Sound from the CI

Due to recent visitors who may not know about cochlear implants, I'll explain a bit about the sound:

As I was late-deafened, I 'remember' sound so I can compare how it is to normal hearing.

When it is first switched on, there is noise. As in my video, I was spoken to but all it sounded like was one high pitch, no understanding at all. I was expecting actual speech so that was a bit of a shock.

Coming out of the office after activation, when playing with my mobile phone, I could hear the clicking of the keypad! It was the everyday type noises that I recognised almost right away and I spent weeks revelling in all those little things that people take for granted, like the click of the light switch being turned on and off and the pffssshhhttt noise when opening soft drink.

It took about 2 weeks before I could understand speech without lipreading. I believe that is really fast, some CI recipients who are born deaf my never get to that point.

I could not live without my implant. It has helped me so much. Saying that, it is not like 'real' hearing. It can still sound a bit hollow and robotic. I am still hard-of-hearing because I don't understand everything. I find it very difficult to hear when there is a lot of background noise. I still prefer to have subtitles when I watch TV and movies.

I couldn't use the phone when I had hearing aids, I could not understand a thing. But now I can pick up the phone and talk to my loved ones and that is priceless :)

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!!!

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.

3 month checkup

Yesterday was my 3 month check-up at the audiologist since my Cochlear Implant was switched on. I did a hearing test and it has been a very long time since the lines on my audiogram have been that high ;)

She asked how it was going, its all good... she doesn't think I'll need to come in at the 6 month mark because I'm doing so fabulously and I'll see her in a year! Sounds like she'll pass on my email address to people having CI assessments so they can talk to someone who has recently had it done, yaay!

I think I've reached a stalemate when it comes to the CI, I think I'll always need subtitles with the TV and the phone is difficult.

More tests

After I finally got to the Audiologist, it was explained it would be a quick appointment and I didn't even get hooked up to the computer!

More speech tests, more blitzing. She is SO pleased at how I'm going.
I asked about rehabilitation/therapy and she said I don't need it, I'm doing fine as I am. It's just a matter of exposure now.

I also asked am I just doing really, really well or if my progress is normal. She said its not unexpected with my history of hearing aid use and they tell people it'd be months before understanding speech so expectations are low.

"Now we'll test the phone" she says. I said I tried testing the phone with Mum before, I couldn't understand a thing. "Does she have a cordless?" Yes...apparently cordless phones are really terrible.
She also said it helps if I know what is being said and while I'm practicing phone use, to get the call-ee to read out my speech exercises and me work them out

So WE practiced that (she went into another room and called) and I got it! OMG, USING THE PHONE! I even got all the stuff like 'ok, I'll read them out now' and 'thats great, I'll come back in a sec' !!!

Sooo.... who has a corded landline and wants to call me and read out nursery rhymes (or something familar) for me to practice with?!! :P

Music

I was listening to music on the weekend... it doesn't sound the same per se, but it sounded a lot better than it did the first day I tried listening to music. I did expect to be hearing new instruments and I was right!! I don't know what its called... its part of the drum kit, the bit that looks like 2 cymbals. Run to Paradise uses that instrument in the first few bars, did you all know that? :P
And Axel F sounds a hellava lot better!

Garth and I went to see Revenge of the Sith at Moonlight Cinemas... about halfway through, some people from the audience walked to the front, lit up their LIGHTSABRES and did a mock fight. It was so cool.
But the most exciting part of the night was actually understanding most of the movie! Even at the end Garth said to me “I could tell you were understanding the movie because you were laughing at what Yoda said”… you can’t lip read Yoda! YAAAAY!!!

I'll tell you what drove me nuts today.... black cockatoos!!! Sitting at my desk at work, then suddenly.... OMG, I can hear the cockatoos! And they SOUNDED like cockatoos! I got over that very quickly, they are annoying too :P

Speech

I forgot to mention that last Friday, on my arrival at Mums, I was putting stuff away when Garth asks me a question from behind me... and I answered it without thinking. It wasn't until Garth said "You understood what I said!!" that I realised I wasn't lipreading!!
It happened again later on in the night when he tried to say "now we can't trick her anymore" without me knowing, haha.

