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Monday 6th June 2005: Initial Tuning
A
Even with knowing what I would expect from the switching on of my implant through my
mates, I still came to Ropewalk feel a great deal of nervousness but still eager to get it switched on . As soon
I came to the reception, I was greeted by a shocking news. Of all the scenarios I thought of before this appointment,
this was the worst unexpected one........
I was told that the computer software that link with the implant processor does not work. While I
was waiting for them to fix it, I thought I never get my implant switched on. I was kinda disappointed and demoralised.
After 45 minutes, I was gleeful when I was called in. I was expecting to be told to come tomorrow
or another day instead. However, it didnt went smoothly. I saw Tracy still trying to operate my processor
from the computer. I thought the computer broke down again but after 5 or more attempts, I was AWARE
of the bleepin sounds!
Then Tracy began to program my processor. By doing that, she gave me sound pulses from five
different range of frequencies from low frequency to high frequency. Each range, she would turn up the volume and
I had to stop her increasing when I feel comfortable with the loudness of the sound. And that is all it is....nowt
complicated. She made up 3 different programs for my processor so I can select them to see which one is better.
Then finally came a big moment...THE SWITCH ON!!
It was shocking. All I could hear is the bleeping voices and sounds. Then from there, I knew I will
have lot of work to do. I was hoping that I could learn to listen halfway in advance but that was too wishful thinking.
It was very strange, wierd and horrible!!! I could not bear to hear my voice as I always stop in mid-sentence. Everyone's
voices were the same bleepin sounds....probably like the Daleks from Doctor Who.
Monday 6th June 2005: Speech & Language
Therapy
This is the worthwhile appointment and it is a good thing it came straight after my switch on appointment.
As I was feeling muted going to this appointment, I came out with a big relief and knowing it will get better.
The reason I wasnt too happy about my switch on is that the bleeping noises I was getting.
However, from this appointment, she proved that I was able to tell the difference between two sounds.
By doing that, she was testing me with two sounds "ahh" and "Shh". I was able to spot the difference even with
the bleeping sounds.
First I was able to count a number of sounds from various sources like, clapping, snapping, pen tapping.
I couldnt hear the tap water opening although I DID guessed correctly in the first place as some water splashing behind
me!! That was cheating anyway.
With the Linguistic test, there are four words I have to select from what I hear from Dylan without lipreading.
Those were Dog, Shoe, Baby and Tissue. The words Dog and Baby are in the "ahh" category. The only different between
the two words is that Baby have two syllabes like "ahh - ahh". Similar for Tissue, it would be "shh- shh".
I did these tests very well and came out with 95 - 100%. Dylan was quite impressed with me and I was
proud myself really. A tad emotional as well.......
Tuesday 7th June 2005: 1 Day Initial
Tuning A
Another chance with re-programing my processor. It was the same sort of programming we did on
Monday. I was half expecting the computer to break down but thankfully it didnt.
I was telling Tracy that I could better when I turn the volume up and she was saying that she would expected
to turn it up a bit anyway.
Also she put a stronger magnet in the head piece as it kept falling out from my head since I
first worn it. I wouldnt want to have this stronger magnet on my head in a long run because Tracy was telling me
it would cause some negative effect around my head. So I will return with the normal magnet next week and hopefully
it will stay on as it could be helped with having a stronger magnet earlier on.
During the appointment, we spent time asking and answering questions which was quite amusing and useful.
After the appointment, I was in mood for some more learning new sounds!
Wednesday 8th June 2005: Medical Appointment
A
A waste of frigging time for me. I went to QMC to see my consultant.
I waited for 2 hours in da waiting room for a 5 minutes appointment.
I was well pissed off but the only good thing is that I was told that the
area of head that was operated was fine. My only concern was that there was a piece of white thread still hanging out from
a little scar. Daniel Rule was being earlier on as he told me that it was a mice that was stuck inside my head...tut
tut! Anyway, my consultant snipped it off and I was happy to leave....
MY FIRST WEEK LISTENING EXPERIENCE!!!
It was quite annoying working in HSBC department on my first day with my implant. I coud
hear every irrating sounds. I could hear the keyboard tapping, loadsa people talking, printer feeding out, people walking
past me. The only reason I found it irrating is that I did not know what was the sound is and where it came from.
My manager was telling that I was talking in a loud voice but talking much clear as well.
I thought it was quite interesting thing to know this......
When I am home, I spent most of time listening to music from computer and tv. I was trying
to recognise my old favourite songs and get it right. The 1st and 2nd day, I didnt get them all correct but is improving
all the time.
There are sounds I can hear that I couldnt hear with my hearing aid. Although these are
not normal sound I hear but I CAN hear them. These are.....
