I'm speaking in Wheaton, IL, Dec 7, 2010

Here's an invitation to ladies in the Chicagoland area to come hear me speak at the First Baptist Church of Wheaton, Illinois, on Tuesday morning, December 7th. It's the women's ministries' Christmas Brunch, and I'll be talking about hearing loss and the sounds of Christmas. The brunch starts at 9:15 with food first, a few Christmas songs by the toddlers of the group, and then I'll be at the mic around 10:30, until 11:10 or so.

If you'd like to come, please let me know so the hostesses can have a chair ready for you. They have a rough idea of how many regulars might show up, but they'll want to have extra seating available and food too, if needed for visitors. Thanks, and I'll be available afterward to meet anyone interested in hearing more about my story, my faith, or cochlear implants, as you wish.

Connections with People

Connections are what life on this planet is all about, don't you think? Connections with God, family, friends, neighbors, colleagues, pets, on-line strangers and so on. We're all forming our personalized web of connections, or relationships, and that web changes every day. It's like a spider web blowing in a breeze, that gives and takes a little, sometimes detaching one silky strand from it's anchor when the tension gets too strong.

Social networking is an exciting, but ever-changing way of bringing some of those connections to life and keeping them stronger. I've personally recruited many of my friends and acquaintances to Facebook, but as the novelty is wearing off, those who aren't serious about getting on-line for anything more than emails have "dead" profiles. Personally, I think they're the ones to lose out on the fun and satisfaction of new, renewed, and closer relationships with people, but I understand being swamped with life and new technology. It's hard to keep up.

But while I was jogging yesterday morning, I passed a sign that alerted drivers to an area with a "hearing impaired child". I immediately wanted to know where this family was and what was the child's situation. I thought there might be a way I could help them understand cochlear implants if that was an option for them. I didn't even know these people, but because of a shared challenge, I felt connected to them in some way.

Just last week at a training seminar for youth workers, the speaker introduced himself and told us about his wife and three kids, the youngest of whom was born deaf. During the coffee break, I met him and told him of my deafness and the solution that bionic ears have been for me. I encouraged him to pursue his research in that area as quickly as possible, since his 5-year-old is already reaching the post-lingual stage of language development where adaptation to C.I.s becomes more challenging, needing speech therapy. I don't know whether he'll follow up on the contact information I gave him or not, but after that, I knew we'd connected on a different level.

Last year, I received an email introducing me to a Ugandan family whose daughter was also born deaf. The couple had contacts with missionaries who were friends of ours. They told this couple about cochlear implants and my experience, and shortly thereafter, a travelling medical team gave them a contact Stateside for hearing evaluation with someone they knew who performed cochlear implant surgery. I recently received an email letting me know that the little girl has just been implanted in Massachusetts, courtesy of the Christian surgeon who had compassion for their case.

I wonder that the more areas in our lives where we've been touched by tragedy and struggle make us better able to connect to people struggling with the same. In that way, it's a blessing to persevere through the struggle, knowing that later on, you might be able to make someone else's journey a little easier.

I know there are also times when you've reached the other side of the struggle, or perhaps the struggle continues indefinitely, but you don't want to be reminded of it in your life, so it's better to pull away and detach. Someone close to me who had breast cancer 5 years ago is not at all interested in marching in 5Ks to raise awareness of cancer. The big "C" is something she has survived at the moment, and doesn't want her life consumed by worrying about it or meeting other people who are in that struggle. To some this might seem selfish, but to her it's mental self-preservation.

Now with a hearing challenge, it's easier to play shy and "keep to myself" if I'm not sure that I'll have anything useful to say or if I lack the courage to put myself out there. But there are times when I know I'm being led to take a step out toward making a connection with someone, and I'm rarely disappointed that I followed it. While some people are intimidating to approach, I think everyone is looking for connections in this world. May they be increasingly positive and grace-filled.

(By the way, this photo was of the boys and me heading to Michigan for Grammy Maire's funeral 2 weeks ago; a temporarily broken connection which I look forward to renewing someday.)

