Hearing test

So a few weeks ago, I was contacted by my disability services manager asking for participants in a study with a graduate student who was conducting research for her thesis. She was looking for anybody who has a cochlear implant, and naturally I replied saying I could help her out. We arranged to do it for this morning, and it went good.

I was expecting the tests to be easy since I do them at least once a year. Boy was I wrong. It made me realize that the tests I do at the audiologist for my hearing is quite easy! She took me into the coolest room there is on campus... a vibration-free room? Basically a room that is padded with many many many foam points, including the floor and the ceiling. I was walking on springy grates that was placed over the foam points on the floor. These points were huge and it overall was the coolest room I have ever been in. I should have taken a photo when I had the chance!

Anyways, she had me do tests of listening to a program that says sentences and I was to repeat them back in the best of my capability. There were different levels done, audio only, visual only, and both audio and visual. I found that the audio only in sentences was difficult for me to do. It was different voices each time and that alone made it even harder. I found that I heard the sounds but in my head just could not figure out the words or formulate the entire sentence. I kept forgetting the beginning of each sentence and could only repeat back parts of it, more towards the end of the sentence. However, with visual added in I found myself doing better and even aced quite a few sentences with just visual no audio... It's an awesome skill to have that not many can do... even hearing people. :) She said that I did fairly well on the tests and I really hoped my work helped her out with her thesis. She was in her third year of studying to be an audiologist, and has one more year left to go which is working in an job setting learning those skills for to be an audiologist. It felt good to help people towards a future in any way I could.

The experiment made me realize that I should work on my listening skills more but I was not bad off for only having this implant for three years.

In other news, I am currently in the process of graduating from college! My graduation is next week and I could not be more excited for it! Pat on my back for it. :)

Xoxo
-Annie

Two Years

I know I've slacked on this blog, but I had a good excuse, England. End of story.

But, I couldn't let this day go past without posting something. Today is very significant to me, it is the two years anniversary of my surgery to get the implant. By this time, I had it put into my head, and was probably coming around from the meds a little bit.

Two years is also quite significant in how it is believed that everything I learned while listening in the past two years is all I can learn, and I'm determined to not let that stop my progress. I'm still a work in progress, but being a machine, you kind of are always a work in progress... you know, with all those updates and glitches. I know I just compared myself to a machine, but I am part cyborg now. That's just me. Part human, part cyborg.

Anyways, it is not the mark of the two years of having my implant turned on... I kind of forget the actual date itself... whoops. The surgery was much more major to that moment a little. But that moment is just as important.

Oops, running low on time! (I'm quickly writing this up right before I have to leave for work... Yes, my life doesn't stop, first England, now working at a museum this summer!)

Happy Anniversary to myself!!
until next time,
-Annie

reflections

Today I realized that it is nearly a month and 22 days away from the two year anniversary of getting my implant. So much has happened in that 2 years, much more than in the combined 20 years of my life.

The other day, I received a video from my grandpa, one showing of my childhood, at least up until I was about 2 years old. I watched it and became obsessed with the fact that all of the signs were right there that I was deaf. I cried maybe once in the entire video, and I started to notice that I only made sounds when people were baby-talking to me, where I was just trying to mimic their mouth movements. The entire video I was screaming inside, shocked at how oblivious everyone was to me being so quiet. I guess I was an angel child, but even so just figure it out sooner that I am deaf! I was diagnosed for the first time at 22 months. Hearing aids by the time I was two, and I was terrible with them.

My childhood was different, where as soon as I was diagnosed as deaf, my parents focused on me. Now this meant that my brother was forgotten about. Years later, this is my mother's one regret about our childhood, that she forgot about my brother. My brother is older than me and he is the most brilliant man if he uses his wits and skills well. I can only say how proud of what he has done so far, and wish that he would realize his potential sooner, especially since he is a struggling artist fresh out of college. Even at 5 years old, you could tell that he was going to be something someday, where he just was full of knowledge and desire to do these things in life. At least I am glad that he has finally conquered his fear and his dream of going to Morocco last week, and I hope he continues on this path of conquering his dream, India next?

