I’m Alive!

It has been about 3 months since my last post. So much as happened! Where to begin…

I finished audio therapy in mid-June, the results were pretty positive. I feel much more comfortable informing people of my hearing loss and what needs done to foster a greater listening environment. There were three primary psychological mindsets to condition for: anticipation, expectation and acceptance.

• Anticipation – This ties in greatly with expectations but it is the process of preparing for a difficult listening scenario. A couple examples would include; how many people are at the restaurant, do any of them have an accent, what is the room and lighting going to be like, where there be a lot of background noise? These are all questions I must ask myself prior to attending an event. However, I must not set it in stone, if an additional person shows up or some other event outside of “the plan”, I need to adapt just as quickly.
• Expectation – It is better to have low expectations and be surprised than it is to have high and disappoint. This is mostly common sense but many people set lofty goals and I’m no exception. When it comes to hearing loss, it’s very easy to retreat to isolation if a social event isn’t going the way you had hoped. As a result, it is often more beneficial to set the sights low and surprise yourself. I must say to myself prior to going to a noisy restaurant with three friends, “I think I can understand 70% of what is going to be said.” Often times I exceed that and then feel twice as good because not only did I successfully communicate, I also did better than I expected.
• Acceptance – I’ve probably had the most problems adjusting to this mindset. For over half of my life I had passable unaided hearing and could fit in with “normal” people. Once my hearing started to deteriorate further, it became very easy for me to start bluffing my way through conversations in attempt to appear normal. I’ve been told that I succeeded, which is not a good thing. I needed to learn to accept my loss and move on, never bluff and always ask for repeats. This is still a problem for me but at least I’m aware of it and it doesn’t happen too often.

I had a meeting a few weeks ago and there was a team member that I’ve never met coming in from the U.K. After introductions, said team member started speaking and immediately I thought, “Why can’t I understand a word he is saying, what is going on?!” A minute later, I realized that he had a strong British accent. As soon as I realized that, everything started making sense. This is a good example of anticipation, if I had known he had an accent (I should have expected) I wouldn’t have had a problem understanding the first half of his speech.

After therapy, I’ve gotten back into 3d-modeling and a friend of mine got me really interested in 3d-printing.

3d-printed Stainless Steel Deathly Hallows Dice

She mentioned a website called www.shapeways.com . I opened up a shop on the website and started creating dice sets. It was a steep learning curve due to the many limitations of 3d-printing dimensions and material variances. After much trial and error, I’ve produced two dice sets: Steampunk and Deathly Hallows. I’ve been very fortunate and sold more than I expected, this in turn inspired me to aim a little higher and see how far I can take this. I’m hoping to start a table top terrain business this fall using 3d-modeling, 3d-printing prototypes and some magic of my own. This is something I would have never attempted with my previous level of hearing loss. Looking back a year, I’m a little blown away by how much confidence I’ve gained.

In July, I had my 6 month hearing examination and evaluation for second CI. I was at the audiologist for 5 hours! My Audi. tested unaided hearing in both ears, aided hearing and speech comprehension. I don’t have an audiogram created so I will describe the results.

She tested my cochlear implant ear without the CI. We were VERY surprised to learn I still had hearing in that ear; it wasn’t much less than it was before the implant. This is amazing; most patients lose their native hearing completely after implantation. This is due to the electrode array being inserted into the cochlea destroying some sort of thin membrane. I don’t know all the details but I complemented surgeon for the excellent work. After that she moved on to testing my right ear without a hearing aid and then with a hearing aid. Not much change from before, slightly worse as expected. I only scored an 18% on speech understanding with my hearing aided right ear. This qualified me for a second CI!

Then she moved on to testing my comprehension with the CI and HA on. I scored a whopping 95% in quiet, 90% in light noise and 99% of single words!!! I didn’t even feel like I did very well. I was much more relaxed throughout the entire session. Normally, when taking hearing tests I’m at the edge of my seat, eyes closed and concentrating very hard. My audio therapist told me that sort of intense concentration will actually hinder your ability to understand due to the frustration that follows. Being relaxed seems to be the key. Furthermore, I scored around the 15db range in all frequencies, which is about 5db better than my 3 month exam.