One-year Anniversary of Being a Bionic Woman

It's been a learning process, this past year of being implanted on both sides of my head with cochlear implants, and getting the speech processors programmed and adjusted, and then practicing listening in different environments. I immediately had speech discrimination because I had been deaf such a short time and had been fully hearing previously. But I've continued to have "C.I. moments" throughout the year, where new sounds enter, and my brain makes the connection to what it is. These are usually delightful times followed by gratefulness for this technology.

The other morning, my son and I took a walk with the two dogs. We just headed out to the edge of town and kept walking down the path towards some village. We walked past groves of trees, cornfields, termite mounds, all the while avoiding puddles from the night's rain. Occasionally, we'd hear a bird sound that is unique to Africa, with some cool rhythm that we'd repeat and laugh at. I was so pleased to hear these sounds that remind me that I'm in a different world. I love living in Africa, even though there are plenty of discomforts and risks to life and limb that would be outlawed in our "civilized" society back home. But there's a freedom here to wander and explore, with just a little excitement of the unknown, to crank up the adrenalin. The people are lovely and gracious and worth every inconvenience.

I wondered how I'd be able to return to Africa with these hi-tech gadgets making my life live-able again, with the humidity of rainy season and the incessant dust of the dry season threatening the functioning of my equipment. So far, so good. It's rainy season and I've had no problems. We'll see how dry season does come December.

I've backed off on some of my involvements in the on-line community of support for cochlear implant wearers because there are so many caring, articulate people on HearingJourney.com to answer the questions of newcomers that my posts felt redundant. I have had many opportunities to encourage people on the side and direct them to HJ, which became a second family to me during my return to hearing. I still lurk and post on the forum sometimes, but since the live chats are in the middle of my night here, I have only joined in once in the past several months. But I feel that the whole point is to get people back to their normal lives, and I'm a success story in that regard, thank God.

I still struggle to hear when someone is turned away from me and there is ambient noise to drown out their voice. But I've been trying to get back to my BBC radio broadcasts when I'm puttering in the kitchen, and I've noticed an improvement there, too. When we first got back here a few months ago, I felt proud that I sorted out the English channel from the other language channels on my radio dial. Now, I can pick up words and phrases at a time. Still not getting the whole gist of the story most times, but I enjoy the chatter. There are slight quality of sound improvements that I notice once in awhile that encourage me to keep working at it. And I do prefer to watch movies with the subtitles on. My family doesn't mind one bit, and finds that they read nuances and details in the subtitles that they might have missed in the dialogue otherwise.

There are still a few people who read my blog or refer others here for encouragement in their hearing journey, so now I'm one of the experienced ones, a veteran bilateral cochlear implant user. Plus, I'm living in a remote part of the world where there's no audiological support nearby if my "ears" go down, other than my cyber supports. So far, that's been all I needed! Thanks to all of you for cheering me on this year!

Urban African Living with Cochlear Implants

I'm the kind of person who wants to get things right if I'm going to bother doing them. Sometimes, it drives hubby crazy, because he justs wants to get the job done.

When I'm overwhelmed with the size of the job I'm envisioning because I've added so much to it in my mind in order to get it right that I've immobilized myself, I call him in to get the momentum started and then I put the quality control in place that I prefer. We've learned over the years how to work together so we complement each other rather than grate on each other (most of the time...). Happy Anniversary this week, my man!

So, it's been awhile since I've written on this blog. Partly because I wanted to get it right, partly because we've been travelling overseas and overland, and partly because we're just enjoying our family time and being all together again this Summer.

But since this blog is my personal blog, oriented towards my hearing journey and the updates on my cochlear implant, I figured I'd better say something, even if not perfectly written and researched, about how I'm doing with the implants in a different climate and with people of different languages. Maybe my insights may answer a question or help someone else along in their journey.

