Wednesday 4th
December.
I headed back to Kilmarnock for a session
with Susan. I explained how the rest of Tuesday had gone, and showed her the
notebook I had jotted down sounds, listening practice etc. We hooked up and did
a new map (I assume as we reset all the electrode levels!) And guess what? This
time I could hear everyone of those electrodes!! As an actual sound – beeping
over and over! We pushed them all up a fair bit, and I felt more confident at
saying when it was a good level. I still erred on the side of caution, cautious
that whole day of that sound level might be overwhelming. Then she switched it
on – what a difference! There is still warbling with high sounds, but more of a
robotic underlying – speech sounds more speech shaped, but not that clear and
definitely robotic! We tested the volume level by her banging on the table and
then slapping – both were loud but not wince in pain loud which Susan was happy
with J
Then we did a little bit of rehab. We started with her
saying one of three words, with diff syllables in – all right. We then tried
one of 4 sentences – all right J
we then did a sentence with a choice of two words – e.g fed / food. All similar
sounding and I got pretty much all of those right – go me!! Then finally we
tried some open set questions such as what is your name? Do you watch television?
I had nothing to look at and no idea what they would be. I got some of them
partly right and one completely right. It was a lot harder, but the fact that I
even got parts of them right on day 2 (especially considering day 1!) was
amazing! Perhaps I am having a delayed rock star moment!!
I asked about having a t program put on for headphones but
they don’t really want me to use headphones yet – not entirely sure why
blocking out environmental sounds for practice periods is bad but still! I am
also still only on the “S” strategy. She gave me 20% more volume on the volume
control in case I needed it.
I headed back to Glasgow to meet Stephen and we spent the
afternoon doing a bit of shopping and having some food. When there is any other
noise I lose his voice – it’s not robotic – it’s not there! I think it’s
because its familiar so the brain is focusing mainly on the new and unfamiliar
to figure out what it is, which is why I hear so much warbling – that’s high
sounds.
I didn't get to do any specific auditory practice that day,
but we did go buy me a Kindle Fire HDX as a Christmas Pressie (which I am
totally having early!) so I can use the immersion reading option. If you have
both the kindle and the audible book it will play them both together and then
highlight the words on the screen whilst reading – which will stop me getting
lost and having to repeat the same bits over and over again!
We had a works award dinner that night. It is my worst
nightmare with two hearing aids, never mind just one baby CI warbling ear! I
stayed close to Stephen and our friend Clive who was also there. I managed to
have a conversation with someone next to me reasonably OK (but my lipreading is
super fantastic at the moment so that helped – but he did sound robotic and so
I was getting some speech help from the CI – but overlaid with warbles from all
the background noise).
By 10pm I was shattered so I left early and had an hour
reading with no CI before sleep.
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