A new Hearing aid

Since my last blog, I took the plunge and went to my hearing aid clinic. I have not been there since I was refered to the CI centre, the CI centre provided me with temporary HA for my unimplanted ear to keep me out of the silence for 5 weeks while I was recovering from the operation. That hearing aid was an analouge and did pretty good job of hearing the environmental sounds but with the cochlear implant, I couldn't tell if it was on or off! I went weeks without realising that the battery were dead and thats when I took my CI off to change the battery! Duh Oh...

I had alot of listening practices with the Speech and language therapist, at first I used both ears and realised I found it little easier to listen with both ears not just CI alone. I think it's because I get better low frequency input from the hearing aid. This influences me to get my self in gear and get new hearing aid. I got my mum to call the audiology department at my hospital and were surprised with very quick appt date, usually they put me on the list and sometimes I had to wait 3 months, but not this time, I only waited few days and they already had HA all set up and ready for me to use. I received a Phonak Supero, it's a digital hearing aid. At first I found it hard to use, the sounds were so tinny, and over powering the CI, everyone sounded as if they are on helium... I remembered 2 years back when I was first switch on, it was just like that, so I said, I will try it for few weeks and see how I get on with it. The audiologist was surprised at my response as most people would immediately hate it in the room! I didn't like it at first but I knew if I waited and got used to it then it might be worth it. I am glad I did, after 3 weeks of helium sounds it finally the sounds became more sense! The audiologist had setted the HA to the max which means this hearing aid have no more room if I loose any more hearing or lose the benefit of it.

I am picking more speech sounds without lipreading, today I got a teacher to sign some papers for my course and while I was looking at my papers I heard her saying, "I need a pen, do you have one on you?" then I went to the other room to get the pen without looking back at her and came back with a pen, she looked at me flabbersgated, she had known me when I was at the school as child, she used to work very hard to help me with oral speech since I couldn't hear any speech now with bit of practice, a new hearing aid and wonderful cochlear implant. She smiled and saw the success of the CI.

Today I heard some strange noises and couldn't work it out until I realised it was the battery dying on my hearing aid! I am pretty pleased that I finally could tell if the battery is dying.

The nice thing about the superos is that they are 1/3 rd smaller than my old hearing aid. I asked for brown one to match with my Cochlear implant/and my hair they said no... so I will work on it....