Living in a third world country is a daily challenge that demands alertness and forethought in order to survive. For example, you can't just go to the store and buy chicken breasts or ground beef; you have to buy the chicken, butcher it, pluck it and clean it out, before cooking with it. Or you go to the fly-infested meat market first thing in the morning and pick your chunk of meat hanging on a hook, and ask the butcher to do an initial de-tendoning to make it easier to slice, grind, or cube. Here in Bamako at my local meat market, guys with on-site grinders take a lot of the work out of preparing ground beef. Also house-helpers can do some of that work and running around, if you make your lists and menus ahead of time.

We have to wash and bleach our fruits and vegetables before eating them, including and especially lettuce leaves. We have to sift the bugs out of the flour, pick rocks out of the rice, and hope our gas bomb doesn't quit in the middle of our cooking. Oh, don't forget to keep the water filter flowing, because running out of drinking water in a hot, dry climate is potentially life-threatening.

Now, I add in the concerns of sensitive bionic implants and speech processors, where I have to re-charge my batteries at night when power surges and outtages are a fact of life. I must say, though, that my surge protector is doing a great job, and as long as I keep all my back-up batteries topped off, I would expect to last through a 3-4 day outtage without worry. I keep my processors in my Dry Aid storage kits at night to minimize humidity issues with the T-Mic microphones, and so far I've not had any problems. The manufacturers of my equipment have done a great job of building in protection against water and dirt damage. Thanks, Advanced Bionics, for giving me my life back.

My main challenge now is the problem with listening environments. Most buildings are brick and cement, with no carpet to dampen accoustical bounce or echoing, so sound goes everywhere and back before I "catch" it. I have to be close to the person speaking and have them face me so the sound is directed at me and so I can see their faces. We're working on finding some wall tapestries and drapes, and maybe a plant of two to help break the sound bounce in this house. But as we keep the windows open for air flow, the metal workers who grind, pound, and unload trucks just on the other side of our wall, are very loud at times and there's not much we can do about that.

I have to ask for repeats often when I'm trying to listen in French, partly because there are many varieties of French out here (those from Paris, those from Quebec, those from Francophone Africa, Chinese people speaking French, Brazilians speaking French, etc...), and then attempting what I can in Bambara, the trade language here, is intimidating. Add to that the noise of fans or swamp coolers, traffic, t.v.s or radios, and normal conversations as background noise, and I'm constantly sorting through layers of sound to pull out what I want to hear. It is certainly a blessed peace to go "off air" for a rest after lunch and at night.

Yesterday, my daughter and I did a little shopping downtown. Trying to fend off pushy vendors in stores with blaring music and no air flow became more than we could handle. After the second such store and some forthright rudeness on our part to get rid of hangers-on who "just wanted to help us" (right! I've had my purse stolen twice before, thanks), we found our ice cream and pastry shop with air conditioning and peace, and sat for an hour chatting. Here again, I struggled to understand her, but I was glad for the coolness and calm anyway.

The other day, I went to a large conference where I was escorted to the front seats as a V.I.P. While I didn't ask for the special treatment, that's how it is out here and you must receive it graciously. I found that it was another blessing as I could hear better situated in front of the speakers and I could see the action better, except for the photographers who sometimes blocked my view of the stage. So that was a surprisingly good experience.

Another of my challenges is talking to taxi drivers when 1) the windows are down or broken out so the wind blows in and the street noise is loud, 2) he's facing the front and I'm in back, 3) his car is rattling and the brakes squeal and shut me down momentarily, 4) many taxi drivers are Bambara-only speakers (back to the language problem). I found that if I negotiate the price before I get in so we're in agreement about where I'm going and how much it costs, then I don't have to "socialize" during the trip. If he tries to talk to me and I can't hear well, I just say I can't hear well and enjoy the trip. That's that. I hope he isn't offended or think I'm aloof, but in this culture, strange men and women aren't really supposed to interact anyways, although for foreigners, that's a little different. I say "Merci, or I-ni-chay" and go on my way when I arrive.

Most people are gracious and understanding if I explain why I'm struggling to understand them. I do prefer, sometimes, to let other people do the communicating. It helps to have hubby or one of my kids around to re-state something or interpret for me when I'm really stuck. I'm used to their voices, so that usually solves the problem. Every once in awhile, though, I just say, "tell me later", or "oh, well, I hope it doesn't really matter", and move on.