I'm writing this post mainly because I started thinking about how I would like to write a memoir someday, and I've gotten many feedbacks from people on my travel blog, saying how they love reading it. It's a funny thing, how writing can be good and bad. All through my academic life, I have struggled with writing papers and formally, but when it comes to writing my blogs, it just flows and it works. I love writing informally. Because of this love, I've toyed with the ideas of writing a memoir or even writing for a newspaper, doing my own column. But then again, I remember that I am nowhere near trained in that kind of stuff, and I should focus on my own major... Then again, who ends up working in their major from college? Only engineers I find. I just want a job where I am happy doing what I am doing. Happiness is the only thing that matters to me.

A few weeks back, I was actually contacted by a woman who goes to my aunt's church, and she just had twin babies recently. One of the twin is deaf due to meningitis, and she had talked to my mother already on the phone a few times about raising a deaf child. Eventually I told my mother to give her my email address so I can give her a perspective. I actually just emailed her back now since I realized that I never emailed her back! April certainly was a busy month for me after all.

I've run out of the brain flow for now, but I'll get back into updating this more often hopefully.
Until then,
-Annie

Adapting

I was about to write this post about how I have noticed that the British accent has become easier for me to understand and all that. But I just got back from class, and woa... that was heck of a listening experience for me. I do not think his accent was British though, maybe Welsh or Scottish. But it was heavy, and I tried to lipread him and it just did not make sense. Though this is where the implant came in handy! After a while I noticed that I could understand him if I just listened and it worked, which is really interesting!

I really have come a long way from nearly a year and a half ago, it is funny to think that's how long it has been, not a very long time persay, but so much has been accomplished in that time! I've gone from being extremely dependent on lipreading to now mildly dependent on it, but I can understand what is going on if I apply myself to listen.

Anyways I was thinking that the implant really has been very helpful in getting to do my dream of studying abroad in England. If I did not have them, I'm not sure if I would have had the guts to do it! But now it is one of my best decision ever! Anyways, just wanted to do a quick update, if you want to hear more about my travels in England, check out my tumblr: http://anniebe3.tumblr.com

Until next time-
Annie

Nevermind!

So previously I had decided to make this blog become my England study abroad blog... well I changed my mind, and this is resorting back to my cochlear implant blog and I created a different blog on tumblr due to how much more fun it is to blog trips on there. To find that blog about England, its at: http://anniebe3.tumblr.com

Keep checking back at either blogs, but more likely the tumblr will be updated more often.
Until next time-
Annie

Another Year, hello 2012

Once again, i am welcoming another year. To me it is just another year. Another year of going to school and being successful, hoping to keep making progress in my life towards an amazing life. 


In 3 days, I am leaving for England and I am quite scared of what to expect. It is something that I have never done before in my life, being completely on my own in a completely new place with nobody to turn to for help. In a way this is the time where I am growing up, no more being dependent on others to help me in any way. Sure I'll still have the support of everyone that I love in my life, but it is about time that I do things my way on my own. Yet that is scaring me the most of going abroad. 


This year just crept up on me and it is a surprise to me that 2012 is here already, and yet it is just another year, another month, another day and another hour of my life. It is exciting to be able to do something different this year like going to England and experiencing something new. 


I've been trying to prepare for all of this, yet it seems like I do not have much to say or have any thoughts about my upcoming trip besides how scared I am for this experience on my own yet I am also excited. Hopefully I can update this blog more once I am actually there. 


In other news, my implant has been doing good, where I have become more dependent on the implant than the hearing aid. Wearing just the hearing aid is terrible now where I do not seem to recognize any sounds anymore, but often I do not mind having just the implant on alone where I enjoy the sounds now. I had an visit to the hospital a few weeks ago and was shocked to find that my audiologist left! No more mark! He had taken a job with Cochlear the company and did not tell me until I got there and had to find out from the receptionist! Oh well. So now I have a new audiologist named Melly I think... I cannot quite remember her name. But she was nice and I liked talking to her about everything. No new changes though to the map of the implant, it seems like it has gotten to the point that I am functioning well with it and do not need any experimenting done with it. Though there still could be some changes done next time, we will have to wait and see. But first, England, and surviving 5 months with british accents! 


There is not much more that can be said until I have arrived there, off to London for a few days with my dad then we are heading up to the University in Norwich. I am glad for my dad to be coming with me to help me out with everything and I really hope that I'll manage fine once he leaves! Everyone keeps worrying about me where my parents keep saying that they are worried that I am going to be homesick. Yes that is inevitable but also it seems like nobody thinks I can make it through 5 months there and would hop the plane back and quit this dream of mine! What more is there to do besides making it through and enjoying life to the fullest. 


