Hearing Progress and Getting Ready for 2nd Ear Activation

It's surprising how fast time flies, especially at holiday time when there are extra meals to prepare, gifts to buy, and errands to run. I haven't posted a blog now for weeks, but as I look forward to my 2nd activation on Wednesday, I'm thinking about the progress I've made in returning to the hearing world.

I still don't jump to answer the phone; maybe I'm just lazy, but sometimes it's still hard to understand the person on the other end of the line. There are many people who call our house, though, that I can understand and enjoy a conversation with, with only the occasional request for a repeat. That's a wonderful step ahead.

On Friday, I was the "guest lecturer" at my 3rd grader's classroom to talk for about 40 minutes on hearing and hearing loss, and cochlear implants, as part of their Science unit on sound. Did I "wow" 23 students with my technical knowledge and expertise, or was it just at the end when I stuck a spoon to the side of my head? In any case, I don't think I embarrassed my son too much, so all-in-all it felt like a successful event.

Yesterday at church, I worked both services in the baby nursery as part of a monthly rotation when I can get my "baby fix" on a regular basis. But I also worked last night for the Christmas program and played with talking toddlers. This was a step forward since normally babies just need rocking or bottles, but toddlers like interaction and vocabulary building. So, little Justin and Jeremy and I played with airplanes and Pooh Bears and my hearing impairment wasn't a problem with my cochlear implant working for me.

I've been working on my music appreciation by listening to Christmas music on my MP3 player, both orchestral and multi-layered music and with simpler acoustic arrangements that make it easier to hear and understand the pitches and lyrics. I've still got a ways to go before music sounds like what I remember, but my brain must be making adjustments again because my clarity is starting to get "mushy" and I can tell that I need a new mapping in my 1st speech processor. So, I'm glad that I'm already scheduled this week at the audiologist's office for my 2nd processor activation so I can get them both tweaked before Christmas vacation.

By the way, my daughter who is away at boarding school in Senegal, is coming home for Christmas on Thursday. I haven't had a face-to-face conversation with her since I got my implants, so I'm so excited to sit down and get caught up. We chat and email each other on-line, but I haven't had a real talk with her since before I went deaf in April. We're going down to Florida for most of the vacation to spend time with our families down there, siblings, cousins, grandparents, whom we've haven't seen in years, in some cases. It should be a nice time together and I'm so glad I'll be able to participate in it all!