My second hospital appointment is tomorrow, but I wanted to share a few things that have happened in the last few days.
Firstly, on a lighthearted note: on Wednesday my magnetic headpiece jumped ship for the first time! I went to the playpark with C, and (as usual) he requested a push on the roundabout. I sat on it next to him, leaned my head back against the rail, and "clunk" - my CI was attached to the roundabout! And so was I - some strands of my hair were trapped under the powerful magnet and I couldn't pull free. Clearly a large metal roundabout was a more attractive proposition than my small head!
When doing my paragraph tracking homework on Tuesday night (still on prog 3) I kept feeling like I was cheating, because I seemed to be hearing more of Stuart's voice than I thought I should be! When he read the line "Jack had a granny and his granny had spots" (anyone recognise which story that is?) I heard "dum dum-da dum-dum dum dumsh dum-dum dum dumsh" as a sort of almost monotonous rumble (but some slight variation in tone, I think), with a bit of "shhh" whisper/radio-static-crackle accompanying it. As a child I have memories of hearing my Dad or my big brother's voice like that (minus the static), at bedtime when I'd already taken my hearing aids out and would lay my head on their chest and hear/feel the rumble of their deep voices as we had a bedtime cuddle. So I somehow thought I was hearing Stuart through my deaf ears (ie not through the CI) but I couldn't understand why, because I'm deaf, I'm not supposed to be able to hear voices unless they're really loud or I'm really close! My head was hurting a bit trying to understand - I do over-think things sometimes... Later on Stuart pointed out that I could test it by turning the CI off and seeing what I really was hearing through my ears alone. So I did. And I couldn't hear him anymore. So it all fell into place: I really was hearing him through the CI!
Wow.
Somehow, without really noticing it, in 9 days I've moved from boom and earthquake eyes, to beep-clunk with moderate vibrations, to a sound my brain is familiar with (and almost no vibrations) - a rumble of human voices. But if the voice gets higher in pitch, the familiar voice-like rumble is sometimes interspersed with the beep/clunk tone. My interpretation of this is that my brain doesn't yet recognise higher pitch sounds as being a voice so still 'hears' it as an unfamiliar beeping tone. I'll be interested to see what the audiologist thinks about this, tomorrow. At Stuart's suggestion I tried playing some notes on the piano. Notes below about middle C sort of resemble a note, or pure tone to me. Once I get to middle C, and certainly by the time I've got to the next C above middle C, it starts sounding like a beep again. My brain hasn't learned to 'hear' higher frequency sounds yet. But progress is definitely being made, so I'm sure we'll get there!
Yesterday afternoon, while out on the downs, I moved up to programme four. It seemed quite a bit louder when I first made the switch, but almost immediately I noticed that I seemed to be hearing more things - the two main ones I remember were the sound of C shuffling along on the pavement in his crocs, and hearing from downstairs that there was yelling upstairs. I am certainly hearing the boys' yelling more now - although prolonged single tone noises (aka yells) I still just hear the first bit before it goes quiet. But if the yells are more broken (wah wah wah, as opposed to waaaaaaaaaaaah) then I will hear the start of each pulse of sound.
Side note: It must seem from my blog that my boys yell all. the. time. They don't. But they do yell a lot. We are at that stage.
Another wow moment was today in the car, on the way home from fetching C from preschool. He'd put a nursery rhyme CD on. I could tell that the CD was on, and could detect some rhythmic sounds. While we were waiting at the traffic lights, I suddenly realised "I know this song!!!". Dum dum dumm, dum dum dumm, dum-a-dumdum dum-a-dumdum, dum dum dum. (Anyone want to guess which old time nursery rhyme that is?) I like rhythm, and have always preferred music with a good beat that I could hear - I absolutely love the African drumming I experienced many times in Uganda, and the rhythmic drumming and stamping/leaping dances they do in Lesotho - and I think my sense of rhythm is helping me now, to spot patterns. Today it helped me work out that I was hearing "Hot Cross Buns, hot cross buns, one-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns". :)
Those are the highlights of the last few days. There haven't been any real lows, but I have had some headaches, some discomfort around the area that the headpiece sits on the side of my head, and have struggled a bit with getting to sleep, both during the day and at night. My brain seems to be in overdrive, and takes a long time to switch off. I'm experiencing some tinnitus when I'm trying to sleep as well, which isn't helping. Understanding the boys is still hard work and hit and miss - sometimes I get it quickly, other times it needs a lot of repetitions.
Tomorrow is another audiologist appointment to tweak the settings, and another Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) appointment to work on brain training and get my next set of homework. I'll let you know how it goes!
