Day 2

Well, not a whole lot to report from today. We went back to see Meg and she tweaked my programs a little. I'm still hearing a high pitched tone, but sometimes it seems I may get a smidge of variety in the tone. I have 3 programs like I did yesterday. As I max out the volume on the first one, then I move up to the second, max it out, then move on to the third. I don't go back to the audiologist for 2 weeks. However, if something comes up and I feel the need to go in, she's just a phone call away!

Meg was pleased that I heard Scarlet "beep" at me last night! Even though I'm not hearing actual sounds, I'm still picking up things that I normally would not hear. My beeping is a normal occurrence and with time it will change into real sounds. It's just going to take a while. She also said that people with my type of steep slope hearing loss will generally have a little harder time. By "steep slope" I'm referring to the fact that I had hearing in the low tones, but it dropped off in a steep slope from there. People who have a more flat hearing loss will adapt more easily. Why do I always have to be in the "problem" category??? Somebody tell me WHY!!! Oh well, it will come. It may take a little longer, but it will happen eventually!!

I need to start hearing therapy soon! I need to get some books on tape and the actual book that goes along with it. That way I can listen to someone reading the words and I can follow along so that my brain can put the two together. Also I can read out loud to myself or have Rick read out loud and I follow along. That way the brain hears the word and sees the word and that will help it make sense of what it's hearing. This will really help things along, however, I can't rush things. The brain will adapt at it's own speed. I can help it, but I can't push it.

Right now my brain is getting information and sounds that it has not heard in a million years. It has no clue what to do with this info. It is also receiving the information in a weird way. It's not coming in by way of normal hearing, but there's an electronic device in my cochlea that is sending electronic impulses up my auditory nerve.......my poor brain is all confused!! It doesn't take much to send it into a frenzy!! But with time it will figure it all out.

Well, I just heard the phone ring!! That's something I don't usually hear. Right now it's fairly quiet. Rick has laid down to take a nap, the kitties are snoozing and I'm here at the computer. There's no other noise. If it's noisy, it's hard for me to pick out a specific sound because it all blends in together and gets overwhelming. All I hear is one big mass of noise. Quiet can be really nice sometimes!!!

Oh!! Something else!! After surgery, Dr. Jones told us that there was one electrode that wasn't functioning correctly. They can hook up the implant to a computer to get a reading from each electrode to see how it is doing. Meg explained more about it today. The first time he inserted the electrodes, they got bad readings on 6 electrodes. That was entirely too many. He took it out and tried again. The second time there was just the 1 electrode. That's not bad, so he left it alone. Usually the electrode may be too close to something in the cochlea, there may be swelling or it's just in a bad spot. However, she ran another test yesterday and they are all working great!! The "bad" one has adjusted or moved or whatever it does, and now its reading is right in line with all the others! YAY!!!!! That's great!

That's about it for today. I thought this was going to be a short post. That's what I get for thinking!!! Hopefully in a few days I'll have more juicy stuff to report!!

Here is Scarlet -- The Wonder Beeping Kitty!!