There had been Love and Hate relationship with my Cochlear Implant, the bad times were the horrible high pitched sounds at the beginning like Paper rustling, cutlery on plates, pans clanging in the kitchen! This sound has now been “tuned” out as I got used to it. I don’t mind them now. The weight of it is still an issue to me, I cannot seem to get comfortable with it and had tried different methods, At the moment I am using longer hook (especially for Kids) and realised its bit more comfortable. I hope there would be an improvement soon or new lighter processor.
I still enjoy the sounds of DIFFERENT birds and can recognise some of them! My beloved dog’s tags brought me a lot of comfort of his whereabouts while out on a walk. I can now hear Misty, My very old cat, walking on tiles very softly.
The upside of having CI is that I no longer struggle to understand much. My headaches from hard conteration and tiredness from listening/lip-reading all day had radically reduced. Therefore I get more sound input of ALL of my waking hours whereas I used to pull my HA’s out as soon I am at home. And for the first time in my life I had no ear infections for at least one year and hope this continues *touches wood*
My home life had become easier as I hears water running from upstairs, boiled kettle, Microwave pinging. Now there is something dripping.... must investigate....
My friends/colleagues are getting very happy for me as they excitedly call my name just to see if I am still responding to them on the first call.
They also had taken me to my first concert and first cinema without subtitles.
I have gone through 249 batteries (83 changes) comparing to one battery change every 2 weeks with the hearing aid. I am hoping that there would be allowance for me to use rechargeable but the centre won’t give me one as they cause problems with the battery compartment and isn’t reliable. I wanted to have choices of using both batteries, disposables for when I am away from home and rechargeable when I am at home.There is still a long journey to go, I am in process of having speech and language therapy and so far I have attended 4 hours worth, it had been going well, this therapy would help me to recognise words/phases/sentences. It would be long and hard slog. I have been without Speech hearing all my life and it would take 10,000 of hours of practice and its hard when I live alone. My hearing friend, Laura is helping me with my listening as much as she could before she goes back to Antarctica this October.
Overall I am very happy with my progress and my decision in getting CI
And oh I am having one year review (3 and a bit weeks late!!) on the 15th september, to be honest i am not looking forward to it. I had knock back at my 9 month review when my lipreading/listening scores had dropped. It would be an all day appointment. Hearing test/tune up then SLT then lunch then to see the surgeon.
Anyway.... “Happy Hearing Birthday” to my ear!