Anyways, until next time, I shall hopefully be across the pond!
-Annie

England

Hello all,
thought I'll post another one with an update.

Not too many changes with my CI, but I will be in for the test of my lifetime by going abroad for my junior year of college. In January, I am off to England for a semester to study. It has been a dream of mine since I was little, and now it's actually coming true!

In a way, this blog is going to convert to being about England and the reality of how my CI is going to help me out somehow. I was talking to a couple british students studying abroad at my school last week and it was a huge shock to me of how my first few weeks in England are probably going to be my most trying weeks of my lip reading skills and my listening skills. I thought I was able to understand British accents pretty easily, turns out I've been a little off on that considering that most people that I know with a British accent or South African accent have been in the states for a few years now. Though I did feel confident after meeting my boyfriend's mother from South Africa for a few weeks, that I was able to understand her pretty well after a few hours of focusing on what she's saying. And she was a quick talker at times, so I survived lipreading and listening to her without becoming totally exhausted.

There are days where I just am totally exhausted by the end of the day from lipreading and listening, and I hate how people say how can you be tired, I just worked for 8 hours, and you were in class for like 2 hours... For me, 2 hours of class equals 2 hours of lipreading and talking to listen to, is equivalent to a full day of work for me. I feel like some people just don't get that sometimes. Listening comes naturally to hearing people usually, while I am not exactly a hearing person, nor am I a completely deaf person. I am an in-betweener.

Anyways, I rambled off. Back to my main topic of focus of this post, ENGLAND! I am going to be there for 5 months, and I am so excited yet so nervous about being away for so long, and to be in a completely new place with all this jazz on my head. I am crossing my fingers that everything goes smoothly, and that I do not have any disasters relating to my CI or my HA. Ack! I get the feeling there are going to be days where I am completely lost, or days that I am at home with being in England. We just have to wait and see! The Uni I am going to I picked for the reason that they have a good disability service program there and that is a huge factor in any college that I attend. One of the reasons I left URI also, due to the disability program there being jerks to me and putting up a fight with me over everything I needed in order to do well... for example, they gave me the crappiest FM system ever, it was so outdated, and nobody had ever used it since they bought it in 1997? Therefore, it was analong, and also was designed for the senior people to use it, not really for everyday usage in a classroom. Oh and they also had the very nerve to say 'oh you're not deaf...' just based on knowing that I speak very well and can write decently! I may seem like I am a hearing person due to those things, but I still get the whole "accent" thing on a daily basis. It has become quite amusing to me, I am quite curious of what the Brits will make of my accent, if they say "oh! you're american? where from? new york?" I actually got that once when I was in Italy a few years ago... He was surprised to hear that I was from Boston, and started talking in a "Bostonian" accent. It was amusing.

Besides, England. Life is good, just need to start preparing for going abroad, it would be nice to have tips from anybody that was deaf and studied abroad of how to even pack or prepare for being out of my usual environment or having back-ups or someone to go to for emergencies with my 'ears'. Oh well, new experience for me, I'll figure it out! =)

Until next time, probably december since that's when I am seeing my audiologist next.
-Annie

Video Post!

As promised a while ago, I have finally made the new video.

Here it is!

Let me know what you think!

Until next time,

Annie

Rereading

I know I said that I wasn't going to update that often, but randomly I had my boyfriend say that he watched the video of me a lot and thought it was adorable, but I didn't remember what the video he was talking about so I went back into my older posts and watched it again.

He was talking about the video from my second post on this blog. And I was honestly shocked when I watched myself talk again, now this is pre-surgery... I am shocked at how different I sound... Like I talked differently... here's the video once again.

if it works. if not, just go way back in my blog for it. I want to make another video talking soon to show the difference. But don't have the time for that tonight.

It's hard to tell myself how much change has happened since the surgery, and I don't remember what I used to sound like or talk like but the video and other videos helped me remember... and it's a surprising thing to remember. It's as if I got a new accent since the surgery!

My parents have told me that I am speaking better and noticing how certain things are said in different areas, and also noticing accents more and how people accent on words. I wish that more people had the guts to tell me these things or even ask me questions about my hearing loss.

