Don't Be Scared!!!!!!!

Yes! I actually am going to mosey over here and lay down a few words! Since last we spoke.....

At my March 14 appointment with Meg, she stuck me in the booth to see how I measured up at the one year mark. We all know how much I love the booth!! However, it is nice to see how much things have changed. With the sentences, I got 35 out of 52 words correct, for a score of 67%. There were 3 sentences that I got completely right. For the word list (which is much harder), I got 11 out of 25 right, which is 44%. I got 47 out of 75 phonemes (partial words), which is 63%. Coming right along! This is a big improvement from the way things were before!

We keep making changes and some of them I just don't like. Sometimes it seems like things are not as good as they were at a previous time. So we keep trying this and trying that! About a month ago, Meg was trying different tones that corresponded with certain electrodes. There were some high pitches, which are the last electrodes, that I actually felt before I heard them! It set off a pain in my head! She thinks it's possible that I may have never heard in those ranges and therefore the nerve and my brain are having a hard time processing them. So, she set me up with a program that cut off the last 2 electrodes and another program that cut off the last 3. I had to see how that worked. Plus, she left the current program that I had been using.

I couldn't really say which of the 2 programs I liked better (with the electrodes cut off), but after using those for a while, I switched back to my original program (with all electrodes firing) and really noticed a difference! The original was worser!!! Yes, worser!! It really did kind of shock me.

So, back to Meg I went last Friday. We are now trying the program with the last 2 'trodes cut off. AND she stuck be back in that da-gone booth!! This time I got 49 out of 57 words which is 86%!!! WooHoo!! I got 7 of the sentences completely right! So, things are still improving! However, for the single word test, things have not changed much. For the words, I had 44% and 69% for the phonemes. She said we need to work on increasing some of the low tones without them taking over the other frequencies. I guess we'll be working on that later.

She has given me homework. Oh, I love homework. Rick has to read to me while I follow along. We need to do this most days of the week for at least 15 minutes. Then, after about 3 weeks, I am to listen only.....no following the words. This helps me work on my hearing skills. The more practicing I do, the better things should get.

So, that's where we are right now. I don't go back to Meg for 3 months, unless I feel the need to. If I don't like this program or feel that something needs to be changed, then I give her a buzz and she'll work on me some more! Poor Meg. I do feel sorry for the poor girl.