So, that's where I'm at in this journey so far. Grateful that I can "hear" again, but struggling with the quality that comes in. I'm functioning and doing as much as I can, and then passing off the duties that I can't to others. Answering phone calls, especially when they might be in another language with someone with little phone skills is not a success, but dealing with matters by email or on Skype is fine.

Having successes day by day and grateful for all my supporters and resources,

Lisa

New mappings, new results, shows progress!

We had a busy Christmas holiday, travelling to Florida to see family and getting in a little fun on the side, too.

Last week, I had my third mapping on my new implant which gave me the Hi-Res 120 quality programming, which is more than just the volume increases we were going for initially when getting that ear to "wake up". The Hi-Res 120 gives better sound quality, and as my brain adjusts to these impulses, I can expect to hear more nuances of voices and music. My daughter, Hilary, went with me to the audiologist's office for that mapping and found he whole process interesting. She saw the audiologist working with the computer and the programs to give me the best sound, but also doing some creative problem-solving to help rehab my hearing. Hilary thought it might be a good career consideration, except that it's a bit more science-oriented than she's been gearing up for.

I had another mapping yesterday; this time it was my 3-month mapping for my first ear and my 1-month mapping for my 2nd ear. But before we sat down at the computer, the audiologist took me to the sound booth to test how I was doing with my first implant. My mother-in-law came with me this time and sat in the booth while I listened for the quietest possible sound I could hear, and got in the normal range for that test. Also, I repeated sentences that I heard over the speaker with no visual cues, and I got 98% right! After that, I repeated random isolated words and got 20 out of 25 right. The audiologist was so pleased with my results, and so was I, of course.

Now, I'm getting ready to travel to our mission's headquarters with my hubby for two weeks of meetings and training. This will be a kind of test for me on a new level to see how I can integrate back into my functioning world, outside of my home or church environment where I am comfortable. We will be in small groups, big meeting rooms, workshops, and travelling on the train (just for a new adventure!). I am planning on bringing a few of my "toys", like my mini-FM system in case I need a little help in the big meeting room hearing the speakers or music. I anticipate that air conditioning fans and chairs moving around and other distracting sounds might be a problem in hearing a speaker, so this system might be a real help. I also have a mini-microphone for talking one-on-one in noisy situations, which might help me, too.

All-in-all I feel encouraged by my progress and can see that I'm improving in my ability to function as a normal hearing person (with a little help!).

2nd Ear Activation

Here's the video that my husband took of me and the audiologist getting my 2nd cochlear implant activated on Wednesday, the 17th. These are the first minutes that my left ear had any sound stimulation in 8 months. It helped me to realize how far my 1st implant has come, even though I'm still working on it to feel like sounds and music are how I remember; they aren't yet, but it's only been 2 months on that side. When the 2nd ear was turned on here, sounds went back to being "tinny" and "chirpy".

I returned the next day and had my levels adjusted again on that ear and left the office feeling more balanced in both ears, like they weren't competing for my best attention. Now, I can enjoy Christmas vacation in Florida with family and participate in all of the activities, except swimming in the ocean...I have to take the speech processors off to swim, or shower or sleep.

The audiologist asked me if the sounds felt weird; some new CI users FEEL the sound more than HEAR it at first. I said that this whole thing was weird; here I am plugged into a computer, listening to digital beeps and trying to make them even in volume. YES, this is weird; I just want my normal hearing back! But I realize that that is no longer an option for me, so I am very grateful for this technology that gave me my life back and my joy, and I'll work and make the best of it for the rest of my life.

I'm also grateful to my employer/mission organization, WorldVenture, for funding all of this expensive rehabilitation for me. With many people having little or no health insurance, I realize how blessed I am to be "covered" by this great group. I'm also grateful to my Lord for giving me little personal and spiritual encouragements along the way, during this difficult time of deafness. He has brought people across my path bringing gifts of smiles and hugs, or prayer support, or even monetary gifts to help with our side of the expenses. He has also encouraged my heart with verses of Scripture at just the right moment to prove that He is a living and active God and cares about me, personally.