The other day, my boyfriend told me that his friend started asking him questions about my hearing loss and seemed too afraid to ask me directly to learn more about my hearing loss and everything related. It was kind of surprising, but it makes sense due to how people do not want to offend anybody or feel stupid for asking about a disability sometimes. I worked at a job all summer, and it was not until the very end of the summer that one of my coworker finally had the guts to ask me questions. I love getting questions from people that don't know because I rather have people be fully informed about my specific disability and hearing loss rather than base it off a generality. Every person in the world is unique, and that just shows that nobody should be stereotyping even though there can be similar situations, but it still doesn't mean that it's the same situation. Once again, my favorite saying "don't judge a book by its cover" can be used here, where you just don't know what to expect with each and every person and taking the time to get to know each person as who they are instead of being afraid by some intimidation factor and missing out on that knowledge. I guess my intimidation factor is my disability, where people could be intimidated by not knowing what or how to communicate with me or figure out just what I am, afterall I am deaf but I speak pretty damn good for one.

Anyways, I would love to know what people think, leave feedback or anything. I love questions, I love reflections, anything. It all helps me grow as a person to hear these things.

Until next time, who knows when that is, after all I was struck with inspiration!

-Annie

Eek.

I really have lost track of this. But then again, it has been around 6 months since I had to go back to the hospital for a checkup with Mark.

I should have came on to update on my one year mark of the surgery which was june 22nd, then the one year mark of having the implant turned on which was like mid-july, do not actually remember the exact date of it though.

Anyways, I just went for my appointment last week with Mark. It was the usual testing that he does, nothing new to report there. We decided to do a hearing test on my left ear since the last test was december 2009... a super long time ago! and way overdue. Once again the most favorite word of Mark's is "stable" I am the most stable hearing person. No changes with my hearing aid side, no changes with my cochlear implant side. It's all quite dandy.

We did also go to a speech pathologist that day too to just chat and see how I am doing mentally with the implant. The process of getting an implant and learning how to use it requires good mental strength... I have to be strong in my mind of how I really am doing and need to take measures to remind myself of my hearing strengths. I often feel like I am not doing good with my implant and that it isn't making a huge difference in my life. There are times where I have to pull the magnet off my head to remember that it is on, so basically wearing an Implant is easy in how you do not even notice that you are wearing it, which is a good or bad thing sometimes. I like being able to know that I am hearing through vibrations or feeling the sounds in my ear like the hearing aid does. But the Implant is not through my physical ear at all, so it makes it difficult for me to even know that it is on and that I am truly hearing these sounds.

Anyways I was talking about this with this doctor, and she confirmed my thoughts and said that it is tough for a person of my age to pick up the use of the implant quickly, and also I do not have a real sound map in my head since I was born deaf. Most people have that critical period when they are young to hear and learn these sounds for a map in their brain which will help with hearing everything later on in life. I do not have it, so it makes it more difficult for me to even know what I am hearing and have to ask a lot of what i am hearing.

I was feeling a bit down about how my progress was going, so she decided that we should do some tests to see how well i am hearing things. she put these sheets with words on them in front of me and said those words to me without me looking at her and i had to say back what word she just said. I got all of them right... finally she gives me her hardest test which was no visual cues or anything at all, and she asked me these everyday kind of questions and I had to repeat back them. I also got almost all of those correct, just not "how old are you" i said "how are you" instead. but on the second try i managed to figure that out. So those tests helped me feel better and realize that I really am suceeding with the implant more than I thought. My dad was with me at the appointments and he said that he thought I was doing great since getting the implant and it was nice to hear that from him since he doesn't often tell me things like that.

Overall, the appointment wasn't any different.

I do not have much else to report, and I have decided that I have grown tired of updating my blog, so do not expect me to update much more after this unless there's something new. It was useful for when I was going through the process of getting the implant, now it's just about growing older with it and using it.

Until next time, probably not until wintertime which is my next appointment I believe.

-Annie

Appointment update

Wow I've lost track of this blog, and apparently people are still reading it! So I figure I should update...

My last appointment was March 11th, and at this point everything is just staying stable... no new drastic changes. The programs that I have on my remote are the same basic ones, where I have two noise, one focus, and one everyday. They are designed for different types of environments, but the one I use the most is my noise program, it is the most comfortable one for me. I feel like I have not even talked about the remote that I have with my implant ever! Here's a picture of what it looks like:

I pulled up the image that has the labeling of what everything is on it so you have an idea of what it does for me. It's really handy to know the status of the implant through the remote rather than trying to use the controls on the implant itself, which are just two buttons and beeping noises to indicate what program I am on... but anyways I just plugged it into the computer to charge, and checked my volume on all of the programs... I'm maxed out at 10 on all of them... So basically at this point now, I am just working on getting familiar with sounds and voices rather than improving my noise range and stuff like that which was what was being done at the previous appointments.