Firstly, on a lighthearted note: on Wednesday my magnetic headpiece jumped ship for the first time! I went to the playpark with C, and (as usual) he requested a push on the roundabout. I sat on it next to him, leaned my head back against the rail, and "clunk" - my CI was attached to the roundabout! And so was I - some strands of my hair were trapped under the powerful magnet and I couldn't pull free. Clearly a large metal roundabout was a more attractive proposition than my small head!
When doing my paragraph tracking homework on Tuesday night (still on prog 3) I kept feeling like I was cheating, because I seemed to be hearing more of Stuart's voice than I thought I should be! When he read the line "Jack had a granny and his granny had spots" (anyone recognise which story that is?) I heard "dum dum-da dum-dum dum dumsh dum-dum dum dumsh" as a sort of almost monotonous rumble (but some slight variation in tone, I think), with a bit of "shhh" whisper/radio-static-crackle accompanying it. As a child I have memories of hearing my Dad or my big brother's voice like that (minus the static), at bedtime when I'd already taken my hearing aids out and would lay my head on their chest and hear/feel the rumble of their deep voices as we had a bedtime cuddle. So I somehow thought I was hearing Stuart through my deaf ears (ie not through the CI) but I couldn't understand why, because I'm deaf, I'm not supposed to be able to hear voices unless they're really loud or I'm really close! My head was hurting a bit trying to understand - I do over-think things sometimes... Later on Stuart pointed out that I could test it by turning the CI off and seeing what I really was hearing through my ears alone. So I did. And I couldn't hear him anymore. So it all fell into place: I really was hearing him through the CI!
Wow.
Somehow, without really noticing it, in 9 days I've moved from boom and earthquake eyes, to beep-clunk with moderate vibrations, to a sound my brain is familiar with (and almost no vibrations) - a rumble of human voices. But if the voice gets higher in pitch, the familiar voice-like rumble is sometimes interspersed with the beep/clunk tone. My interpretation of this is that my brain doesn't yet recognise higher pitch sounds as being a voice so still 'hears' it as an unfamiliar beeping tone. I'll be interested to see what the audiologist thinks about this, tomorrow. At Stuart's suggestion I tried playing some notes on the piano. Notes below about middle C sort of resemble a note, or pure tone to me. Once I get to middle C, and certainly by the time I've got to the next C above middle C, it starts sounding like a beep again. My brain hasn't learned to 'hear' higher frequency sounds yet. But progress is definitely being made, so I'm sure we'll get there!
Yesterday afternoon, while out on the downs, I moved up to programme four. It seemed quite a bit louder when I first made the switch, but almost immediately I noticed that I seemed to be hearing more things - the two main ones I remember were the sound of C shuffling along on the pavement in his crocs, and hearing from downstairs that there was yelling upstairs. I am certainly hearing the boys' yelling more now - although prolonged single tone noises (aka yells) I still just hear the first bit before it goes quiet. But if the yells are more broken (wah wah wah, as opposed to waaaaaaaaaaaah) then I will hear the start of each pulse of sound.
Side note: It must seem from my blog that my boys yell all. the. time. They don't. But they do yell a lot. We are at that stage.
Another wow moment was today in the car, on the way home from fetching C from preschool. He'd put a nursery rhyme CD on. I could tell that the CD was on, and could detect some rhythmic sounds. While we were waiting at the traffic lights, I suddenly realised "I know this song!!!". Dum dum dumm, dum dum dumm, dum-a-dumdum dum-a-dumdum, dum dum dum. (Anyone want to guess which old time nursery rhyme that is?) I like rhythm, and have always preferred music with a good beat that I could hear - I absolutely love the African drumming I experienced many times in Uganda, and the rhythmic drumming and stamping/leaping dances they do in Lesotho - and I think my sense of rhythm is helping me now, to spot patterns. Today it helped me work out that I was hearing "Hot Cross Buns, hot cross buns, one-a-penny, two-a-penny, hot cross buns". :)
Those are the highlights of the last few days. There haven't been any real lows, but I have had some headaches, some discomfort around the area that the headpiece sits on the side of my head, and have struggled a bit with getting to sleep, both during the day and at night. My brain seems to be in overdrive, and takes a long time to switch off. I'm experiencing some tinnitus when I'm trying to sleep as well, which isn't helping. Understanding the boys is still hard work and hit and miss - sometimes I get it quickly, other times it needs a lot of repetitions.
Tomorrow is another audiologist appointment to tweak the settings, and another Speech and Language Therapist (SLT) appointment to work on brain training and get my next set of homework. I'll let you know how it goes!
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