Thanks, too, to my ever-patient family and friends, my surgeon and audiologists, and HearingJourney.com who have supported my progress in many different ways. I feel like a success story in progress, and it's certainly not my own doing.

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!

My Cochlear Implant Activation Days

On Thursday, my husband and I drove down to Ann Arbor for an 8:00 am appointment with my audiologist, Rachel. On arriving at the office, I was sent for an x-ray, which I hadn't expected, but realized was a good idea to show that the implant was still in place and the electrode array was curled properly inside my cochlea from the outside high frequencies to the inside low frequencies.


Back in Rachel's office, we went through the box of parts and accessories that came with my speech processor, including earhooks, direct connect wires for MP3 players and the like, batteries and the charger, the dry aid case for storage, and the color covers I'd chosen. Then she connected my speech processor, which is the mini computer that hangs behind my ear, and the headpiece, which attaches magnetically to the side of my head and transmits the signals to the implant under my skin. The problem with the headpiece was that the magnet that came with the piece was too weak and wouldn't stay in place. So, she tried the next strongest magnet and that didn't hold either. So, the third magnet finally held, but I'll have to be careful that it doesn't create an irritation on my scalp that could provoke other problems.

We started with setting comfortable volume levels of beeps in the different frequencies served by the electrodes in the array. Day 1 actually grouped the 16 electrodes into 4 groups of 4 as the first step in finding a starting place for my hearing. After that, Rachel turned on the speech processor so that I could "hear"; that is what is captured on the YouTube video linked here.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67cvw9McwIg Rachel said numbers, hiding her mouth from my view, and I repeated what I heard. I got about 6 out of 10 correct, but everything sounded like Alvin and the Chipmunks. I could distinguish between a man's voice and a woman's voice, and when an associate knocked on the door, I could hear it. Rachel said that these were encouraging signs that I was off to a good start, since my hearing loss was so recent. After answering our questions and showing us how to charge the batteries, Rachel sent us off for the day to practice listening and getting used to the processor.


In the car on the way home, we started with music on the radio to see how that sounded. Honestly, it sounded like a water fountain or a rushing stream, but when drumbeats were obvious, I could hear the difference between the beats, and the instruments and voices, even though nothing had a nice tone to it. Then we switched to talk radio to see how much of that I could pick up. Occasional words or phrases and several numbers were clear, but everything else was just chipmunk mumbo-jumbo. We stopped at a rest stop and attempted phone calls to our parents and our daughter in Senegal to give them the good news of my hearing success so far. I could understand some, others not. It's the same with lip-reading; some people are easier to understand for some reason. Part of it is talking a little slower and more intentionally with a deaf person, so they can catch all the sounds that might otherwise run together.

It was hard to pull out Tom's voice from the radio voices, and I found that I was still very dependent on the visual cues to understand him, but we were actually having a conversation without paper and pen or computer. This was worth celebrating, and we did; at Applebee's for lunch. At home, we tried to plug into my new MP3 player that Tom bought for me, but we couldn't seem to get it going. The rest of the day, I enjoyed talking with everyone possible trying out my new "toy".

Friday morning, we went back down to Ann Arbor for another 8:00 am mapping session, but this time, Rachel played with the individual electrode levels and trying a couple of different program settings. Then we went into the sound booth to see how well I was doing compared to my pre-implant results. First, she tested to see at what decibel level I could hear different frequencies. Pre-implant, I tested between 75-85 decibels, but today, I was between 20-30db across the board. Normal levels are 10-20 db, so I was just under normal. Then she tested my speech recognition in the sound booth listening to a man on a cd say simple sentences. Pre-implant with a loaner hearing aid, I tested at about 12%, but today I was at 70% ! This is just one day after getting my implant activated! What a great answer to many prayers for my hearing success.

