Flight to California

The travel to California was long yesterday. I started with a 45 minute drive to the airport, stopping to drop off the pager at work. A 50 minute flight to Detroit which left later than it was supposed to and a run to the 5 hour connecting flight left me famished with no time to grab a bite. Of course the plane only had snack boxes left by the time the attendant reached seat 31F. Radical measures were called for and being sure it was 5 O’clock somewhere, I ordered wine with my snack box. After my makeshift meal, I pulled out my iPod, put the seat back a bit, put the headphones on and cranked it up. (People, I’m already deaf, don’t do that if you’re not!)

Awesome sound filled my right ear which has a T-Mic on the Harmony and makes using headphones very natural. The left takes a bit more work to hold the small earbud like headphone up to my microphone which sits slightly above and behind my ear. On the left I use a PSP processor with that older C1 cochlear implant. The music sounds so much better with two that I hold it up there until my arm starts to ache. About that time, I realize this experience might be worthy of a long over due blog post.

So here I am at 30,000 feet, writing on a mostly blank avocado ad page in O magazine so that the thoughts actually make it to the blog rather than being left up there in the ozone. Who would have guessed that inspiration would come to me up here when all I have is a magazine, book and iPod at my seat and the laptop is stowed someplace over head. I didn’t keep it with me as I sat down because it’s just plain too big for air craft use and the battery lasts about 2 minutes. Note to self: time to retire that 5 year old laptop and get a snazzy new lighter and faster one.

It’s very cool up here listening to Neil Diamond looking out the window at all the circles down below. I didn’t know they farmed in circles and I’m told later by a new CI friend from Massachusetts that they are irrigation circles. The circle makes me think of the UFO crop circle I just put on my Facebook Farmville farm game and thinking of Facebook is making me realize that it is probably why I haven’t updated my blog lately. I spend too much time playing Farmville and listening to the cows moo and the chickens cluck and all the other animal sounds. Have you played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook? If not, I don’t recommend you start, it’s too addicting. But, I love it when it says “Excellent”! Maybe you have to be deaf to truly understand what an amazing thing it is to hear these sounds and words!

As Neil Diamond sings “I am I said, I am said I…” in my ear, I think “Yes, I am deaf and Yes, I hear”! Hearing is possible with these amazing devices called cochlear implants. Many thanks to Advanced Bionics for sticking with the research and development until music is enjoyable and speech is clear!

The views out the window are amazing on this plane ride. It is so clear and I have a constantly changing landscape out my window as I listen to music. Snow covered mountains and red canyons, brown desert areas and areas that are clearly covered with trees. Majestic! Now, I believe I will sign off since Carole King is singing “I feel the earth move...”. Ummm, lets not go there.

Two CI’s and a Woman on the Road

What a great hearing weekend I had in warm, sunny Michigan! With a couple of Hearing Loss Association meetings on the schedule, I was facing a good six hours in the car. Pre-CI, I found driving longer distances by myself extremely, excruciatingly boring. If you’re hard of hearing or deaf, you’ve been there. Once I received my first CI, my outlook on long drives improved a great deal because I could hear music again. In those early days, I stuck to tried and true CD’s of my old favorites from my hearing days. Since getting my second CI last July (2008), I have branched out to listen (and singing along!) to the music on the radio.

Returning from the Saturday meeting, I was driving along when my phone rang. I had put it on the LOUD ringer so I MIGHT hear it over the radio. No reading glasses on so I couldn’t see who was calling. A second’s hesitation… Will I be able to hear well enough to even know who it is? My mom is in the hospital… Better pick up. So I silenced the radio, grabbed the phone and answered. It was my brother calling to see if I had been to visit my mom yet. We carried on a conversation while I was driving along. (Michigan currently has no laws against this.) I had no trouble hearing him with the cell phone and the T-Mic on my Harmony! Awesome (or maybe not), now I have the same potential hearing people do - crashes due to cell phone distractions. I promise not to make a habit of cell phoning and driving!

