I have been so grateful for each and every one of my friends and family who sent me messages yesterday and today to say they were thinking of me, and praying for me today. Your support has meant a huge amount to me.
Today has been, well, I don't know what adjective or emotion best describes it. It's just been a lot to take in. Tiring, new, strange, daunting, dizzying... those are a few to get you started!
The CI is now on, and the next, and hardest, stage of this long journey has begun. The Cochlear Implant actually works (hooray!), and the Audiologist is pleased with my brain's response to the electrical signals. But what I'm hearing? Well, it doesn't resemble what I've heard as sound for all my life so far. It's very hard to describe, but I'll give it a go.
Imagine having a goldfish bowl on your head so that only the loudest sounds come through, sounding very distant and muted (it's a little like tinnitus, for those of you who may have experienced that). But there's a few random holes that let some other, less loud, sounds through too. But every noise sounds the same to me, regardless of whether it's a voice, a door shutting, or a spoon clinking against a glass bowl (my Mum is sitting next to me eating her dessert, hence the example!) - it's not exactly a beep, more like a sort of boom in my head, accompanied by vibrations radiating through my skull (as if someone has given me a tap on the left side of my head with a rubber mallet) that seem to set my eyeballs rattling and briefly blur my vision. The louder the sound, the greater the vibrations and the harder it is to focus my vision. But at the moment I only hear the start of a sound. If the sound is prolonged (e.g. a yelling 3 year old) I hear the first split second of him starting to cry, but then it goes (blessedly!) silent. ;)
Apparently this is very normal, and to be expected for someone with my history of lifelong deafness, and no experience of hearing sounds "normally". If someone became deaf later in life, then the brain is more familiar with what things should sound like, and the transition to hearing clearly is much quicker. At the moment my CI is set to around half of the likely final sound level, because I simply couldn't tolerate anything louder - I had to squeeze my eyes shut to cope with the eyeball rattling/vision blurring! Over the next week, I have to increase the volume incrementally, every 2-3 days, as my brain gets used to each level - I'm told this brain adjustment should happen quite quickly. And with the increase in volume should come a gradual increase in clarity. But we're talking a timescale of many weeks, months really, before I can really start to see the full benefit of a CI. It's a dauntingly long journey, especially with two little boys in tow. So far R has been very good at speaking clearly for me, and this evening seemed to be feeling quite protective towards me which was very sweet. C is less aware (he woke me up from my afternoon nap very upset, and apologising for throwing my phone on the floor - not conducive to getting back to sleep when you're now wondering what state your phone is in! (I later discovered it survived intact...)) but is doing his best to speak clearly for me when prompted.
So for the moment, it's not really about starting to make sense of the sounds, or resolve them into anything recognisable. It's about getting used to the device and the sounds, getting used to my eyeballs vibrating - and communicating solely via lipreading, while trying not to be distracted too much by the multiple booms and skull-shakes (which, confusingly, don't always match the lip movements I'm trying to lipread, because I'm not yet hearing a "boom" for every word spoken, as some are too soft for me to detect yet).
My next hospital appointment is 17th May, when I'll go back for more tweaks from the audiologist, and more listening exercises with the speech and language therapist.
Today has been, well, I don't know what adjective or emotion best describes it. It's just been a lot to take in. Tiring, new, strange, daunting, dizzying... those are a few to get you started!
The CI is now on, and the next, and hardest, stage of this long journey has begun. The Cochlear Implant actually works (hooray!), and the Audiologist is pleased with my brain's response to the electrical signals. But what I'm hearing? Well, it doesn't resemble what I've heard as sound for all my life so far. It's very hard to describe, but I'll give it a go.
Imagine having a goldfish bowl on your head so that only the loudest sounds come through, sounding very distant and muted (it's a little like tinnitus, for those of you who may have experienced that). But there's a few random holes that let some other, less loud, sounds through too. But every noise sounds the same to me, regardless of whether it's a voice, a door shutting, or a spoon clinking against a glass bowl (my Mum is sitting next to me eating her dessert, hence the example!) - it's not exactly a beep, more like a sort of boom in my head, accompanied by vibrations radiating through my skull (as if someone has given me a tap on the left side of my head with a rubber mallet) that seem to set my eyeballs rattling and briefly blur my vision. The louder the sound, the greater the vibrations and the harder it is to focus my vision. But at the moment I only hear the start of a sound. If the sound is prolonged (e.g. a yelling 3 year old) I hear the first split second of him starting to cry, but then it goes (blessedly!) silent. ;)
Apparently this is very normal, and to be expected for someone with my history of lifelong deafness, and no experience of hearing sounds "normally". If someone became deaf later in life, then the brain is more familiar with what things should sound like, and the transition to hearing clearly is much quicker. At the moment my CI is set to around half of the likely final sound level, because I simply couldn't tolerate anything louder - I had to squeeze my eyes shut to cope with the eyeball rattling/vision blurring! Over the next week, I have to increase the volume incrementally, every 2-3 days, as my brain gets used to each level - I'm told this brain adjustment should happen quite quickly. And with the increase in volume should come a gradual increase in clarity. But we're talking a timescale of many weeks, months really, before I can really start to see the full benefit of a CI. It's a dauntingly long journey, especially with two little boys in tow. So far R has been very good at speaking clearly for me, and this evening seemed to be feeling quite protective towards me which was very sweet. C is less aware (he woke me up from my afternoon nap very upset, and apologising for throwing my phone on the floor - not conducive to getting back to sleep when you're now wondering what state your phone is in! (I later discovered it survived intact...)) but is doing his best to speak clearly for me when prompted.
So for the moment, it's not really about starting to make sense of the sounds, or resolve them into anything recognisable. It's about getting used to the device and the sounds, getting used to my eyeballs vibrating - and communicating solely via lipreading, while trying not to be distracted too much by the multiple booms and skull-shakes (which, confusingly, don't always match the lip movements I'm trying to lipread, because I'm not yet hearing a "boom" for every word spoken, as some are too soft for me to detect yet).
My next hospital appointment is 17th May, when I'll go back for more tweaks from the audiologist, and more listening exercises with the speech and language therapist.
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