We moved on to selecting my 2nd CI brand and all the gadgets that come with it. Oddly, she asked me if I wanted Advanced Bionics for my second ear (I have Cochlear Americas Nucleus 5 on my left) and I just gave her a weird look like she was insane. I have nothing against AB at all, but I would find it exceptionally weird to have a different brand on each side. I know some people do that, but I’m all about symmetry.

After getting that out of the way, I met with my surgeon and two other doctors that seemed to be very impressed. I found it humorous when the two doctors started feeling around my skull and chatting animatedly, it reminded me so much of two nerds playing with a new smartphone. They told me they think I should get a second one as well due to the results and I should gain better understanding in a wider variety of situations. They then sent me to talk to the surgery scheduler and insurance assistance. She told me I was already pre-approved by my insurance carrier to get a second, contralateral CI. Great news! Just need to pick a date now and I’m set.

Last but certainly not least, I was married on Aug. 1st, 2011 to a beautiful woman named Christine. The wedding went exceptionally well and our honeymoon in Hawaii for two weeks was amazing. Some friends of ours recorded the Father-Daughter Bollywood dance, it was amazing!

Life is good.

A New Life

Hello everyone, it’s been over a month since my last post. It has been busy.

During this time I had my 3 month post-activation exam. I was blown away with the results. Check out the audiogram!

Check out the comprehension numbers in purple!

As you can see, in just three short months, I’ve climbed from 2% to 44% and now 88% in my left ear’s comprehension within a quiet environment. With my hearing aid on I gain another whopping 3% bringing the total to 91%. However, this environment isn’t realistic so my understanding would be a bit less in the noisy real world.

I’ve continued to enjoy the benefits that come with this new level of understanding. I can talk in the car pretty well, listen to podcasts all day long and hear the birds sing every day inside and outside of my apartment. I’ve taken to listening to the radio in my car on my way home from work. I still can’t understand music lyrics, or talk on the phone well, but I’m sure that will come in time. I could probably go on and on about moments where I felt overwhelmed by the resurrection of one of my senses.

I’ve also started audio therapy every Wednesday. We initially were testing my level of communication ability without visual cues and they were shocked to realize I didn’t need any help in that area. Instead, we are focusing more on how to communicate effectively. Being hard of hearing doesn’t just effect how much you can socialze or learn, but also how you interpret the world and vice versa. I’ve collected many psychological deterants to communication, or scars would be another word for it. They are attempting to help me recognize difficult situations, inform the necessary parties and overall communicate better in places where I would have previously given up, retreated to isolation, or lashed out in fustration.

This new level of understanding has also encouraged me to get a little more creative with my life. I’m doing alot of business research and development with intentions to start my own business sometime later this year. While it may be bad timing and stressful considering everything else going on; wedding, work, finances. I feel much more confident that I’ll be able to do such a thing where previously it would have been an enormous task due to the social nature of business administration.

During my 3 month exam, I also set up an appointment for a second CI evaluation, which is scheduled for mid July. If all goes well there, as I think I’ve mentioned previously, I’d like to get the surgery done sometime during the fall. I have high hopes because I’ve done so well with my left ear, I imagine my right ear will be even better. It has always been my dominant ear.

Bottomline, my Cochlear Implant is a SUCCESS!

Past Couple Weeks & Beyond

It’s been awhile since I updated this, though not too long. Anyone out there? [Poll below]

My e-mail from my prior blog was published on the Massively Podcast! If you are interested in hearing it and their thoughts please click the following link: Massively Podcast – Episode 141: PAX East Wrap-up It was heart-warming to hear their thoughts, even if they pronounced cochlear implant completely wrong.

New wow moments have slowed down considerably. Almost everything sounds normal-ish now, although I’m not sure if that is because what I’m hearing is normal sounding or because my brain adjusted. Mysteries! Anyhow, I’ve been listening to podcasts while at work and also audiobooks (while reading along) at home. I’ve noticed a couple new things that I never paid much attention too before.