Sunday was another meeting in another city, another hour and a half drive in another direction. I had the radio tuned to oldies and was enjoying the music very much. I felt like I was hearing more and more of the lyrics of each song.

All of a sudden I heard:

You are so beautiful to me
you are so beautiful to me
can’t you see
you’re everything I hoped for
you’re everything I need
you are so beautiful to me
Such joy and happiness you bring…

I found myself holding my hand out in front of me and imagining my Harmony in my palm as I sang this song to it. Sounds pretty corny! It WAS pretty early in the morning. I WAS slightly sleep/caffeine deprived. I DID need some entertainment. Mostly I was just feeling VERY appreciative of what I’d been hearing. It really does sum up how I feel about this sweet little device that lets me hear again! Just to reassure you, there was no traffic at all – think Timbuktu on Sunday morning. Everyone sane was sleeping or drinking their coffee with the Sunday news or maybe getting ready for church. This was way before the church traffic would start up.

All weekend, the lyrics just kept jumping out at me. Songs I had forgotten all about, like waves of memories washing over me. Crimson N Clover, Rock On, Goodbye Yellow Brick Rd… Oh, I just love it!

Then a song I had been trying to figure out for the longest time came on. I only heard the music and only noticed the song when I was alone so I couldn’t ask anyone what the song was. I tried once to hum it to my husband, but obviously my humming is somewhat lacking and he couldn’t help. The music would be so familiar to me but my brain was just not making any connections and my 'ears' couldn’t catch any of the lyrics.

Suddenly I heard:

Why can’t you see
what you’re doing to me
when you don’t believe a word I say?

My brain perked up and I started listening harder, turned the volume up a little, then I heard, “ …with Suspicious minds” . My eyes got big. I kept listening. Yes! Realization washed over me. This was the elusive song that had been toying with my 'ears' and brain for months when I heard it played on the radio. It’s mine now. Another one bites the dust…

Then the stop at McDonald’s for a coffee before the meeting. I pulled up to the ordering booth and heard ‘Would you like a double fudge brownie?’ I thought, ‘At this time in the morning? Are you crazy?’ but I very politely said ‘No thank you’ and went on with my order. I felt so empowered. I heard the question plain as day! This morning I did a repeat of this exact conversation while taking my husband in for his eye surgery. He said ‘That was a machine’. I asked 'What?' somewhat puzzled. He said: You just told the recording “No thank you”. We had a good laugh!

Hidden Losses

When the opportunity to join a newly forming Toastmasters chapter presented itself at work, I decided to give it a try. I had considered the organization in the past, but didn’t want to travel as far as the nearest chapter. This was perfect, I didn’t even have to go home, the meeting would be right after work. It’s been interesting and entertaining. I’m a little nervous about participating in some of the roles since most involve hearing and listening carefully. Both are items I need to practice!

Last weeks Toastmasters speech was given by a co-worker who happens to be polish. Her speech was about who we are and how we have/learn traits from our ancestors. She spoke about her grandmother who taught her to speak polish and to bake and about happy sharing times. She urged us all to think about who we are and where we came from.

I’m polish on my dad’s side. My earliest memories of my grandmother are nothing like my co-workers memories of hers. My grandmother was profoundly deaf by the time I was a child old enough to remember her. I remember a nice woman with a heavy polish accent who could not hear me when I tried to talk to her. I’d never thought about it before, but now I’m wondering how much I missed as a child, not because I had a hearing loss, but because my grandmother did! How much more fully would my grandmother have participated in my life if she had normal hearing?

To my knowledge she did not ever wear hearing aids. Could she not afford them? Did they amplify too much noise to be comfortable? I feel myself mourning the hidden loss of never really knowing my grandmother. She lived a long life, passing peacefully in her sleep at age ninety-eight. She must have lived the last thirty years or more of her life in near silence. I don’t have any details about when she started losing her hearing. Was it like mine, starting in her early twenties and slowly slipping away from her? Did she spend twenty years mourning her fading hearing and the lost connections to her family?

