It had been long time since my last blog.

Over few months it had been a bit of roller coaster ride. I had my one year review in September, My lipreading had improved that it's back where I was at 6 month review (at my 9 month it dropped to 79) now I am hoovering at 86%, when it came to BKB (non lipreading) although I had listening practices and did very well at them but when it came to the BKB I had an panic!! I cannot believe it I was so anxious and my mind went completely blank! I could do it but it's trying to keeping me calm and confident for it! It is a tough job. I had practices with my speech and Language therapist, I was getting 80's as long I know the content of the subject, without content it's complete blank except for words of "the", "what", "and", those are the type of words we use every day. If I were to call you on the phone and say "hello" "how are you?" I would expect replies of "I am fine, thank you, or I am okay" those kind of words but if a person on other end asks me a question totally out of ransom my mind will go blank and I would panic! I need alot of confidence building. For the first time ever I had agreed to my colleague at work that I would call her (just her to begin with) within the deptartment.
My speech and Language therapist (she does do speech therapy but my sessions were purely listening therapy) had given me new project!!! Previously we worked on single words. This time is sentences. She would give me sheet and I have to keep them covered and listen to what she had said, I am only allowed to look at sentence if I heard the the words in the sentence correctly (or almost correctly). The story is about "Tin binder"? (Sp), I have never read it, I just know it's about a solider. I had to work out what she said without lipreading even just one word it was hard at first then gradually as I go through each sentences on the paper, I started to put the pieces (words) together and began recognising the whole sentences without lipreading! whoopee!! It is a long process. I will keep going to my weekly sessions with Speech and Language therapist and hope it will go well.
I am quite excited as I am getting new Phone!.... an Iphone 3Gs, I am looking forward to it because it's clear enough for me to hear on, the direct link for my processor can be plugged into it (Which I couldn't with current phone) so I can use the phone with minimal background noise. And I have talk time on it too (I had text/sms only for years!) in hope I would pluck the courage to call someone!......
Also another exciting thing is My parents and I had gutted my kitchen and started from scratch (new plaster walls, new electric sockets so on) a brand new kitchen almost completely different lay out, it had been night mare at first with the plumbing but finally I have the important stuff working well (dishwasher, sink and washing machine) The units are up and against the wall, even looking a bit faceless (no doors) it still feels big with the new lay out (my kitchen was quite small family kitchen with bad layout that took up too much wasted spaces), Sadly after 10 days my father went home to Austria. He had very busy time here we hardly spoke/ hugged/ spent time together, I have no idea when I would see him again (it was feb when I last saw him) I have got my mum for another week but as I am busy bird I don't think we'll have any time to do anything other than trying to get as much done on the kitchen.

Tomorrow I start training for Cochlear Advocate so it's time for my bed...