I've passed the two week mark, and it feels a bit like the honeymoon is over. I've been very emotionally stable for the first two weeks (definitely an answer to prayer), but the last couple of days I've been more up and down, more tired, more frustrated.
In terms of hearing voices, when I'm in a quiet room, it feels to me like I'm approaching what I could hear with aids, albeit with the volume turned down several notches. Voices are becoming clearer, and so I find myself trying to hear more, unlike the first 10-12 days when I was relying totally on lipreading and not paying much attention to the sounds. Which is fine when it's quiet. But when it gets noisy - by the busy road on the school run, as already mentioned, or in a noisy playground before school, or this afternoon when they had open classroom, for parents to pop in and see their childrens' artwork - then it gets a whole lot harder. The CI seems to work to mute background noise - so I'm aware there is background noise, but it doesn't seem very loud to me - but in the process, voices close to me are muted as well. Which is very frustrating. And so I'm thrown back to relying fully on lipreading, which I can do - but it's a lot harder when I'm tired, when there's other noises that don't match the speaker's lip patterns (which confuses my brain), and sometimes, well, I just don't want to do that work - I just want everything to be quiet so I can hear only the sounds that make the lipreading easier. Something to talk to the audiologist about at my next appointment, in one week, to see if he can tweak the settings.
I'm also starting to feel a bit stressed as the house gets less clean, less tidy, a 5th birthday is coming up (plus a party 10 days later), and the list of things to do gets longer. I'm feeling like I should be able to get on and do these things now - come on, it's been over two weeks already! But I'm still very tired, my brain is still having to work hard and learn lots, so I need a rest everyday (or ideally two - but that never happens!). And I still need to make some time to do my SLT homework. So there's very little time or energy left for tidying or chores. I need to cut myself some slack. Only trouble is, it's much easier to type that, than to do it!
On the positive front, I heard birds tweeting yesterday! We were eating lunch outside and Stuart asked me if I could hear the birds, and I realised that my brain was registering some beeps that matched the bird sounds Stuart could hear! Unfortunately we are not well enough versed in ornithology to know which birds I was hearing. Sparrows, bluetits, robins and goldfinches are the ones that frequent our garden, so probably one of those...
Today was also the first day of cycling alone with the trailer in tow. That went fine, although helped by traffic being surprisingly light in the morning's rush hour today - maybe some people have already gone on their half term holidays? I am still not hearing approaching traffic behind, but that's OK - we'll get there one day. If I can, I avoid routes that involve crossing roads on a blind corner - not even perfect vision can compensate for lack of hearing there!
Tomorrow I'm moving up to programme number four, out of five, that I was given to work through over this fortnight. I also have a morning of solo parenting as Stuart (again) works on a Saturday (just a half day this time, thankfully) and an afternoon of accompanying Reuben to a disco birthday party. My Mum comes back on Sunday for a few days, which we are all looking forward to, for various reasons, including haircuts for the boys, more rest for me, and some extra encouragement and emotional support. :)
In terms of hearing voices, when I'm in a quiet room, it feels to me like I'm approaching what I could hear with aids, albeit with the volume turned down several notches. Voices are becoming clearer, and so I find myself trying to hear more, unlike the first 10-12 days when I was relying totally on lipreading and not paying much attention to the sounds. Which is fine when it's quiet. But when it gets noisy - by the busy road on the school run, as already mentioned, or in a noisy playground before school, or this afternoon when they had open classroom, for parents to pop in and see their childrens' artwork - then it gets a whole lot harder. The CI seems to work to mute background noise - so I'm aware there is background noise, but it doesn't seem very loud to me - but in the process, voices close to me are muted as well. Which is very frustrating. And so I'm thrown back to relying fully on lipreading, which I can do - but it's a lot harder when I'm tired, when there's other noises that don't match the speaker's lip patterns (which confuses my brain), and sometimes, well, I just don't want to do that work - I just want everything to be quiet so I can hear only the sounds that make the lipreading easier. Something to talk to the audiologist about at my next appointment, in one week, to see if he can tweak the settings.
I'm also starting to feel a bit stressed as the house gets less clean, less tidy, a 5th birthday is coming up (plus a party 10 days later), and the list of things to do gets longer. I'm feeling like I should be able to get on and do these things now - come on, it's been over two weeks already! But I'm still very tired, my brain is still having to work hard and learn lots, so I need a rest everyday (or ideally two - but that never happens!). And I still need to make some time to do my SLT homework. So there's very little time or energy left for tidying or chores. I need to cut myself some slack. Only trouble is, it's much easier to type that, than to do it!
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| We don't have any of these in our house - yet... |
On the positive front, I heard birds tweeting yesterday! We were eating lunch outside and Stuart asked me if I could hear the birds, and I realised that my brain was registering some beeps that matched the bird sounds Stuart could hear! Unfortunately we are not well enough versed in ornithology to know which birds I was hearing. Sparrows, bluetits, robins and goldfinches are the ones that frequent our garden, so probably one of those...
Today was also the first day of cycling alone with the trailer in tow. That went fine, although helped by traffic being surprisingly light in the morning's rush hour today - maybe some people have already gone on their half term holidays? I am still not hearing approaching traffic behind, but that's OK - we'll get there one day. If I can, I avoid routes that involve crossing roads on a blind corner - not even perfect vision can compensate for lack of hearing there!
Tomorrow I'm moving up to programme number four, out of five, that I was given to work through over this fortnight. I also have a morning of solo parenting as Stuart (again) works on a Saturday (just a half day this time, thankfully) and an afternoon of accompanying Reuben to a disco birthday party. My Mum comes back on Sunday for a few days, which we are all looking forward to, for various reasons, including haircuts for the boys, more rest for me, and some extra encouragement and emotional support. :)
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