A quick search on the internet turned up the Deafness in Disguise web site. In the 1950’s and 1960’s it was all about hiding your hearing loss. Not much there to really make a person want to wear a hearing aid or admit to having a hearing loss. She didn’t strike me as a vain woman, but who knows what the impact of popular opinion would have been on her?

My own life will be much different from my grandmothers thanks to the wonderful cochlear implants that I now have. I will be able to stay connected to family and friends. My grand children (God willing that I have some someday!) will get to know their grandmother. There will be no legacy of hidden losses. We will be able to communicate and share in each others lives.

The Hearing Experiment

I promised an update and explanation of my ‘experiment’. It turns out to be rather anticlimactic. No mental anguish or hearing struggles to report. However, I once again proved to myself that I CAN learn new tricks!

At my recent mapping, I learned that there were 4 electrodes off in my older left side C1 cochlear implant. I do remember when two of those were turned off at my request because of poor sound quality out of that channel. There is no memory of the other two being turned off or of my being made aware of the fact that they were off. My audiologist explained how an electrode will automatically be turned off by the mapping software if the impedance is higher than normal and this is what was happening when I was mapped with SAS, a strategy that I have been using on the left side for the last ten years.

Interestingly enough, when mapped with MPS, those two electrodes stayed on. I had tried MPS a few years into my CI experience and did not feel I could make the switch from SAS to MPS. Lately however, I had been wondering if I should try again. My audiologist agreed that it would be worth a try and encouraged me to make the attempt. Doing so would give my 2 more electrodes and might result in better hearing with my left ear in the long run.

She suggested that I switch over on Friday after work. I tested the waters a bit prior to Friday and I didn’t like what I heard very much. By the time Friday came along, I was having second thoughts. It was a busy weekend ahead so I would be out and about, not just hanging around the house. I would have to risk not being able to hear at some events. Generally, I'm not willing to take any unnecessary risks when it comes to hearing. However, I was also feeling a need to do this. I finally decided I just had to go cold turkey and switch it over. So I took a deep breath and made the switch. Thirty minutes later, it wasn’t sounding too bad.

I went to my afternoon dentist appointment and was shocked at how loud the office was. Sitting in the dental chair, I realized this was my first visit since being bilateral. I could hear people in the other rooms and when she started cleaning my teeth, I could hear her scraping them! Wow, I had no idea that all these sounds were there. Saturday, I attended a bridal shower and then we went for dinner and a movie. By Sunday night I was feeling pretty good about MPS! It still sounded a bit strange, but was improving steadily.

Having the Harmony on my right ear made the difference. It gave me an ear to depend on while the other side adjusted to the new strategy. It’s now a 9 days after the switch and I know I will not be going back to SAS. I’ve switched back a few times to see what it sounded like and it sounds very harsh. A year ago, I would have said I was going to be using SAS forever! It will be interesting to see how that ear tests when I go back in August, but it sure feels like I am hearing even better now than I was two weeks ago.

Getting out of the comfort zone can be a good thing sometimes!

What I love about being bilateral and a 100% score

The following are some things I love about being bilateral:

• Sounds are louder, richer and fuller with both my implants on. With only one CI on, sound seems one dimensional and sort of flat. I hear better with one implant than the other but sound quality is best with both. Imagine watching a movie and then watching the same movie in 3D.


• When riding in the car, I hear equally well whether I am in the passenger seat or driver's seat. I can hear and understand people sitting in the back seat regardless of which front seat I am in. Prior to being bilateral, I always heard best as a passenger and even then had great difficulty understanding those sitting in the back.


• In large meeting rooms at work, I can hear people from both sides of the room. Prior to being bilateral, I would try to sit in the middle of a group but in large rooms I could still only hear those on my implanted side. If I tried to sit with my implanted side to all of them, then I was too far away to hear well. Now, I can place myself in the middle and I hear from both sides.


• At parties or in larger groups of people, I can hear the person standing next to me regardless of which side the person is standing on. I feel like I am relearning to focus on one ear at a time depending on which side has the sounds I want to hear. It's much easier to follow conversations in noisy situations.
  