But if you look at the remote, you can see the different colors indicate different programs, and the one I currently like the best and is using pretty much all of the time is the orange one: noise. I prefer that because it is more focused down in my environment and eliminates a lot of environmental sounds that are annoying and not really necessary for me to hear all the time, it's still there usually but quietened down. The focus (green) program is the more focused program, ideal for one on one conversations in a noisy environment, and you would have the person in front of you's voice made louder by the program to be able to understand better.

The everyday (blue) is the everyday... haha its just everything, no adjustment of softening the environment sounds or amplifying the speaker's voices and stuff like that. It's the sounds just as they are in my head. Sometimes it's nice, sometimes I just get sick of it, and use the noise program.

Anyways, not much news to report on my implant progress... everything is really just stable now and probably will stay this way for the rest of my life. Everyone has hopes for me to get better at hearing what people are saying, and I hope so too. but my expectations are not high because I do not want to disappoint myself if I can never reach my goals of understanding people without the use of lipreading... However I do have some good news on my next appointment, which should be 4-6 months from now, I'll be seeing Mark for the usual stuff and he will also be running tests on my hearing aid side too, since he's now my official audiologist since i got the implant. The other thing I want to mention is that I will also be seeing a speech language pathologist to help with my listening skills at that appointment too! About time I say!

My mom came with me to the appointment, and of course she frustrates me because when Mark asks me questions, she doesn't believe my answers sometimes, but she isn't with me all the time, and has no idea really of my progress. I did realize something after my appointment on my way home that I am starting to feel more comfortable and familiar with sounds in my implant only, like turning off the hearing aid and just listening through the implant. I have noticed that having the hearing aid off does not throw me off anymore, there are times where I had the hearing aid in, but not realize that I forgot to turn it on in the morning and just seem to do fine without the hearing aid. The level of understanding for me is increasing in my opinion, but it does not seem to be reflected when I take those tests in the booth. I kind of feel like it depends on what time of the day I take those tests, if it's morning time, I feel sluggish and don't seem to catch it that good... midday seems to be best for me. So next appointment has to be midday =P

Actually in class on tuesday, we usually have people just calling out terms to be written on the board for review terms. I always sit in the front row and usually just write down what's on the board, but I noticed that I was hearing the terms from behind me and understanding them and writing them down before the writer put them on the board. It was a good moment to realize that I am managing okay to understand people in class, and this is a large class... about a hundred of us or so.

Um... that's all I feel like talking about right now. It would be helpful if people commented on the post with any kind of question or topic they would like me to touch upon in my blog. But other than that, until next time... who knows when that will be?!

-Annie

My job

I realized something today, while I was at work.

I work at the textbook annex on my campus, and I am a cashier, the first type of job I've ever had that involves interacting with customers constantly. I first started this job back in the fall, and was so nervous about my people skills. I remember that I would always get flustered when I actually need to listen to them when I was asking for their information such as phone number and name, etc. If I could not understand them, I started panicking sometimes and just resorting to having them write down their numbers and all that information. Most of the time, I hated being at work because I did not like how nervous I got and how flustered I was with customers. Sure I was new at this, but I still felt that way at the end of working there for two weeks. I kind of wish that I had been working there with both hearing aids, just to know how difficult it would be for me to do all that I do with customers.

But my point is, I realized today, that my cochlear implant has helped me tremendously when it comes to interacting with strangers and asking for their phone numbers and trying to help them when they need it. My confidence level has improved in how my skills are for dealing with customers, like the past two days of work has been good, where I am not having much difficulties with customers, I have not resorted to using pen and paper just to find out something simple like a phone number.

Also, it has been interesting being back at work because at my job, there's always new people every day, and it's fun to get to know a lot of people, even though i may not see them again. I've been talking to a few of them about my hearing loss, and I've been hearing about how other people know certain deaf people and how other deaf people function in the world. One coworker was telling me about how she was in a class, and there was a deaf person there who had an interpreter and she thought it was fascinating how fast the person could sign, and told me of one time where they went to a place, and it had a lot of machinery in the background, and nobody in the class could understand what the professor was saying, and yet the deaf person knew what the professor was saying because the interpreter was standing right next to the professor and could translate everything for him to understand while the rest of the class just stood there clueless of what the heck the professor was saying.

