WooHoo!! Speech comprehension out of the gate again!
The activation was very different from last time. This time, she turned on all the electrodes at once, at zero level then slowly increased them all together until I had the first perception of sound. After marking that, she increased the (blanket) level until I could begin to really hear her voice to a "comfortable" level. And I could understand her words immediately! I tried so hard to steel myself just incase I couldn't, but I have to admit I really was "expecting" to be able to understand. It was a HUGE relief when I could!! I didn't realize how much of a relief until she said something like, "Ok, are you feeling relieved now? You can start breathing again."
Then she gave me a few phonemes: ahhh, oooo, eeee, shhh, ssss, mmmm. I could hear each sound, although they really sounded pretty much the same. As we went through them again, I could tell they sounded at least minutely different. Then I was able to identify them correctly when she gave them to me one at at time--about half to 3/4 on the first try--five minutes after activation! WooHoo!!!!!!!!! Amazing. Totally Amazing.
The comfortable level kept increasing over the course of this initial mapping, as is expected. Oh, and at the beginning, after the computer recognized that the external part was indeed talking to the internal part, she said, "First we have to blow the crud off the electrodes." Joe called that the technical language version. So she said, "we have to stimulate the electrodes to eliminate any air bubbles or anything else that may be trapped on them. You know...blow the crud off."
Then she asked if I was ready to go bilateral. Oh, my--already?? Yup. So I put the first CI on, then she started talking and turned on the second, watching my face the whole time. It was sort of a non-event. So she said, sometimes the bilateral wow moment is when we turn off the second one and you go back to just one. It took a few times turning the second one off and on before I could put words to the difference, and that mostly after we balanced the two sides to her voice sounded centered in my head. Over time, that has become the cool part--having sound be centered in my head, not way off to one side.
The sound is still metallic and mostly monotone. Already (a couple of hours later) it's a bit less monotone. What surprised me was she told me to wear the two together all the time, with only about an hour a day of focused work with just the new one. I had expected to have to wear just the new one MOST of the time for about three months. She said, no, it will catch up just fine this way. She said something about this having been my better ear and also that it is my second implant. So that's what I'm doing!
On the drive home, I noticed that I could hear Joe better, even with him on my old CI side. I also noticed I could hear it when I drummed my fingers on the armrest--I would never have heard that so clearly before.
So now I have to get used to having another magnet on my head--I keep knocking it off. Heh. Time to stop at the hairdresser and have her shave the new magnet spot. And probably it would be good to use some of my toupee tape on the new magnet as well, especially until I get used to it being there.
I'm off to do some fun hearing stuff--don't know quite what yet, but I'll let you know!
Signing off for now,
The Latest Bilateral Bionic Babe! :D
Labels: ci cochlear implant bilateral hearing surgery bionic activation