• I've been able to attend company and department meetings without needing my FM since receiving my second implant. In church, I hear more of the prayer requests from people sitting around me and across the aisle.

You might wonder if it's difficult having two different strategies on the CI's. It was a bit odd at first, but maybe it would have sounded odd even with the same strategy since my right ear had not heard for close to ten years. During those ten years, I used the Advanced Bionics S-Series, then Platinum PSP /C1 cochlear implan on my left ear and no hearing aid on the right. After receiving the Harmony/90K in August, I was pleasantly surprised at how quickly my brain adapted to what it was hearing. Hungry for sound, it quickly started merging the two different signals to increase my overall understanding of sounds and speech.

Today I had my 6 month mapping for the Harmony/90K on my right ear and my annual mapping for the PSP/C1 on my left ear. Both ears scores were up. The results of my HINT sentence tests in quiet were awesome! Here they are:

Right Ear(Implanted with 90K/Harmony Aug 2008) Sentences 99%
Left Ear (Implanted with C1/PSP Dec 1998) Sentences 93%

Both together 100%!!!!!

So, does this mean I'm hearing perfectly, normally and everything?? No, of course it doesn't. But it does mean that I'm hearing the best I have in a long, long time!

My next post... Switching from SAS to MPS after ten years of CI listening. Can I do it? And why should I try?

Some Hearing Moments

In Passing...

Monday I was out running errands and needed to FedEx a package. I went to a store near some other stops on my errand route. My first thought was "Odd, the parking lot looks bare." The store is kind of tucked around the corner though so I couldn't see it. As I started walking to the side walk that led around to the store, a couple of ladies passed me going the other way. One of them said something and it took a minute, but then I realized she said 'It's closed'. I stopped in my tracks. I heard that! I was excited that I heard her comment and also unsettled to learn the FedEx location had closed as it was located in an area that I would have thought would be a good spot. Signs of the times? I sure hope not!

On purpose...

I've been making more phone calls lately. On Friday, I came home and made three calls right in a row using my Harmony ear. I used our corded phone for one. It doesn't have much volume boost on it so it felt just barely loud enough. The other two I made on my cell phone which seems to have more volume boost. I find slightly humorous that when I am trying to listen with the phone using my Harmony’s T-mic on the right side, if I take my headpiece off on the left, it helps me focus on the sounds coming in the other side better. It reminds me of how people will plug one ear when trying to talk with the phone on the other side. Although people usually do that when it’s noisy and for me there was only the hum of my computer. I’m not sure why I find this amusing. Maybe because it’s one of those tiny actions that most people don’t think about when they do it and after looking on for years and years with a certain amount of envy about talking on the phone, now I can mimic the action. And maybe it has to do with the realization that it doesn’t take much to distract me from listening. Focusing on tiny voices on the phone is still relatively new for me after all. Whatever the reason, it made me smile.

Bits And Pieces (not)...

There was more I wanted to write, but it's gone. Just flew right out of my mind. I'm sitting here trying to think what it was but after 10 minutes of nothing happening, I'm going to wind this up. Till next time!

Movies and 2008 Wrap Up Part 2

This will be setting a record of a sorts. Two blog entries so close together!

We saw two movies over the holidays. First was "Australia" on New Years Eve. It was long! Started at 9:15 and let out at 12:04 so we missed the ball dropping. At least we were awake which is more than I can say for other years! The accents were a challenge, but it was still easy enough to follow along with what was happening. I'd love to see this one again with captions. The little boy was adorable!

Last Saturday, we went to see Seven Pounds. I'm not going to spoil the show for anyone. I didn't have any trouble hearing what was said. Only a few spots that were tricky. The movie is a bit puzzling because not much is explained until the very end. A bit disturbing and sad story, but worth seeing. Will Smith is great in his part. We puzzled over the name all the way home and then looked it up on the Internet so we'd know for sure what it meant. See the movie first so you don't know the end, it will be better that way.