We got the MP3 player working and I could pick out the rhythms of some familiar songs Tom had loaded on for me. Everyone still sounds like chipmunks. Rachel is sure that by my next appointment on Wednesday next week, I'll probably have changed significantly again. This is a process of actually training the auditory nerve to receive impulses again, but this time from a man-made source simulating what God created to happen deep inside our hearing apparatus. Then the brain takes the signals from the auditory nerve and makes sense of the "sound". Now I have to train my brain to make sense of these new impulses, so "practice, practice, practice" is the name of the game.

I tried playing some notes on the piano and could tell the differences in the notes as I went up and down the keyboard, but I wouldn't want to sing in church, yet! I tried the phone again today with little success, but one of these days, I'll be surprised by what I who I can talk to. The speech processor is heavy on my ear and causes some discomfort by the end of the day, but I bought some moleskin cushioning designed for feet comfort and that seems to help.

So, each day will be an exciting adventure in seeing what changes happen in my hearing, and in being able to connect with people again in a meaningful way. Caleb keeps saying how thankful he is that I can hear again. We all are thankful, I'm sure, and my abilities to connect with people will be put to the test right away as we begin a 5-day missions conference, where we are scheduled to speak and participate in classes, small group home meetings, meals in homes and restaurants, and meeting folks at our display. This would be totally overwhelming being deaf, as these are difficult hearing situations. It'll be a challenge to hear through the background noise in restaurants and lobbies, but I'm so excited to give it a try and hope it gives me some of that practice.

Last update on surgery recovery

Well, tomorrow will be one week since I had my implant surgery, and today I went without any pain meds. at all. I'm pleased with the progress, and have resumed driving and real light exercise (no sweat yet!). I'm trying to keep the steri-strips in place until my post-op check-up with Dr. Telian on the 23rd, but if they come off before then, I won't be too bothered. They are a little annoying, but serve to keep things clean from infection, so I put up with it.

My activation dates are now set with the audiologist: October 9th & 10th. The first day they give me the external speech processor to attach by magnet to the implant on the other side of my skin. The audiologist will take me through a series of beeps to set real basic volume comfort levels at various frequencies and pitches. The next day, I will come back for a more complete "mapping" session to set specific programming in place on the various program slots available for my use on the speech processor. Then I'll go home for a week and try it all out in different listening situations. I'll also start working on listening exercises, and reading and listening to unabridged audio books for more listening practice.

This morning while walking with Caleb to his bus stop, he asked me, "Mom, why don't you home-school me this year?" I told him that I have my own homework in having surgery and rehabilitation to get my hearing back so we can return to our work in Africa next year. Plus, he needs to make friends and have fun at school. I got the impression that he was a little down this morning, and he asked if I could pick him up from school rather than have to ride the bus home. Just then, we saw a little mouse hopping across the grass, and we were delighted by the creature. We told him he better stay outside; no-one wanted him inside their house.

We kept walking to the bus stop, and Caleb saw a deer in the back yard of the house across the street. I told him that God was giving him a little gift this morning to cheer him up; He was sharing His creation with us to say, "See, Caleb, I love you today!" And then we saw two more deer feeding under a fruit tree nearby. Many cars were whipping by on the road, never seeing what was mere feet from their windows, but Caleb and I had the pleasure of savoring these beautiful animals before the bus pulled up.

Aren't those the kind of moments to treasure for a lifetime? I'm so glad Caleb has worked hard at being able to communicate with me, even in my deafness. We really enjoy each other's company, and when I need a buddy to go somewhere with me, he's usually "game".

I told my other son, Ben, this afternoon, that when I get activated, he's one of the first people I want to sit down and have a conversation with. I miss him and not being able to have a "heart-to-heart" with this tender one. I also miss just hanging out with my husband, and he with me, so we'll have to plan some fun "together" time to make us for a few lost months. We have a required trip to Denver in January at mission HQ, so we're considering taking the train out there and getting a sleeping compartment and making a fun adventure out of it. Better than trying to drive out there in the middle of winter, and who knows how expensive or risky air travel will be then, so I think the train is a good option.

Anyone done train travel lately and want to share their experience?