But anyways, I just felt like saying something random and telling everyone about my realization. The other thing I want to mention is that I found another book that is a memoir by a deaf person that seems like it would be interesting to read. I have tried reading "the unheard" by Josh Swiller which I never finished... maybe someday. But the other memoir that I found is called "What's that pig outdoors?" by Henry Kisor, who is a deaf journalist, and it looks like an interesting read, so I may pick it up soon and start reading at it.

That's all for now,

next appointment at the hospital isn't until March, so who knows when the next time I'll post on here,

until then-

-Annie

First post of 2011!

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

Update

There is not much to update on.

Life is busy with school and a boyfriend.

However, I do want to say that I absolutely hate the telecoil button on my implant. I by accident turned it on a few days ago, and was freaking out over the noise that started in my head. It basically was extremely uncomfortable to have such static interference from the number of electric products around me, specifically the tv and the laptop.

I should explain how the telecoil works though... and I have to look this information up after all i never realized how it even works.

Basically the telecoil is a coil of wire inside the hearing aid and my implant. It picks up the magnetic sounds that comes from electrical products such as the telephone and tv. They provide sound through magnets and this is pretty much another way for us deaf people to pick up sounds, instead of using a microphone we are using a telecoil to pick up the sounds that is being projected from the magnet found in the electronics. Cellphones do not have magnets in them, so most of them are not usable with the telecoil setting on our hearing aids and implants, however they have created a way for it to be usable with cellphones, and those phones have a rating of from t1 to t4 which is the best.

Anyways... I'm tired of writing about the telecoil, basically I was just not remembering what it's like to have the telecoil turned on and freaked out over that. It was unusual to be hearing things differently through the implant for once.

The other update that I have is that I'm pretty much reattempting at learning sign language again, my boyfriend asks a lot about it, and I realized that I do not remember a lot and it's useful to quickly just sign something from across the room or in a quiet place such as the library where we are often...

Anyways,

back to the grind.

-Annie

Sound and Beyond

Okay, this computer program is quite hard for a deaf person.

I uploaded a program to my computer called 'Sound and Beyond' and I recall the one thing my audiologist said to me when I got it from him.... "it's hard." And he was right... My audiologist is also deaf, and has two cochlear implants, so I have to take his word for it. He said that it is not an easy program to get through, however it is beneficial in how it works my listening skills. It is an easy thing to do when I am alone in the room with nothing else to do, and being at college, it is not easy to have someone take the time to work on listening with. There are so many other things I rather be doing than working on my listening skills.

But anyways, just this past week I actually got bored enough to try it. It was quite tough to do... and made me realize how much work I need to do in order to get better at listening. The first thing I did in the program was to do the auditory assessment which tested where I am at currently when it comes to my listening skills.

There was three tests, the first one was a pure tone test, where it gave me three sounds, two are the same sound and another is different. I have to pick the one that is different. It was tricky to do that due to how close they sounded... But that was my best test overall compared to the rest that I did after that. Most of the tests in this category, I get around half of them correct.

The second test I did was a grid of words, all similar in sound/saying whatever. This specific one used words that was 'h...d' pretty much, and some were made up which made it harder when I couldn't hear the words before I started, so I kinda had to guess what they would sound like in order to match it. It was like a matching game where I have to pick the word that the computer just said. On that test, I scored a 20 percent.... eh... it was hard... haha.

My third test was worse.... It was also a grid of words, but it was a consonant recognition one, where it had 'aBa' etc... so I have to pick based on the middle sound that I hear. It was a lot harder for me to do this one due to what the choices were, they had 's' 'sh' 'ch' 'th' 'j' which usually all sound similar to me.... But anyways, I scored 15% on that, and that's eh. I can keep working on it though.

This program is tough, but if I do not challenge myself I will not grow in my listening skills and continue at this stable level that I've been at every time I go see Mark, my audiologist. Next time I see him, I'm hoping for an improvement, even if it's marginal.

Anywhoooo, that's my update.

Until next time,

-Annie

Thank You

Thank you,

that's something that I do not say nearly enough to everyone in my life. So I thought I'll take the time now to say my thanks specifically to the people I love.

I do not think I would be having a successful recovery and journey if it wasn't for my parents being there through everything of my entire life. Also I love having all the support of my friends around me, and curious people too helps me continue my process of getting better at hearing.