I'm still surprised when hearing words (not just sounds) and phrases of words that would not have been heard before going bilateral. Sometimes I don't even realize that the captions are not on. My hubby will point it out and say he misses them even though he has normal hearing. Or I'll hear a phrase and think, "I heard that..." Take note that the captions are off and then "Yes, no captions on so I must have!" By then I've missed the rest of what was being said because I was too busy being amazed at what I was hearing! I am so used to captions on TV that when they are on and are in sync with the actual speech, then it's like I can hear it even when I can't. Radio and podcasts are the best way to know what I'm actually hearing since there isn't any visual input at all.

The media is constantly blasting us with what a horrible year 2008 is. If my bottom line was the only thing that makes me happy, that might be true. Fortunately, there were many blessings in to be grateful for in 2008! My second CI and much improved bilateral hearing is right at the top of my list. Two ears are definitely better than one!! Even if they are not equal in hearing skills (my right ear with the Harmony does better than my left ear with the C1), everything sounds richer and fuller with both of my implants on. I don't go without either one very often. I hope you can find blessings from events in your life and that 2009 brings even more!

Year End Wrap Up

It's been a bit hectic this December - in a great way though! Here's the run down...


The second weekend in December was an annual Christmas party that Bill and I have attended for many years. It has never been my favorite because most of the people I only see that one time a year - sometimes once or twice in between - so I am not that familar with their voices and it is very difficult to carry on a conversation in a crowded house anyway. This year was very, very different! Being bilateral helps tremendously in large groups of people. My Harmony is awesome! I had several conversations and even 'lost' Bill a couple of times (instead of sticking to him like glue and making him be my ear). When it was time to go, he said "You act like you are enjoying yourself and don't want to leave." Gosh, I realized it was true, I did enjoy it!




I was fortunate enough to be able to go to Los Angeles the weekend before Christmas for C1 Harmony trials and to tour the Advanced Bionics plant while I was there. It was a super informative tour and was wonderful to meet the people who work on our implants. Here I am with the 'famous' giant hands.


Some things I noticed on the trip were... I could hear the pilot make announcements and understand most of what he was saying. I confirmed with my son, Brandon, who went with me, to be sure I understood. Brandon filled in a few blanks but I was thrilled to be able to get most of it myself. That was a first in years and years!! It was also neat to be able to go through the machine at the airport without a lot of explaining of my implant and without taking it off. I did take the PSP off but left the Harmony on.


While we were in L.A. area, we went to a comedy club. My last experience with live comedy was not good. This time I heard most of what the first comedian said, the next couple, I heard bits but I think my mind was wandering and getting tired so it was more difficult (plus, what I did hear wasn't all that funny). The poor middle fellow was way too old to be up there trying to make people laugh and failing miserably. He did a lot of jumping around making faces and did this routine that we thought was supposed to be him playing a guitar but looked strangely like he was scratching his crotch with the strumming hand. Was that part of the joke? Don't know but no one found it amusing at all. I felt rather embarrased for the comedian.


We came home to piles and piles of snow! Our flight from Detroit to Flint was delayed more than an hour (we could have driven it quicker) so it was 2:30 am when I pulled into our driveway and buried my car in a snow drift. Ooops. Bill was a champ and came out to help dig us out. With less than a week left before Christmas, we were just in time to finish shopping and wrapping the gifts that would be given and delivered on Christmas Day. The wrapping was completely finished yesterday morning (yes, Jan 3) and all gifts have been delivered as of yesterday noon. One more family get together tomorrow and then I can start thinking about getting the tree put away.


Bill got me a pink iPod Nano. The ear buds that came with the iPod would not stay in my ears, so we found some headphones that look like ear buds and just sit in the ear, right in front of the T-mic. They work perfectly and even fold up to tuck away. I loaded all my CD's on the iPod Christmas day and just yesterday discovered quilting podcasts! Even better, they are free and I can hear them!! I feel like there is this whole world out there that I have been missing. Many of the quilting podcasts go back to 2006 so I literally have years of listening to catch up on! It's great listening practice and I'm learning some things too!


It's late so I'm going to wind this up. Stay tuned for updates on my recent experiences at the movies and I promise not to make you wait too long...