But today was amazing. We had a section meeting where I can never understand anything. But I could today! Even when the speaker had her back to me, I was still understanding what she was saying! Of course, then I'd get so excited that I could understand, it would break my concentration and I'd lose the thread of speech again, haha. My supervisor looked over at me and asked if I wanted to swap seats so I could see/hear better and I said I could understand (!!) and she got really excited too :)

First tune up

Yesterday was my first tune up. It was so funny, the audiologist walked into the waiting room and saw me and she broke out in a huge smile and said "Hi Nikki!! How are you going??!!" Then when we went into her office she said "I've been thinking about you this week, how have you been managing??" She's a lovely lady :) (I also think I'm only her second CI patient, lol)

It was all pretty straight forward, listening to tones and telling her the softest I could hear. I really hate doing this because the sounds get mixed up with my tinitus and my brain will repeat the sound back to me so I'll say "yep, heard that" when there is nothing there! Apparently this is NORMAL, haha!

I was a bit disappointed to find out that she'd given me all my pitches the first time round. I could swear I'm missing some, my really low tones have disappeared. She did try to explain it to me but I didn't really understand it, I think its something to do with a pitch threshold which gets smaller as you get older and I have the threshold of an old person. That didn't make ANY sense, I think I missed half of what she was saying (the CI was off at that point, haha).

So she changed some pitches and gave me more volume! YAAAY! I think she thought it was too loud but I love it and I don't have to worry about it being too loud and making me go more deaf :P She said it might sound strange but it sounded how it did before, which made me wonder how gradual the change was.

Now... the exciting bit. She did a speech test. I must admit, its a controlled environment but I closed my eyes (ie, no lipreading) and listed some random colours and I got them! Ditto with months of the year! OMG!

And at work yesterday, I had to check some videos to make sure the picture and sound is ok (I have no idea why they get me to check sound, pfft). But I was watching it and suddenly I realised..... I could understand the voice overs. And there was an ANIMATED video and I was understanding EVERY WORD.
Before we get too excited, I realised a few things. I had headphones, there was no background noise. And the videos I had the most luck understanding were children's videos and they tend to talk a bit slower. But.... OMG!!!!!!

New Sounds
Petrol station checkout beeping when reciept printed
Video rewinding

Difference between hearing aid and CI

It is amazing the difference between the CI and my hearing aid… now, I still have to wear my hearing aid in my other ear or I’d never understand speech. But the sound from the CI is so *clear*, the hearing aid sounds “dull” in comparison (and I’ve done tests!).
So sometimes I’m unsure if a sound is new or if it’s just sounding crystal clear instead of muffled.

It cuts out background noise. Hearing aids are *supposed* to do this, but I can say that’s absolute bullshit, all they do is increase it. Unless the CI is on such a low volume that it doesn’t pick it up… we’ll find out when it gets turned up.

Speech is still a write-off, its still a horrible garbled noise. About the only thing I can make is “s”. I still love words with S in it after missing out on it for so long :)

TV sounds awful, only because music and talking are all garbled

I think I’ve only been given my “middle” pitches back. I’ve lost my low tones. Someone suggested they are just being evened out with the higher pitches but there are some really obvious noises I used to be able to hear which are missing. And the volume needs to be louder!

My mobile makes it buzz. Damnit. Will have to research if there are any phones which don’t make it buzz, I want to make mobile calls! (this reminds me, someone keeps calling me. I can’t use the phone yet folks!)

The batteries lasted 5 days. THREE batteries, FIVE days. As opposed to my hearing aid using ONE battery lasting 3 weeks. It just conked out just then *Grin*

It takes ages to get to sleep because my mind buzzes after the noise all day. And even though a lot of the time I try to let sound just wash over me instead of concentrating on it, its making me tired too. Then back at work! No wonder I’m buggered :)

New sounds!

