I LOVE my cochlear implant!

Well, I apologize for the delay in posts. Life has been just crazy since school let out at the end of May. Here it is the end of June and the chaos hasn't stopped! I had my third mapping on June 13 and immediately left for camping for 4 days. No internet connection to update the blog. Upon returning home we had vacation bible school, swim team practice and a meet, technology training at school, horse camp, and getting the girls packed for 4-H camp. Then drive kids to camp, scrapbook evening, whirlwind surprise bedroom makeover for my oldest girl while she was away at camp, and then put things back together and pick kids up from camp. <breathe> Then, continue with swim team practice, horse camp, and drive kids to musical rehearsal every day. Recover from bedroom makeover. We're still working on the pile mountain of junk "stuff" in the living room from Maddie's room. And... we're out of town again this weekend.

BUT... I am doing all this running around with renewed vigor because I can hear! I REALLY LOVE IT! At my last appointment, my audiologist did more mapping, and after setting my new programs, put me in the booth for some hearing tests. She and I were so excited to see the results! One of the tests I did was sentence testing. Sentences were spoken by many different kinds of voices and I had to repeat the sentences back. In January, wearing the high-powered hearing aid I had to try for a month prior to my CI, my score was 32% correct in a quiet environment. In June, wearing my CI processor, my score was 93% correct! The same test with background noise was given. My audiologist didn't even do the background noise with me in January because my score was so low. In June, I had 84% correct in noise. Incredible! I thought I would share my audiograms from January and June also to show you the improvement. These are for the ear with the implant. Sorry they are a bit blurry!

Before CI surgery, I could not hear the high frequencies. See the big drop?

With the CI, I can now hear those higher frequencies!

Life is good right now. I really feel like I can hear important things that I was missing before. Life is more enjoyable also. The sound with the CI is not yet perfect. I still hear robotic voices a bit. But if I don't concentrate on that, I can block it out and things feel mostly normal. I have 4 different settings now on my processor - everyday, noise, quiet, music. My "homework" is to practice using each of these settings. Right now I mostly use the everyday setting. It's the one that sounds the best. I have switched to the noise setting when I am at gatherings with lots of people, restaurants, and so forth. It seems to help a little with conversation. Music comes and goes. The music setting doesn't seem to improve it much. Acoustic music sounds the best. Electronic music such as electric guitars, radio, etc. often still sound a lot like static. But it will get better. I am confident in that.

Want to know some of the times I have been utterly grateful for this opportunity and just thank God I have a cochlear implant? Well, it's my blog so I am going to share anyway! There are no longer burned meals in our house due to that high pitched oven timer. I can hear it from several rooms away! I drove to a party at a friend's Michigan cottage and was able to have a conversation with my girlfriend in the car without having to look at her and read her lips! I can hear my kids when they talk to me from the back seat of the car. Right now I can hear the TV two rooms away. Those things would never happen before. I am so thankful.

I have to leave you with this humorous photo my dad found in an ad in the paper. Sometimes I feel like this!