More phone!

I love the phone now! I seem to be making a habit of updating everytime I use the phone succesfully, lol.
Todays phone story: Nikki emailed Garth to ring somewhere and book a table for her. Garth takes a long time to email back. Nikki gets impatient and calls Garth on his mobile. Garth is too busy to make phone calls for Nikki but expresses surprise at how well she can follow the conversation while he's on the mobile. Nikki likes mobiles because people talk DIRECTLY into the mouthpiece.
Anyway, Nikki tries to call Mum to get her to call for a table reservation but Mum isn't home. Doh. So Nikki calls herself! And she did really well, she got all the information she wanted. Nikki rocks :P
(The WHOLE POINT of me getting the CI was so I could use the phone again! God, I am so happy about it, I managed to do well enough to USE THE PHONE. That is the ultimate CI success, IMHO).

Switch on anniversary

It has now been over a year since I've been switched on!

I can't put into words what a fantastic decision it was to get a CI. I'm starting to take noises for granted now but every now and then there will be something that will remind me.

I hope I never ever take understanding speech without lip-reading for granted. Just the past couple of weeks I have called people for appointments, etc, something that I would never have done a year ago. And going to normal movies, something I always avoided... and watching TV without subtitles without needing someone to repeat what was said every 5 minutes!!

One of the best parts is having confidence in knowing I've heard something correctly, without a lot of guesswork involved. I LOVE that.

Plans for the other ear??... bring on re-growing cochlear hairs!!!

1 year anniversary

Today it has been exactly 1 year since I got a hole drilled in my head and then spent the longest week of my life in hospital staring at white walls willing them to stop spinning. Actually, the dizziness didn't hit me until the next day and thats when I became a total wreck :P This day last year, I looked like a Simpson character because they drowned me in Betadine :P


**EDIT And dad just called me here at work and the first thing he said was "A year ago you wouldn't have been able to do this!" haha

Phone!

I just had a work-related phone call! OMG, I understood what they said and helped them and everything!! And she had an ACCENT!!!!!

ARRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

*dance of joy*

CI adjustment

My CI was adjusted this morning and my beautiful "s" sounds have a buzz quality to them. Sigh.

More work phone

I emailed my dad this morning telling him my brakes are making awful scraping noises and would the mechanic fit me in tomorrow? Apparently brake noises are REALLY BAD so he called the RAC for me. RAC came and listened to brakes and looked at them and said "drive it STRAIGHT to the mechanic".

My mechanic is a legend. He said I could go in right away and he will fix it then and there, even though its his last day before closing down for the year.

So I was gone for about an hour and a half! So came back to work and rang Dad and he couldn't believe how quick it was fixed. And how well I did on the phone, he thought it was much easier than dealing with the situation over email. I thought so too. Was especially pleased to have someone other than dad answer the phone and still understand everything!!

Work phones

I sent mum and email yesterday so I thought I would call her and let her know I emailed her so she could check it (because I am very impatient and I like replies RIGHT NOW). So I called her from a work phone, partly to say "hey, check your email" and partly to see how I manage the work phones.

I am the only person in the library without a phone, I'm sure they've done this with good intentions so people don't call me but I can still talk to mum!! This phone rocks, its better than my home one. So I ended up having a conversation with her and understood everything!

So this morning my boss (who sits across from me and probably heard every word I said yesterday) asked would I like a phone. So I am getting a phone! YAAAY! Now I can call mum and dad, yaaay!! I might even try answering a work call to see how I go! whooo!

Fiddling

I was just fiddling with buttons on my CI the other day (I was trying to find the sensitivity) when this "+L" came up. Then I pressed the same buttons again and a "-L" comes up. I did this a few times to try to work out what that meant but it all sounded the same.

Then I went to call Garth and I went to switch it to the telecoil and it wouldn't do anything, it just beeped at me. It was THEN I figured that +L and -L means lock!! It locked the controls! That'd be a safety thing for little kids. But I'm glad I worked that out :P

New CI stuff

About a month ago I got excited about a new battery case that was coming out which was smaller and used less batteries. When I asked about it, it hadn't been released in Australia, only the US (never mind the fact that Cochlear Ltd is an AUSTRALIAN COMPANY)

Its finally been released here, along with rechargeable batteries (I assume for the larger casing). I got some advertising leaflets in the mail about it. And I nearly fell over when I saw how much they were charging for this stuff

Bare in mind I nearly fell over when they told me the cord that connects directly from the CI to an iPod cost $100.

Rechargeable battery (2 of them... with the battery power lasting only one day and will last 362 charges) is $562.50. And thats at 25% off!! I don't spend that much on batteries in a year!

The new smaller battery case is *drumroll* $337.50! Also at 25% off.

So won't bother getting the new accessories.

Tinkling

Lightbulbs falling from sockets make a lovely tinkling sound when they hit the ground and smash into billions of shards.

They keep making this lovely tinkling noise when you sweep up all the pieces too!

In other news, I can't change lightbulbs.