Day 3 with Cochlear

Day 2 went very well. At the hearing appointments they map the responses of my brain to sound. There was a vast difference between the first day and the 2nd. It's amazing what the brain can do. As it hears and pocesses each sound and then stores it away. We adjusted the speed of the electral impulses to my nerves and hence my brain. We also checked the frequency of sounds. I seem to be able to hear extrememly low sound and extremely high sound and everything in between, so it looks like I might be having more than the anticipated 60% "return of hearing".

I was out feeding my birds today and one of my neighbor was leaving her house. She's a good 20 plus feet away and I said good morning. She answered and I heard her. Amazing. We talked for about a minute and I understood everything she said.

I heard the ticking of my oven timer. I am sitting at my desk doing some artwork and I must admit it's very quiet in my house , but still, I heard my clock on the wall as the second hand moved around. I looked up in wonder.

Other noises are starting to sound more natural, but there are still sounds that sound mechanical. Hey what can you expect it's only been 2 full days. Sheesh.

I have a friend coming over and I told her to ring my doorbell. Even with my other hearing aid I couldn't hear my doorbell, so I am anxious to hear what it sounds like. I also want to try my phone today and hear if I can hear anything and or understand what the person is saying. Will be interesting.

I've always liked bells and chimes and have had these bells hanging on my door knob for eons, even before I lost my hearing. I heard them today when I was closing the closet door. They didn't sound like what I remembered, but they were bell sounds. I might just put a ton of chimes around my house...

I love the sound of the clacking of my keyboard.

Yesterday I went to Future shop to buy a new laptop (which I sorely needed since both my computers have been on the fritz for quite some time now and it's soooo frustrating). But what I'm trying to say is I asked the salesperson a question and I understood everything he said. What a pleasure. Whenever I've asked something in the past I would invariably have to "tune out" because I just didn't understand what they were saying. I would then try to find my information by reading all the box info, which didn't always help and of course the prices were never on all the items, so I would just walk out.

I'm so looking forward to my first class at the end of January and hoping that I will be able to hear and understand everything the teacher is saying. This was the reason I looked into getting a cochlear in the first place. For years I haven't been able to hear the teachers and I missed out on so much information. I am just glad I am a very fast learner and show me something once and I can do it. Plus I have lots of friends in my Guild that help me by writing notes about what is said, so I could read a lot of the information. But it's not the same without the interaction. There have been so many times I would want to ask a quesiton or say something and wonder if someone has asked that already so I would just not participate in the discussion. I don't think I'll be keeping my mouth shut in the future.

OK enough for today. My next appointment is on Friday. Will keep posting about it. It's a good way to keep a record and maybe it will help another Cochlear person or hearing imparied person thinking about a cochlear implant.