Trying to Connect the Dots (or something like that...)

Last week was another week of ups and down. Man, this trip around has been more complicated!

We'll start with the good. I had my first listening therapy session with Nanette on Wednesday and that went really well. We worked on the three sounds that are most difficult for me to distinguish between: "oooo", "eee", and "mmmm." At first, it seems a little strange that "mmmm" and "eeeee" would sound so similar, doesn't it? Nanette's explanation makes perfect sense. The cochlea is shaped like a seashell in our inner ear and there are millions of tiny hair cells circulating throughout. The hair cells at the forefront of the cochlea are responsible for detecting high frequency sounds (whistling, chirping birds, etc.) while the hairs all the way back, deep in the cochlea handle the lower, deeper sounds (lawn mowers, humming, etc.). For late deafened adults or people who lose their hearing from exposure to excessive noise, the high frequency sounds are typically the first to go because those hair cells are at the "front line", absorbing all that noise. Now I swapped my natural hearing system for a man made one and that changes things. My implant is wrapped tightly around my cochlea - it has the most direct contact with the hair cells at the top of my cochlea (high frequency hairs!) and the least contact with the ones way in the back, deep in the cochlea (low frequency hairs). The result is that I become friends with high pitches much quicker and easier than those low tones. It was very satisfying to learn the science behind why certain listening situations are more difficult.

After our science pow-wow, Nanette took me through a series of drills. I had to listen to her say three words, and pick the one that didn't belong: "bike, spider, car". Then, she showed me two pictures of similar sounds and without lipreading her, I had to pick the one she said: "Lou, Low" and so on. The purpose of all these different drills was make those cognitive connections with certain sounds. She'd say a word, I'd lip-read her - identify the word, listen to it again, store it in memory..and then drill it. Its a very repetitive process that can become frustrating and tiring, trying to "learn" all these new sounds. But at the same time, its rewarding and a lot of fun to see my progress! Low sounds like low, and Lou sounds like Lou! =)

So that's the good stuff. The not-so-good stuff has to deal with wearing my implants together. There has been no change - I still feel that weird current shooting through my body when I wear them together. Ginny gave me two really quiet maps to help me tolerate them with instructions to spend about 15 minutes each day with them on together. My care team is doing research, trying to put together a good strategy to get me to a place where I can wear both together, comfortably. At the same time, they're also trying to figure out why I'm having this experience. While I sincerely appreciate their honesty about the situation, its a scary feeling not knowing whats going on. So I'm kind of in this limbo... each day, I wear my original implant by itself for 1-2 hours (typically listening to NPR on my commute which is a nice return!); I spend about 15 minutes with them both; then the rest of the time I wear my new implant. Its weird and uncomfortable and hopefully short-term.

My dad likes to tell me to "suck it up" when I start throwing pity parties for myself. So I'll end this blog on a happy note. On my way home from work tonight, I had NPR on and I noticed I was able to understand a LOT more of what they were saying with my new implant. While I still have a long ways to go, I can at least detect that it'll be partly sunny tomorrow, I think in the 80s. =) Baby steps, right??

Love,
Becky