Over the last few weeks, I've realized how I am as a person which is stubborn... and that has affected how my hearing is. I could say that I got lazy with my hearing, where I just do not try to get better at hearing with my hearing aids and just focused mostly on lip-reading all the time. Which is why this journey with a CI has been difficult for me, I've been put out of my element of depending on lip-reading and trying to listen more. The way I am stubborn is that I hate using any helpful equipment and often had to be bribed into doing so by my mother as I grew up. When I was little, I hated my hearing aids and often pulled them out of my ears. When my mother told me that I'll get treats or rewards for wearing them, I behaved. And that's how I now got used to them and wear them for most of the day.

But I still am stubborn when it comes to using MORE assistive devices such as an FM system. Throughout high school, I rarely used it due to how independent I like to be and also I often do not like being singled out in a classroom, or in the population for that matter. I love being a deaf woman but at the same time, I do not want to be put at a disadvantage right away when someone sees me using an FM system or anything that indicates me to be deaf. I feel like people change their behaviors and how they are speaking in order to accommodate me without even asking me if that's what I want. Like one previous experience was where I went to get a tattoo and I was talking to the receptionist in person at the counter, and she had noticed that I was deaf by seeing the hearing aids and started signing to me instead of speaking to me. Now that was a problem due to how I do not use sign language anymore and I had to just pretend that I could understand what she was signing and lalalala deeda! haha.

Now I'm in college, with a hearing aid and a Cochlear Implant. I have an FM system for my hearing aid... and don't even use it. I know I should be, but once again I have gotten back into that mode of not wanting to be accommodated so excessively. I like to function pretty much like any hearing person, in which I don't even use the Relay or TTY system for phones.... I avoid phones overall. However I did try out something new, the Telecoil button on my implant yesterday. I called my mom and tested it out.... let's just say that it was weird. It reminded me of what things sounded like after I had the implant turned on for the first time... so basically cartoonish voices. And it was just high pitched talking to my mom, after like 2 minutes of talking to her I switched sides and just continued on my hearing aids. It's a lot easier to use it with my hearing aids, even on my left side which isn't that great with phone conversations. Before the cochlear implants, I always used the right side for talking on the phone which was rare. I probably used the phone to call about maybe 15 mins per month. That's it... aka low cellphone bill! besides the texting plan :)

Anyways, back to my original reason for writing this post, I want to thank people. Specifically my family who has been there for me through everything and I love them for their support. Also my friends have been amazing, just being curious about how things are going with my implant and being friends with me through everything. I also have a guy who has been great to me, just trying to make me work at getting better with listening using my implant, he's inspiring me a little. =) Everyone who I have met and known in the past have been following my journey and still is rooting me on, thank you and keep doing it! .... this is the point where I'll be dragged off the stage for going too long on a thank you speech... =P so thank you everyone for being there for me, i love you guys for it and do not know where I'll be without it.

Until next time,

-Annie

New look ;-)

So, another update!

I decided to change the looks, hope you guys like it!

Today I started using the personal audio cable with my implant to connect it to the Ipod! It was kind of weird using it due to how the music is directly in my head, no interference from outside environmental noises. I noticed that I'm still going along with the beats and rhythm like I used to and not really trying to listen to the actual words of the song. It's a bit harder to do that because I feel like the music is now a voice in my head, like it's right there in my head. I am just absorbed in it and is tuning everything out.

The other thing I did today was go to the library on campus, and read. That place is so quiet, that it was relaxing for once, but also useful due to how I could identify sounds more easily. I even turned off my hearing aid, and just listened for any noises. I heard people walking, and I was on the 12th floor... not too many people are around there. I also have been trying to talk to people and listen more with just my cochlear implant. I feel like I've been inspired to try to do better by the time I go back, better than getting 25% of the words right. So I have finally installed a program on my computer called sound and beyond. But I didn't get a chance to use it yet and according to Mark, who has used it, it is hard... So we'll see how I manage with this!

The other thing that I have been noticing more is that when I just wear my hearing aid in my left ear alone, I feel like I do not catch as much as I used to in the past. Maybe this is a good sign that wearing both together is working good for me and that I am relying on my CI more than my hearing aid. But I still do rely heavily on my lip reading skills, and I am trying my best not to do that.

I'm not really sure of what else I feel like telling right now. So for now,

until next time-

-Annie

Clarification

My mother worries. And always gets confused by what I relay from the doctor's sayings. So I feel like some clarification has to be done for the masses.