-
feet ruslting against the carpet
-
pouring milk into a mug
-
someone swearing against me *joke*
-
clock ticking and boiler in my bedroom
-
noises from window (dog barking and hammering)
-
voices from someone else phone
-
paper fickling
-
keyboard tapping
The amazing thing is that I could not hear the loudest environmental noise and that is noisy
traffic.
The other day, I went to play a quick play around with cricket with my mates. I was moving
about alot trying to catch the ball.......and then my implant processor kept falling off!! NOW, I have to be really
careful....
Monday 13th June 2005: 1 Week Tuning
A
Before I went to this appointment, I personally felt that I will be making
little progress after the appointment. After the tuning last week, it was all about volume adjusting and I fail to see
the logic on how volume adjusting can improve my hearing.
Before the re-tuning process, Tracy wanted me to go through some listening tests.
- The first test was see my hearing level from low frequency to high frequency. After the test, my
hearing chart shows a nearly straight line hoovering above 40db line. With my hearing aids, I could not hear
a tiddly bit at high frequency but with my implant.....I CAN!!
- The second test was about "guessing" what the sound is coming from a speaker. The speaker
will produce each different sound we hear from everyday life. The example of sounds are dog barking, footstep, man talking,
woman talking, baby crying, alarm, doorbell. I was given a lot of thumb ups so it was a successful test as I only
wore the implant for a week.
- Finally the last test was a multi-choice word test. Using the touch screen computer, I was selecting
a word from three choices which I think the speaker is saying. I thought it was quite hard but I got almost all of them correct.....
Then we went to start the re-tuning process. It was the same thing like last time as the computer would
set my comfortable loudness on each range of frequencies.
Also, Tracy downstrengthened my headpiece magnet as it was getting a bit tight on my head.
So this was the end of the appointment. We had a bit of natter before I left. I was soooo hungry
yet again. I went to the cafe before the my next appointment *breathing heavily*.........
Monday 13th June 2005: Speech & Language Therapy
After given a warning from Tracy, my audiologist, that Dylan, my speech
therapy will make me work harder on this appointment, I was half-dreading it!!
But as the appointment went on, I was actually having fun. It is probably due to the fact I got so
many right in the tests I was given ;-)
The tests was similar to last week but I was given lots of pictures. Without lip-reading Dylan, I had
to choose the picture of what she was naming.
She also did another version of this test. Instead of saying the name of the picture, she would describe a
picture in a sentence. For example, an umbrella. She would say "something you use when it is raining". Another
example, a camera. She would say "you would take picture in this". This test was quite hard as I didnt hear the whole
sentence all the time. I would pick out a word from a sentence and estimate my guess.
One of the thing to remember from the session.....the funny moment actually... was I had difficultly
listening to the word "tomato". The main reason I was confused is that she had an american accent and she pronounced
the word as "tom- may- toe" as we english normally say "tom-ma-toe". Much to our delight, we were quite pleased
that I was able to tell the difference.
Well that was it....Dylan told that this was our last appointment till next year. I was a bit upset
about that but I was told I will continue my therapy with Mary who is a hearing therapist.
Off I went to work......and learning the new sounds!!
MY FIRST MONTH LISTENING EXPERIENCE!!!
First of all, it was really important to know someone who had an implant
and I AM VERY LUCKY to known many few of them and they are my friends. They are Daniel Rule, Catherine Wells and Laura
McAuley Click on this link below out and learn about their experiences!!
While writing for this month's experience, I did not know what to write until
after my appointments on 18th July 2005.
It was a strange month for me as my implant processor did not enable to learn
new sounds as the weeks went by. So my excitement about my implant was beginning to wane away.
The one of the reasons for that could be is that I was in the same hearing
environment week in and out. However, I feel that my implant are generally quiet and I was mostly unresponsive to any
sounds. By that, I mean turning my head around and see where the sound is coming from.
As I was saying that my implant is generally quiet, the noises that were
annoying like from my work environment keyboard tapping, printer spooling, paper flicking, clock ticking, etc are beginning
to fade away in the background. If I really concentrate on these sounds, I would able to hear them anyway. In some
way, this is the good thing!
Now, I am able to enjoy my music much easier. There were less of frowning
my head and trying hard to recognise a music. In most evening, I am always at my computer and listening to my mp3s and still downloading
illegally!!!...shhhh.
Fitness-wise, I am continuing to commute to work on my bike and still wearing
my helmet. Most of time, I always thought that I don't need a helmet because I am always careful but "it is better to
be safe than sorry"......the famous saying!! I am still trying to get back to my running as I entered to run in
Great North Run in September. So by saying that, my implant has NOT stop me or weaken my ability to do any thing
I want do actively.
