Today was the first visit with the audiologist since my activation. When my CI was activated a couple weeks ago, it was set up with five programs, each increasing in volume from the previous one. I started at program 1, and was supposed to spend a couple days on each, reaching program 5 before today’s appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On day one, I wondered if I would make it — everything was SO LOUD, and the implant hindered my ability to understand speech rather than helping it; everyone sounded a bit like the adults in the Peanuts<\/em> cartoons: “wa wa wa wa wa”. However, I did manage to get to program 5 this past Sunday, and my understanding is increasing as well. People still sound scratchy\/staticky — as I’ve said, a bit like Gollum from the Lord of the Rings<\/em> movies. But still, the implant is beginning to actually be helpful rather than a distraction. And my audiologist is pleased with my progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So today’s mapping was basically the audiologist triggering each of the 16 electrodes in my cochlea. I’d hear a series of beeps and she kept increasing the volume until I indicated that it was just on the edge of being too loud. Each electrode had a different frequency. So now I have a new set of five programs, again increasing in volume, which I’m supposed to get through in about a month. As before, right now everything sounds really, really loud, and normal sounds are startling me. But hopefully it’ll work the same way: my brain will get used to the new volume and I’ll be able to increase it. At least now I have more time; I can spend a week at each level if I have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In other news, the insurance company denied my appeal for coverage of the hyperbaric oxygen treatments for my other ear. Not exactly a shock, but still disappointing. I’m keeping on with them, though, in the hopes that they might help. So far they’ve only changed my distance vision: it’s actually better without my glasses now than with them. However, they tell me this is temporary and it should go back to normal once I’m done with the treatments. Guess I’ll put off that eye exam I’m overdue for until after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, I continue to listen to audio books and TV streamed directly into the implant. I’m basically trying to do as much with just the implant as possible and only wearing the hearing aid in the other ear when I absolutely need to understand something. Luckily, Ray is okay with repeating things for me. (I imagine it does get annoying after a while, but he’s very patient.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today was the first visit with the audiologist since my activation. When my CI was activated a couple weeks ago, it was set up with five programs, each increasing in volume from the previous one. I started at program 1, and was supposed to spend a couple days on each, reaching program 5 before today’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108\/revisions\/110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monster-island.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}