies/programs today.

The first program is the one I started off with, just a little bit louder (after all of today’s adjustments were done). It’s a “sequential” program, which sends the information like playing scales/chords on a piano. She told me that most people tend to stick with the very first processing strategy that they start off with after activation.

The second program is a “pulse” program, which sends information like chopsticks on a piano. The third program I think is the same as the first program (but I’m not sure how it’s different), but it sounded the most like my hearing aids to me, and I liked this one the best (at the moment). At this point, I need to keep my hearing aid off for awhile, because my hearing aid is “overpowering” the implant (even after I turned the volume down as low as it could go), and I’m focused more on listening with the ear that I can hear more with.

Megan also gave me some information for my friends, so everybody can try to calm down (including me!) and understand how the implant is going to work, and the process of understanding sound, because we’re all excited about it, and that excitement is causing to have a little bit of too high expectations (especially in me). I love you guys very much, but we need to step back and take baby steps.

I also have a xeroxed listening journal and it’s so cute. It has a “listening scavenger hunt” in which I can write down when I first heard a specific sound on the list, and when I first am able to identify it on my own. It’s almost like a baby’s 1st… kind of book.

After that, I left all happy and relieved because I wasn’t being shocked in the head anymore, and because it sounded much better now. I was writing down the times into my sidekick, when I got an email from Mandy (my school audiologist) who wanted to see what was going on and how activation went (since I hadn’t talked to her since surgery #2). Then Dr. M came out of his office just right before I went out the door, and looked surprised to see me there. On the way home, I listened to Christina Aguilera’s first CD, and couldn’t hear “Genie In A Bottle” but I was getting some of her voice in “So Emotional” and “Reflection”, and the first part of “Come On Over Baby (All I Want Is You)”. I can’t really hear the music at all, but the vocal part is what I’m hearing (sometimes).

When Mom came home, I updated her on everything, and she went over the months again with me, and she was happy because I was able to hear the ‘ch’ in March. I’m having trouble with March/May/June, and the J and F in January/February, but I can hear “uary”. She repeated one word that I’ve always said wrong (without telling me), and covered her mouth, and I was able to say it back to her correctly on the first try, which I’ve always said incorrectly.

Right now, I’ve been attending to the job of listening with each program for a few hours, and keep track of information about how it sounded and differences with each program. I’ve been listening to National Public Radio (suggested for practice) for most of the afternoon, and it’s mostly just pulses on the top of my head (I think my brain is getting tired), but I do pick up a part of speech now and then. I only seem to hear speech when it’s up close to me. Background noises exist as a pulse on the top of my head.

But right now my hearing life is basically pulses. A few speech sounds here and there, but that’s it. It’s good enough for me for the 2nd day. I am happy.