its about time

I have been working with the button on the processor that regulates sound. I am starting to feel comfortable with the handling of my processor beyond the off/on switch and the changing of the batteries. The sound quality for me has been up and down. The auditory nerve that sends sound messages to the brain is still all over the place. It has been six months with this new hearing and it is a matter of time before I have an ideal map and the nerves settle. I STILL prefer the CI hearing experience over the hearing aids, with all its tormented trials and trembling tribulations. I would guess it is 70% good for environmental sound and 60% good for speech understanding. I have a persistent habit of turning to look at peoples lips. I have to make an effort to keep my eyes elsewhere when someone speaks to me. Deliberately, in conversation, my eyes rest on a persons eyes rather than on the mouth.

I attended a CHHA (Canadian Hard of Hearing Association) conference last week. I had trouble hearing speech in a noisy enviroment and couldn't figure out how to tame the echoing noise that I was dealing with. I was delighted (and admittedly, most relieved) to find one of my audiologists there. She informed me that Cochlear Corp has been re-looking at the mapping strategies and that there would be further training for the CI professionals at the end of October. She gave me helpful suggestions to focus on in the next little while. As this conference was geared to the hard of hearing, they had trade show booths with products to assist hearing. I had a chance to try out assistive listening devices that hook up to my cell phone. I learned about an FM that will work in bluetooth and that was so slick. It is hands-free, with zero background noise allowing for perfect listening conditions on the phone where ever I go. It is not cheap, but in my philosophy, where there is a will, there is a way and I will have one of those some day.


I managed to get my hearing aid in for some programming adjustments as well. I still need to work with it and pay attention to how it supports my CI. My HA audiologist remarked how well I could hear her with the CI and agreed the CI was a good choice for me. When I make appointments, I have an easier time listening to the details as I look at my calendar "..October 11th, 1pm..." I think my penmanship will improve. Its about time.