So it's been about 5 months since the implant was turned on. On Wednesday before Christmas I went for my 3 month check up appointment at the hospital with Mark. This visit wasn't any different than the rest, it's becoming more stable when it comes to the tests.
However, having a stable progress with my implant is good, it means I am not getting worse over time, and is moderately just improving my comfortably of using them and understanding people.
There were a few differences with this particular appointment due to how I brought along someone new to it, who did not really know anything about the process or the implant's progress beforehand besides what I had told him, and that person was my boyfriend. He has always been interested in my hearing loss and how I function with the implant and my hearing aid in my left ear, and I thought it would be a good experience for him to actually meet my audiologist Mark and see what it is that I go through every appointment.
I always always always forget how exhausting it is to go to my audiologist appointments. We do our tests in the booth, which is a sound proof room and I am isolated in there with a glass view of my audiologist in the other room doing the tests through the computers and all the equipments. Usually that portion of the appointment takes about 20 minutes to 40 minutes depending on how frustrated and tired I get from repeating back words and using my listening skills... It's obvious how weak my listening skills are when it is tiring to be doing it for a good amount of time. By listening skills, I mean without any visual cues at all... which I pretty much rely on all the time! Therefore, my seeing skills and lipreading skills are awesome. =P Anyways, in there, we did our usual whole routine of me repeating back a word from a tape player of a man's voice saying "ready" then "ball" all that jazz. I still loathe that test... but as I took it this time around, I felt like I did a better job where I did not have as much frustration of trying to figure out what was said and seemed to get more words correct this time around, and yet Mark tells me I'm still stable! He frustrates me! haha. But it is progress towards better due to how comfortable I am getting with the sounds I hear through my implant and seem to have a better ease with how my listening is with it.
I still think that I have a severe to profound hearing loss, but in reality, I don't anymore. I pretty much wear my implant at least 16 hours of the day, and only take it off when I am sleeping. In the majority of my life, I am functioning as a person with a mild hearing loss, and that's it. I hear all of the little sounds now, like the other day I noticed that I heard the timer in the kitchen go off when I was in the living room with the tv on loud and the fireplace blower going... I couldn't believe it when my mom was like, did you just hear that? Because I had heard it without even thinking about it and reacted to it, and I wasn't like focusing on trying to hear it when it went off. Usually when I am cooking something and walk off to another part of the house, I have to try to keep the fact that I am cooking in the front of my mind and not get distracted by anything, but I don't really have to do that much anymore due to how I can hear the little noises that will alert me to the fact I am still cooking. I make tea every day with a tea kettle, and the high pitched noise was always too high for me to hear through my hearing aids without really focusing onto the sound. This is a great benefit for me to have my implant now because now I have a little less to worry about as I embark onto towards a life on my own away from my supportive parents who always gets me out of trouble... I've already had an incident of nearly burning down the house a few times... the one time my parents wasn't there, I caught the tea kettle on fire... oops. And that was all happening pre-implant.
Anyways... I ramble. Back to the appointment, at least what I can remember of it since it happened quite a while ago, right before the holidays. OH! this is the first post of the year! =D happy new years to everyone by the way.
After the tests in the booth, we went into Mark's office and did the adjustments which seemed to take forever, Mark had another audiologist shadowing him showing him the equipments and how to run the programs... and seemed to prolong the process of everything. He had me do the beeping test, where I count out how many beeps I hear, from 1 to 5 in a row. Usually that process is quick, and the point of it is to see how high of a sound I can hear to the lowest sound I can hear and develop a range of sounds that I am able to hear and get an idea of what the programs should allow, where it allows as much possibility for me to hear all kinds of noises, from high to low. While Mark was showing the program to the other guy, my boyfriend was also inching over to see what he was doing too while I'm tired and cranky about doing more tests... haha. But I'm glad he came with me to the appointment and could see everything that I go through, and also it was the second deaf person he was meeting, Mark is also deaf with two cochlear implants which makes him a really awesome audiologist because he knows what it's like to be me going through all of this. And yes, I was the first deaf person my boyfriend has had the opportunity to meet and get to know. =)
Anyways, that was the highlight of the appointment, then of course I had to go see Dr. Smullen my surgeon since she likes to check in and see how my head and ears are. Takes about 5 minutes... getting a bit repetitive and pointless for me to see her every single time I'm there... So I'm quite unhappy about having to make an appointment with her in three months time. I don't see why I can't just see her the appointment after that, like 6 months from now. My mom is the one who is fighting with me over this, and we'll see what the heck happens with that doctor.
That's all for now I believe, next check up appointment is during my spring break, and it's back to school in two weeks, hopefully my stress won't be so bad this time around where my ears hurt from TMJ (it only comes about when i'm really stressed) or tinnitus (also from stress usually) or whatever life throws at me. I'm having a good life, and is not gonna let anything stop me from having a good life. So take that TMJ =P
Until next time, probably March or so if nothing else major happens to my implant in the time being...
-Annie
