Purrrrrrrrrr...

A few months ago, I moved in with my awesome college friend until I close on my new home. Of course this brings more new sounds to explore, which I thought there couldn't be anymore new sounds! I was wrong...one sounds that seems very interesting to me is the purring of her cats. One of them sits on my lap often and purrs the whole time. I guess kittens purr louder at a young age. It sounds like a little motor and can be pretty loud, ha. I guess this means they are happy, so I shouldn't complain.

On Friday, I will be going in for another mapping appointment. I have been maxed out on volume for a few months now, so hopefully this will allow me to hear a little more. Also, I have been asked to participate in a cochlear implant study in Tempe, Arizona at Arizona State University. From what I understand, they are researching to develop a criteria of when people should get a second implant when they are still benefitting from using a hearing aid on the poorer ear. I am looking forward to the study and getting a break from winter!

Recent Mapping Appointment

I recently had another mapping appointment last week. I was able to make small adjustments and increased the volume. I had more hearing tests with the implant and I am still doing very well with hearing speech through the implant. Also, I had a hearing test on both ears and it looks like some of the low and high frequencies (250 Hz and 8000 Hz) on the implanted ear (right) has some hearing left at the 90 decibels. I guess doctors are trying to save whatever hair cells are good in the cochlea.

On my left ear, it appears that my hearing has dropped a little in the low frequencies. It might be related to allergies, but the eardrum was tested and it was working fine. So, I will need to watch the hearing on my left side to see if it progresses. I guess I qualify for an implant already on the left. I am not sure if I am ready to go through the whole process again right now. I think I will wait until the hearing on the left no longer benefits me anymore that it will not be too much of a risk to do another surgery. I guess lately I have been noticing that my left ear is more dull than the right and seems to be getting worse. Audiologists do suggest that the quicker you get implanted after losing hearing does help with the auditory training, because your brain still remembers sound on that side.

I may need to consider the second implant at some point because it is starting to become more difficult to hear in groups. Last night, I was with 7 of my college friends talking around a table and it was challenging to follow the conversation. I feel like I am getting used to hearing very well on the right but need more support on the left. It's never been fun to get the news of losing more hearing, but I am grateful there is the cochlear implant to improve my hearing because half of my life is interacting with hearing people.

One good thing, Cochlear recently came out with a new speech processor that is much smaller and lighter. I guess insurance companies are supposed to provide a benefit for an upgrade after 5 years. The processors are $7,500, so any benefit helps! Soon, they will have an automatic t-coil switch, so when you put the phone to your ear, the speech processor will automatically switch to t-coil without having to push the button. That will be nice!

Interesting Tidbit

Yesterday, I went to a workshop and learned something very interesting. The electrode of a cochlear implant has 22 channels which are similar to frequencies. These channels are adjusted every time I go in for a mapping to make changes to my speech processor to improve the clarity and quality. Guess how many channels people with normal hearing have?



3, 500!

I find this amazing how much I can hear with the little number of channels I do have. At the same time, this supports why I think students with cochlear implants would still benefit from a sign language interpreter especially when there is a lot of background noise or many speakers. I wonder how many channels an electrode will hold 20 years from now?

If you would like to hear some stimulation's of channels, go to this web page...

http://www.ucihs.uci.edu/hesp/procSim/simulations.htm

ONE YEAR!

Hello friends and family,

Today is the one year anniversary of new life with my cochlear implant. It truly has been an amazing year. Each season brought new sounds and experiences that I will forever cherish. Some of my favorite sounds were the leaves rustling, snow falling on my jacket, rain drops and birds chirping.

One of my biggest fears of getting the implant was that I would lose my identity in the Deaf world and not connect with my friends in that world anymore. I continue to stay involved with Deaf community events and keep close friendships. I greatly appreciate all of my friends, hearing, hard of hearing and deaf for their support along the way. I have learned an important lesson that my true friends will be there for me no matter what.

My life in the hearing world has become much easier. I feel that I am able to have more access to communication and able to follow everyday conversations. I do not feel like I am constantly missing information or working hard like I did before. Sometimes I catch myself being able to understand words in songs or on television without the support of captioning. This is still a very bizarre experience for me.

Lastly, I especially want to thank my loving family for their never ending support throughout this process. It has been a special experience to share with my brother Scotty. I couldn't have done this without you, especially my parents who were there on the day of my surgery and took care of me during my recovery.

Thanks for reading :)

Mapping appointment - almost a year later

Hello family and friends,

I am currently at the Mayo Clinic, I just finished mapping (updating) my cochlear implant. It will be a year in August since I have been activated. This is the last season to experience with the implant and so far I am finding that there are birds chirping everywhere!

The past few months, I have felt like things were a little too quiet and noticed I started to use program two on my implant. This is the whisper program, which is increases the soft sounds in the environment, therefore it was the program I liked the best because it seemed louder than the other three programs. Lately, I have found myself a little more frustrated because I was not hearing well in noisy environments. I actually felt like I went backwards and was hearing like I still had my hearing aids on and straining to hear people. I found out that this is actually a terrible program to use when in loud places like in a school, party or noisy environment.

SO, I am VERY happy to finally have my implant readjusted and boosted! I am hearing things now! I am excited to be able to hear the sounds in my environment again. I didn't realize how much I was missing. Next time, I will not wait so long and go in to get remapped again. Usually when you are mapped, your volume is set at five then it will give you room to increase volume gradually to nine. So, I hit nine a month after I was adjusted last, so I been hearing too quiet for a while. Now, I am at volume three and have plenty of room to increase my volume if I want. It is fun to hear the littlest and most simple sounds again, such as people talking, walking nearby, faucet running and newspapers shuffling are a few I noticed greatly in the past 30 minutes. :) Also, I was able to improve the clarity of my implant as well, so we will see...

Thanks for reading!

Kristine

Activation Video #2

Here is the second video that was taken. I had turned off my hearing aid and started to recognize voices with the implant only, especially my friend Sarah's voice! It was funny to hear it in a different way. This is how many people's voices started to appear to me, different than what I was used to, however now when I have the hearing aid turned off, I much prefer the crisper and clearer way that the implant provides of people's voices.

I tried my best to explain how things were sounding, it was truly a surreal experience. My audiologist finally did move out of that room with that awful fan noise! Also, the audiologist mentioned that not often do people recognize voices right away like I had. I feel very fortunate to have had so many years of using hearing aids with my residual hearing to be able to make this transition to implant smoother.

Activation Video #1 FINALLY!

Hello! I finally was able to upload my activation videos, I am very excited! I tried to sign for myself and interpret what my audiologist was saying for those of you who cannot hear; sometimes I didn't catch everything because I was so nervous, excited and overwhelmed all at once.

My voice sounds different to me, but I think that is normal for everyone. I plan to have someone videotape me now to see if my voice has changed since my activation. I've had a couple of people say it has especially my Dad says it sounds more clear and articulate than before. I think I sounded nasally before, not sure if that is still the case. I cannot believe how white I am! Need a little sunburn!

Kristine