First off, I can tell when someone sounds awkward and tries to fill in the blank with an offhand thought or article. Pre-CI, I would have probably taken everything in stride, concentrating so hard that I missed the subtleties of conversation or faked understanding. This is especially true for people with accents. I often didn’t bother with them before because they were too difficult, now I find them a pleasant change. Well… in most cases, there was a German accented guest in one of the podcasts I listened to, and it was simply horrible.

My Letter to Massively!

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks since my last post. Some good things have happened which I’ll follow up on later this week.

I’ve recently been listening to a lot of Massively Podcasts to condition the audio department of my brain. All the hard work has paid off, I can now listen to this podcast without even paying attention and fully understanding all of it. I was so astounded from this realization, that I decided to write them a letter in thanks. In their next podcast, they might even read it.

Here is what I wrote:

Cochlear Implant Myths…

I was reading some blogs the other day and came across one about CI myths. It had so much truth that I wanted to write my own, borrowing some information and creating new ones.

Cochlear Implant Myths & Facts:

Myth - CI recipients can’t take baths because we have wires sticking out of our heads.

• Fact - When the external sound processor is off, CI recipients are indistinguishable from “normal” people.

Myth - CI recipients can’t play contact sports.

• Fact - While extreme contact sports are not recommended, it can totally be done. Check out this helmet!

Myth - Disclaimer: Personal opinion myth. Parents should wait until a child is old enough to decide on their own if they want a CI.

• Fact - I believe that this is the worse possible thing to do. The human brain creates speech centers, learns speech, and creates auditory memory at an accelerated rate during a child’s early years. If the child misses this window, it will be vastly more difficult to progress and probably will never obtain the same performance as if they were implanted early.

One-month Post-activation

This past week has been pretty encouraging in the hearing arena. My brain seemed to have finally decoded the amalgam of noise and said, “Hey, this is speech! I’ll file that away right over here. Oh look, he already has files there. *Accessing auditory memory* Hmm, what can I do with these?”

That is not to say that I hear great. Far from it, but I have noticed that my audio book of Eragon is sounding so crisp and clear that I can understand almost everything without even looking at the page to read along. That is with my direct connect cable, which is much like a single ear bud connected to speakers. Except it plugs into my sound processor instead of going into my ear.

Sound over the air is another story. Christine’s voice sounds pretty great, I can understand her in pitch darkness, whispering and even some times while we are driving and I’m not looking at her. Oddly, I’ve found that she is actually harder to understand when she speaks louder, which makes no sense. Other people are much more difficult. Sometimes when I visited my co-worker’s offices, I’ve found that for an unknown reason, I don’t seem to understand what they are saying.

You might have noticed that both of those paragraphs are a contradiction. I start by saying it’s not so great then follow up with glowing progress. Who knows how my mind works? Evidently I still don’t, or perhaps I’m just confused by what is actually happening. Maybe I have good CI days and bad CI days?

Another Monday…

We all love Mondays, we crawl out of bed and drag our feet to work. Only to realize that everything seems so incredibly slow. Most people make it over this hump by drowning themselves in coffee, some use some other energy drink. What do you use?

On the hearing front. Since my mapping on Friday, things went from very LOUD to normal over the course of three days. I bumped my volume up a bit and hopefully will adjust to it within a few days. The idea is to steadily increase volume as your brain becomes accustomed to the stimulation. By the time I go back for my next mapping, which is about two months away, I hope to be maxed out. I’ve told Christine to keep an eye out for facial twitching, which can happen when a certain electrode hits it’s threshold.

Of course, I might have adjusted so quickly due to going to an insanely loud restaurant on Friday. Even Christine and three friends said it was very loud, but you know what, I felt like I could hear so much better than before with just two hearing aids. I was picking up a word there, a phrase there, and if I concentrated could almost follow along. After leaving that place the traffic outside sounded blissfully quiet in comparison.

On Saturday, I had another gaming session with four of my friends. It went well. I still had difficulty following some of the more random statements, but for the most part, I felt like words came easier and I didn’t have to concentrate so much. Of course, when Bill (Punished Pixels blog) was cooking, the loud sizzling sound of the steak almost drowned everything out. Afterwards, I was bombarded with smoke alarm beeping. I thought that was fun, I haven’t heard sizzling or smoke alarms well for quite some time.