Home at last ....

Sunday 8^th December.

Finally home, and with time to sit and breathe! It’s been a hectic couple of days since I last wrote! My tune up with Arlene went well. We redid all the electrodes and moved them up. I still find it hard to pick a “comfortably loud” level and suspect I am perhaps being over cautious, but I’d rather do that than set them too high and suffer and not want to wear the CI.

When it was switched on, we then chatted for a bit and she would turn them all up a few times. She played warbles from a machine and based on which ones sounded loud, and how loud turned them up a few more times. Based on descriptions of sound she adjusted some of the lower ones up more, and some of the high ones down a bit. We talked about “S” and “P” and she said they usually just use the “S” program now and not the “P”. They won’t put a loop on yet so I have just two programs – one is normal and the other is the same with Optima on to try and see if it sounds the same or not and how the battery life alters. I've not put that one on yet though I need to get round to trying it.

She gave me (I think) 20% on volume so I have some room to play, and in any case I am back a week tomorrow for the last map before Christmas, so it’s quite good spacing I think. I’d hate to wait a full month at the moment.

By the time I left the office, I was hearing some background sounds – like the fan which I hadn’t heard before. Her voice was clearly a voice with speech shapes but robotic and not normal, but far better than when I arrived I think.

I spent the rest of Friday travelling – taxi / train / train / bus / plane and finally landed in Kirkwall to snow and Ice at 8pm!!

I didn't really make much sense of stuff that day – far too much background noise and nothing familiar. I could hear the train as well as the people talking behind me. I heard the announcements on the train quite clearly, and also announcements in the airport – by clearly I mean I could the speech but not understand it.

Oh I forgot – before I left the centre I had to do the computer tests again. I  got 91% in the speech and lipreading – but most of that was lipreading!! I got 31% in the speech only (no lipreading) it was mostly the first and last bits and random words – but that was almost as good as I got before the CI – though as ever it’s not reflected in the real world!!

I did some extra tests I had never done before – environmental sounds (I thought classical music was a car engine- oops!), some with vowels in the middle on a touch screen, and some forced choice with different syllables. The vowels were pretty rubbish – so many of them sound the same. The syllables were easy – the environmental sounds quite mixed.

I arrived home at 10.30 a.m after a 3 hr boat ride – yuck. I was tired but had an hour before we had to be at the school for the Xmas fayre! It was a whirlwind of everyone wanting to see the implant, and talk to me – I’m so glad that people are sounding robotic but speech like as I could chat to them all as well as I could before the op I think. No chance of comprehension with them without lipreading in an open set fashion of course, but I am doing well with months of the year with Stephen – and with Ned - I even realised when he tried to trick me by saying "bum" instead! J

The xmas fayre was fine – noisy, confusing, tiring, but with lipreading I did OK. I got home at 4.30 to find an invite to an Xmas party that night! I was tired, but decided to go anyway as I knew Stephen wanted to go, so I figured we would do an hour or two and then head home. We got there at 8pm and left at 2am! The CI is great for making people aware, and more careful about their communication. I'm also less bothered to admit I didn't follow and get people to repeat, and I ended up having quite long conversations with a couple of people I've not spoken to before much, simply because they were more aware and I was less self-conscious!

One thing I did learn, which surprised me – apparently before the op I was very quietly spoken!! And now I am much louder – I kept both being too loud (and being told to stop shouting!) or too quiet and no-one can hear me!! That will I hope resolve itself, but I must keep asking people to let me know if I am too quiet or loud so I can get it right. I do not want to be someone that shouts all the time and is embarrassing!!

Plan for today is to squeeze a bit of listening practice in with a few of the kids, and Kate has already offered to do ½ hr a day with me in the office which will be fantastic! However I am currently in silence - bar the ever present Christmas tinnitus of course as I've managed to let all three batteries go flat at once (!) In my defence I was out all day yesterday, not getting home till 2a.m -but I need to get a bit more sorted at getting a routine in place. Here's hoping they charge nice and quickly!!