Last night was Rhi's housewarming and that was fantastic! After planning on only staying a short while, I ended up staying all night! It was so good to catch up with everyone, I've felt so hermit-ish lately.

New sounds:
Car indicator
Keys rattling
Ice clinking in the glass
PFFSSHHTT : opening soft drink bottles

New Sounds
Light switches
Taffy’s nails on the floorboards
Tape dispenser
Oven timer ticking over
Squeaky work chair

So exciting :)

SWITCH ON!!

IT'S ON!!!! And the sound is nothing like anything I've ever heard in my life. Thank god I was told by lots of people I was going to hate it, now I'm not too fazed about how strange it all sounds.

I had reached the point yesterday that I didn't care how the weird the sound would be, I just wanted to know it all worked ok. So after the audiologist went through the whole process and explained how everything worked, she plugged the Speech Processor into the computer and it DIDN'T WORK. She tried to reassure me it was the computer and not me and she eventually restarted the computer and then it worked. I must've been holding my breath the whole time, suddenly I could breathe again, lol.

Then she went through some tones and I had to tell her the softest tone I could hear... we did that through all the pitches and she warned the high pitches would sound weird but they all sounded the same to me. Dane, meanwhile, is taking pictures of me the whole time, lol.

Then the audiologist turns to Dane and says, get the camera ready, this is the actual switch on where she'll be able to hear. I thought great, he's going to get a pic of me bawling my eyes out.

She turns it on, and as explained, just kept slowly turning it up until it got to loud and I'd tell her to stop.

The sound was just so weird, all it was like was this high pitched, garbled, continuous noise. This was people TALKING. I had to indicate to get her to stop turning it up, I didn't even want to talk, my voice sounded so weird. Then everyone is trying to talk to me and its so weird and I said "it sounds like aliens!" and just burst into tears (just like i predicted). Mum and dad got all teary too, I think they thought I was happy-crying because there was sound but it was bloody awful. Dane didn't actually take pictures, he FILMED it! (I love our digital cameras!)

She turned it down and that really helped, either that or my brain adjusted to the sound quickly enough to realise this funny high pitched noise is people talking. There was a delay between the noise and it actually reaching me. I described it as the noise sounding "stringy" but that makes no sense... its almost like a radio frequency, a noise that makes no sense.

Now, this is all normal, its going to be a while before things make sense.

Speech is just weird, I can't make anything out. But NOISES!! I had absolutely NO IDEA that the keypad on my mobile phone makes clicky noises! I can HEAR THE RINGTONE! We visited my grandparents on the way home and I heard the DOORBELL from far away!! I can hear the noises Taffy's plastic bucket makes and I had no idea at all it even made noise! I heard a BIRD! (tho, it didn't sound like a bird, I could just tell there was a noise). I can hear "SSSS"!

Everything else is just garbled. Thankfully, the CI is better than a hearing aid where a low volume stays at a low volume so nothing is really loud to me at the moment, I'm just supposed to be getting used to different pitches.

It's been a huge morning and now I'm completely buggered :)

Sounds I'm looking forward too

I’m going to make a LIST of all the things I’m looking forward to hearing/doing again if this CI works.

* using the PHONE! I’m not sure if I’d be able to use a mobile.. but WOW, that would be UNREAL
* going to Gold Class (or really, any normal movie)
* hearing the car indicator, keys rattling, birds, the FFSSHHTT when opening fizzy drink bottles
* group conversations
* conversations in the dark
* conversations that don’t require lip-reading
* understanding speeches!
* TV without subtitles
* dvds without subtiles (bring on Joan of Arcadia!)
* understanding the radio
* hearing my mobile go off
* hearing the punchlines of a joke the FIRST time
* cyclists who ring their bells behind me while I’m rollerblading (hahahaha!)

God, I can’t believe that’s all I can think of. There should be billions of things. I'm seeing the audiologist in the new year, I'll have to find out what day I get switched on!!!