In my last post, I mentioned how the ear infection has made two of my electrodes malfunction, etc. So I have word for word what my doctor Mark said about those two little dots.

"First, I just want to clarify, the two electrodes in question did not fail, they are still functioning electrodes. However, they are functioning in a way that is different. What can happen is that Anna's perception to sound could possibly change if we continued to allow these electrodes to be active. When I talked with Anna she did not say that she noticed any difference in her perception of sound, and in fact, stated that things continue to improve. Her awareness to sound is still very, very good. She still has all the other electrodes in the cochlea still active and working great. It is just something that we are going to keep our eye on. You ask if this would not negatively affect her performance. The answer is no that it shouldn't. What happens when we turned these two specific electrodes off, we reassigned the information that was going to those two electrodes to other electrodes in her cochlea. Therefore she is not missing any information. "

That's right... my mother went and asked him specifically what was going on with that... and that's the answer she got from him. All positive. Don't worry masses around the world, I am doing quite well in this progress... more uphill than downhills.

That's all I wanted to update on.

Other than that, life continues onward.

-Annie

Making progress... maybe?

Had my one month appointment on friday, it has been 8 weeks since the implant was turned on.

good and bad news from this one though...

ear infection is bad. very bad. it caused two of my electronodes or whatyoumightcallit... to malfunction and now i'm left with 22... But i have to stop myself and try to explain this. Inside my cochlea there is a wire going through it with like 24 dots on it, those are electrinodes or whatmightyoucallit. and they help stimul

ate the nerves in that spot and make my hearing work. according to my doctor, i only need 8 of them to work in order for my implant to work. they put 24 in total... now i have 22 due to the ear infection kinda messing up 2 of them and making them malfunctioning... they may fix itself by the time i go back to visit in december but who knows. It's not anything to worry about according to mark, so i'm not worried.

here's a picture to try to show it better.

it is kind of like that... just ignore the numbers but this is a cochlea with a wire through it like mine... and i think you can kind of get what i am saying from the picture i hope.

Anyways, that was the kinda bad news... and i have a little more. We did our usual testing, and he said that my implant's result from the testing is still stable... not getting worse or better. But i kinda of knew i would get that result due to how busy i was with school this past month and not having any time to really focus on my training of the listening skills in my right ear. HOWEVER, i have good news from that testing also! Last time, back in august, we did a test where it's a man's voice on a tape saying 'ready?' 'book' or some random word and I am supposed to repeat back whatever that word was.... last time with that test, using both my hearing aid and the implant i got 5% of the words correct... kind of pathetic. BUT this time, i got 25% correct!! So it's obvious that I am improving using both ears and that my brain is liking this!

Overall, I am pleased with the outcome of my appointment, and the next one is not until winter break so I can just relax and get through this semester aiming for the stars with my education. =)

I don't feel like saying much more right now... quite tired and got to get ready for the pats game soon! WOO!

until next time,

-Annie

Ears

I feel like my ears are not able to handle all the stress and busy-ness of life. At this moment I feel like I managed to get an ear infection in my left ear which is my hearing aid ear... I certainly hope this is not the case. I hope I can somehow make it through the rest of the year in ideal ear/hearing conditions.

More about my cochlear implant though, I've noticed that I tend to focus a lot more on the background noises, for example right now the vacuuming in the hallway is really annoying. I definitely feel like I have a mild hearing loss in my right ear though because last night I was just lying down in my bed and I kept hearing everything in my right ear but not too much in my left... There is a considerable difference in sounds between the ears. It's tricky trying to learn how to listen in my right ear because the noises are much different than what I hear in my left (hearing aid) ear. I feel like I am hearing two different things when really they are the same thing just sounds different in each ear. However it is useful to know the sound in my left ear as a way to figure out the new "sound" in my right ear. Like if I hear the microwave whirring in my left ear, I can figure out what it sounds like in my right... I usually shut off the hearing aid and listen to the sound that I already identified with my left ear with my cochlear implant in order to know what it is and remember it for the future.

I have been getting comments from people saying that they have noticed a big change in how I communicate with people, like I am understanding more without looking at them and speak more clearly now. So mostly positive aspects of getting the implant for me, only negatives have been that it's a lot of work to learn everything especially at my age right now and how much I have going on in my life. Like what anonymous commenter said a few posts ago... it will all get better... I still don't believe that person. But I am keeping a positive spirit about everything. =)

Later,

off to do my homework.

-Annie