I keep getting little messages in my inbox asking...
'How's the hearing?' and
'We haven't heard you talk about your CI - trust it's going well...?'
...and I keep meaning to give an update but keep ending up being sidetracked. First my gorgeous burmese cat went missing, so I was too busy delivering flyers and trying to find her, so the updates went by the by. Then I took off for two weeks holiday to stay with family and friends in the South Island. I went because I got a $10 airfare to Christchurch, and I am a person that simply can't pass up bargains like that. I got back last night to find yet another query in my inbox asking about my hearing.
So - I now feel I should let you know that....
Yes- I'm hearing. It's really exciting, and I'm doing extremely well.
The week I left to go the the South Island I had my one Month post switch on mapping. The results were....
98% open set sentences without lipreading in quiet. (Now that's more like it - back to my original implant score before it failed!)
98% open set sentencces without lipreading in noise (+5db) Wow - that's incredible - I don't think I've ever got that score before, even with my old original implant which was good.
86% open set sentences without lipreading in noise (+10db). Still pretty good, and still better than my original implant before it failed.
66% single words only without lipreading. This is a score which has doubled, as only two weeks before it had been 33%. So the speech discrimination is improving daily.
Am I pleased? Heck yeah - I'm thrilled as after two years of struggling with failed equipment I finally feel that I'm getting somewhere again. I'm making phone calls again, still not with complete ease, but am able to hold my own and get most of the phone call is about.
I picked up my cat from the cattery this morning and she's spent the day wandering around the house meowing. I found I could hear her call from every room. And I noticed I can now hear when the washing machine finishes.
Just before I went away, I fired off an email to my surgeon to tell him the news, and facetiously asked if I should be aiming for 100% scores. His answer.....
'Why stop at 100%?'
Why indeed? !!
1 comment:
Thanks for the update I am glad for you. I would be really furious as hell not to be able to see for months until before getting another "eye" implant. (I am Deaf since birth so I am looking from this perspective).
I have been following your blog for insight into deafened adults who benefit from this technology, your description of experiences add more to what I have been reading and hearing about research on CI.
Post a Comment