3 months and counting!

Hard to believe but I'm a week past three months since SO day! And it's all good.

I had a full assessment last week and tomorrow I get a (more or less) final adjustment to settings and my hearing aid(s) fixed for best use too. I'm still not fabulous on the phone and actually prefer using the HA (if I have to talk on the phone) so perhaps that just needs practice... and time. It's also kinda tiring holding the phone up to the CI so not really conducive to having a blether with anyone. I would like to try a CI programme that helps for listening to music but that always had to wait until 'normal' hearing was optimal. And I still need to find a double headed jack plug for the computer so I can use both my streamer to my hearing aid and another mic to the CI as listening and talking on there (Skype especially) with just one ear, is not great. I'm not crazy about all the wires but I can also use my 'reserve' CI that is behind the ear and that works wirelessly... it's just a bit of a rigmarol... not very spontaneous.

My assessment could not have gone better though. Wish I'd done as well in exams when I was a kid!
What they do is sit you in front of a speaker and fire words at you, CI only, then CI + HA. I have to repeat the words of course as well as possible, saying just part of what I hear rather than nothing if I'm not sure. Then I have to repeat sentences. Followed by a timed repeat of a whole story, sentence for sentence. So pleased with myself, I did really, really well. And it was all without reading lips, just hearing as the speaker wasn't visible. Of course it's all done in a soundproofed room and everything is well articulated but there has to be a bottom line to measure things. 'Real life' situations are of course skewed somewhat with noise around you and varying levels of articulation and pronunciation and that is always going to affect things.

Story test
I got to 81 words per minute being repeated (properly too!) At the one month assessment this was 44 words per minute and I thought I did great there!

Sentence test - (syllables correct) 
98% (!!!) At the one month assessment this was practically not to be improved at already 90% :)

Word test 
CI+HA
sounds -  92% (84% last time)
words - 82% (61%)

CI only
sounds - 83% (74%)
words - 64% (45%)

HA only
sounds - 73% (62%)
words - 42% (36%)

Pre-operative the scores were so low I don't know how I coped... I really cannot imagine any more! Only the word test was taken then and they were (with BOTH hearing aids):
sounds - 62% (NO HAs 47%)
words - 33%  (NO HAs 12%)

So, a full improvement in all situations since two months ago and you can see that the HA is (next to) useless on it's own yet really does give the CI that extra little boost. And a three zillion percent improvement (ok, I know you can't get more than 100%) since only October 2013. Such a difference. I hope I'm reading all the results from the letter I just received, properly as I'm not sure how pre-op and post op HA results differ (although I suppose it can just vary and it is only very slightly despite being two versus one HA).

Anyway, it's all about what I can hear NOW not what I could hear THEN. And jeezo that's plenty.
Fecking birds would drive you potty! hahaha... oh I do still love them, honestly but they do go on when you're sitting in the garden of an evening. Music? well that really does need improving but at loud concerts I have always taken my HAs off anyway. Was just (am still) hoping that it will improve... it has already somewhat, just not what i was hoping on... yet. Oh and I can hear myself whistle now! I was always one of those annoying types that whistles all day long... tunelessly or otherwise, I'm no virtuoso whistler by any means. But I've missed it over the last years as can't hear myself do it... it's just air I know is passing. I remember a boss telling me that 'in the old days' it was forbidden to whistle in the office and I told him he'd have had to sack me then as I couldn't stop (yeah, that annoying whistler was always going to be me). I've never smoked but have the lines around the mouth with the same kind of pouting... whistling! hehehe. So I'm back up and running with the old 'whistle a happy tune' nonsense. Sadly out of practice... who can I annoy next?

After my last visit to UMC I paid a visit to Utrecht's Botanical Gardens (375 years old btw) which are very nearby the hospital (as I finally found out). Spent a lovely couple of hours wandering all around it, enjoying a different kind of quiet. Frogs are loud I know that now! And it was nice hearing the bees at work. And instead of seeing the gardener snipping the lawn edge, I could actually hear him doing it... and talking to his mate the while!

Frogs are LOUD!

I could hear the bees in the hive.

I'm not sure I will have much more to tell about my CI here in the blogosphere and it's not like I'm that regular. I may or may not continue in blethery vein, as mentioned at the top of the blog page. I only know that I will be hearing about things I might write about much more easily than I have done for years.

