All Systems Go!!!

Yesterday was my 2 week appointment with Meg. It is hard to believe that it has only been 2 weeks. It seems like I've had this thing FOREVER!! I think that's why, at times, it seems like I haven't come very far. I think it's because I'm so focused on it all the time......seeing what I hear, what I don't hear, how things sound, listening for the "dialing" effect, on and on and on. That makes time really drag out.

The doctor has started me on a diuretic to see if that helps with the dialing effect. They think it may be fluid. Don't know for sure. So, I'm trying this to see if it helps. If so, great!! If not, we'll try something else!

Meg tweaked my programs some more. She also ran another impedance test and some of the numbers are rising. They are still plenty low, but they have gone up a little since the last test -- 2 weeks ago. She has no clue why this is happening. She's going to talk to the AB people and see if they have any ideas. I think I'm going to be a real challenging case...... I seem to have a lot of issues!! :-) At least I'll keep these people on their toes!! Make them earn their money!!

She ran another test to see how the cochlea and nerve were responding and that all looked good. It's just weird some of the things they can test!! We re-did a couple of simple tests that she did the first day she hooked me up. She shows me a paper with 6 words on it. She goes over the words (rainbow, toothpaste, baseball, bluebird, hot dog, ice cream), then covers her face and I have to tell her which word she's saying. The day of my hook up, I got none. Rick thinks I got 2. Either 0 or 2.......it was bad. Yesterday I got 6 of 7! Now, I'm not actually hearing the real words, but I'm picking up enough to guess at what she's saying. Then she did another one that was sounds......ooooooo, eeeeee, mmmmm, sssss, sh, aaaaa......I got 4 of 6 on that one. Again -- I got none the first time. Also, the first time I didn't even hear the ssss or sh. Yesterday, I could probably hear those the best. Snappy!!! She is mighty impressed. I guess it doesn't take much to thrill her!! NEXT, she put me in the sound booth where they do the normal hearing tests. She just ran some sounds through the speaker -- I didn't have on the ear phones. They were soft sounds.....Rick said it was kind of like white noise.....and very soft. This test is the one that really blew me away!! I barely heard them, but heard something. Then she showed me the chart. On the test pre-CI, the lowest tone that I heard was somewhat below the normal hearing line, the next tone dropped farther down, the next one was way down, then beyond that, it was off the chart.....I didn't hear anything at all. The sounds from yesterday were all around the normal hearing range!! These are sounds that I could not hear before. That was too wild!!! I mean, really blew me away!!! She says I am doing great, right on target and the progress I have made is HUGE!! WHOOOPEEE!!!!

I go back to see her in 3 weeks. This will be right before we head off to Vegas. Oh man....I LOVE Vegas!!!! Anyway, she wants to see me before we go in case we need to tweak the programs some. Also, she'll give me a Vegas program. I'm thinking SNAAAPPPYY!! She'll take out some of the high pitches.....kind of a noise reduction, so hopefully all the noise won't kill my ear! As long as I hear that DING DING DING when I win-----that's all I need!!!!!

I am starting to be able to tell some differences in sounds. It's still mostly just noise, but I can tell some differences. At work this morning, I was at the microwave heating water for some tea..... and I guess, since she changed my programs, things were pretty loud. The microwave was a roar, but I heard somebody come in the door and realized what it was. Then I heard the bell ding on the microwave. I don't think I've noticed all of that before!! It's so cool!!

This evening I was deleting phone numbers off of our caller id and heard the beep of the buttons come through loud and clear! Snappy again!!! So............things............they are a-changin'!!!!

It's all very exciting and pretty wild when I think about it! I have been very blessed!!!