Sights and Sounds

I had a really rather lovely day yesterday. Took myself off to the annual contact day of the Society for Sudden (& Late) Deaf... stichting plotsdoven.
Was well organised and in a lovely spot. Got me out of bed at the crack of bloody dawn for a change and had me back in my bed totally bushed, before midnight (very unusual these days). It was very enjoyable and I was home around 7pm so it's not that I was partying late or anything, but they had me marching across fields and suchlike so...

How could I resist those ears? Answer: I couldn't :)

The day started with a 'klankenconcert'... a concert of sounds. I had no idea what to expect but understood once it started. It wasn't so much a 'concert' as such... more just a demonstration of all the gongs, bowls, bells and etc. that were in the hall. Really relaxing actually, and lovely how they slowly went through the audience of around 100 folks, letting us feel the sound waves and hear the sounds close up. Not everyone there could hear everything (if anything) so it's a lovely way to include all folks with all types of hearing levels. I could hear most things but I was continually lifting my CI off my head to hear the difference with just one hearing aid in... and it was a huge difference! A tuning fork buzzing on your spine is quite amazing, and to feel sound waves as far away as 2 inches from the brass bowls... wow. The Tibetan ringing bowls of varying sizes were nice to listen to and the giant gongs... wow again. And you've never lived until you feel a didgeridoo through your stomach. All very clever, I can really recommend it, for those with good hearing too... have a look at klankenkaravaan.

Next up, we were kind of a 'captured audience' for filling out a questionnaire on a bunch of films we had to sit through. All for a good cause though, and fairly interesting. It was for 'Dutch assisted with signs' (NmG - not the same as Dutch Sign Language btw) signing translators. We had to watch 2 little films three times. Each film was signed, three different ways. Once with every word said, fully articulated and with NmG, then with more mimicry (? or grimacing), then with practically all facial expressions and signs.
Now, although I have had 2 courses of NmG, I'm not at all practiced in it, so missed 98% of the conversation at the best. I also found the sound being on distracting because well, you're listening and trying to watch lips which are running behind what you can sometimes hear. Also, for HoH folks (like me), while I understand that expressive faces can be helpful, I cannot follow a conversation when I can't read lips... CI or no. Or put another way, I pick up more of a conversation when I can read lips, so, just the odd word thrown in, and loads of facial expressions with no words and with signs... nope, no good to me at all, even if I knew all the signs. So I chose (at least I hope I did) the films being signed NmG, translated with no extra facial expressions and fully articulated repeat of the words spoken.
This is what they wanted to know I suppose. "What's the best way of translating via signs, when using NmG (as opposed to Dutch Sign Language)". The questions asked in the questionnaire were a bit confusing too as they swapped values from one question to the next... so there was '...1 being bad and 5 being fantastic' to '...1 being best and 5 being worst'. Perhaps it was deliberate? Sure made you pay attention, but asking for problems I thought. The subject matter was beyond boring too, but that was perhaps just me hahaha... seeing each film three times for 4 or 5 minutes... sheesh! Anyway, hope it all helps, and I'm curious to know the results of the limited research. Great initiative from the society so, well done them.

Next item on the agenda was lunch, which was nicely presented and everyone chatted away to everyone else. I'd met up with T and her man again, so that was nice but they had to leave after lunch. The afternoon was for varying activities and I'd picked walking and mandala drawing. The walk was just lovely as the surroundings were great, company was good and the weather delightful. Or swap the adjectives around.
Was nice talking to different people too... each and every one with a different tale to tell. Some new to the CI like myself, some with years of experience with it and varying degrees of hearing troubles. Others with not so great experience with a CI too! No two 'histories' the same and quite strange really. You tend to think... 'HoH/deaf, gets a CI, now can hear. It's totally not like that, not even a little bit.

I got back in time to join the mandala colouring although I missed the presentation. Folks were still 'chocolate tasting', 'beer sampling' and 'flower arranging' and there was a 'wellness' room where massages, manicures and other pamperings were taking place. Was terrific really. Very well organised and I'm glad I went. A free shuttle bus took me to the train station at 5pm and I was home around seven. Actually bumped into a woman from Almere heading home too, and hadn't even met her all day. We were of course discussing our CIs and I had surrounding passengers feeling my magnet strength, they were so interested hahaha - the Rondo gets lots of attention, even among other CI wearers.

More photos of my day, on facebook, here.