I haven't tried using the phone, mainly because I get too nervous and I did
not want to dampen my spirits if I failed to have a conversation with someone. I know this is silly but I know I will use
the phone eventually.
I changed my re-chargable battery once every day. The first
battery would last until 3 or 4 in the afternoon. At first, I thought this was quite irrating but as soon I got into
a routine, it doesnt really bother me.
All this time, I just can't wait for my two next appointments which both on
18th July. This was because I felt that I wasnt making any progress. I knew it will take time so I wasnt that frustrated.
The probably a fun part of having this implant is explaining to people
or my relatives what or how the implant works on my ear. All have different face expressions and I thought sometimes, it was
funny.
Monday 18th July 2005: Rehab with Mary
McGee, Hearing Therapist A
This was my first appointment Mary McGee, the hearing therapist since
I had my implant. I met her before while I was doing some tests to see whether I am suitable for the implant. It was
well nice to see her again.
Like my other appointments with Dylan, this appointment was more of listening tests but slightly harder ones!!!!
This was one appointment that Mary feel that I have progressed much further than implant person normally
does in their first month so it exceeds my expectation.
I was able to pass the following tests easily without lip-reading.......
- The difference between 3 types of lengthen word (syllabus).
- A word from a sentence. Mary would speak one of the two words from a sentence and I would repeat which
word she said.
- Identify the numbers from 1 to 10.
- Identify all the 12 months.
The last test was slightly harder even it was a lip-reading test. Mary was reading a story, which
I think she was fed up reading it so many time...he he. My friends Daniel or Laura might know this story by heart.
Mary would read the story and by every sentence, I have to repeat what she is reading. I thought that
this was quite easy as I was lip-reading her but it got harder in the end. I think this was because my concentration
level was dripping away and I was so tired (like me typing this paragraph up)
At the end of the story, she stopped precisely 5 minutes as she would see how far I got through this story.
Next time, she will read this story AGAIN and see how much progress I made. It was a pity because I was looking forward
to the ending of the story. Actually, I don't think I will hear the ending of this story!!!
She then gave me some advice on how to learn to listen. One was me asking someone to read a story
or a newspaper article and I do exactly what me and Mary did when she read that story. One other important advice
is that I don't have to do this for more than five minutes as it will get harder for me. The other advice
is spending time with my family member and try to listen more number up to one hundred or more perhaps and told me to
aware of numbers that sound similar like 13 and 30, 7 and 11, 14 and 40, etc.
At the end of the appointment, there was nothing else to think about apart from foooood!!
Monday 18th July 2005: 1 Month Tuning
A
Another appointment with Tracy, my audiologist. This was the appointment
I was looking forward to as I want to her to retune my implant after a month long of unseemly lack of progress.
As expected, before the retuning, I had to do some tests. There were four tests and below will show you
what was the tests and its results:
1)
Listening test with a speaker. I would press a button every time, I hear a sound, even a quiet ones.
The sounds coming from the speak ranged from low to high frequency and adjusting volume for each selected frequency.
This test was to determine my new hearing chart and I seem to forget to ask her what was the result!!
I just realised just now.....tut.
2)
This test was similar to last appointment this year. This was identifying a sound from everyday
day life like traffic, laughing, bird singing, siren, doorbell.
I am sure that I got more rights and wrong ones. There are some sounds that I am not used to so it
was hard to spot them.
3)
This one is a lip-reading test with the speaker on. A ugly looking man would say a sentence
and I had to repeat what he was saying. It seem a straightforward test but it was hard for me as I did not
have a clue what "topic" he was saying. For example, if he were saying all the sentences about his holiday,
I would understand most of time.
Anyway, at the end of this test, I got over 70% correct. This is compared to 53% I
had with my hearing aids. A significant improvement right???
4)
A VERY HARD LISTENING TEST!! This time, I had to listen from a speaker. A man would speaking
a sentence and I had to repeat what I "assume" he was saying. At most time, I just repeated a word or two from a man's
sentence. Normally, if i picked up the words I know what he saying, I would put a sentence myself, rather than
repeating exactly what he said.
I scored a miserably 30%......BUT this is an improvement as with my hearing aid, I had only 3%!!!
Finally my implant re-tuning or reprogramming. Same procedure like last time but this time I was not
afraid of the loudness of the sound. So at the end of the programming, the volume of a sound I was hearing with
much higher. I thought this was quite good as I could hear the any sound much easier.
One of the conclusions (this is a theory by the way) from the last re-tuning, it seem that my
brain is processing the sound much faster. This is concluded from the analysis from my experience of using two different programs
from my processor.
On program number 1, the signal was passed through the electrodes in pairs. This is supposedly
the fastest way to send a sound signal to a brain.
On program number 2, the signal was passed through the electrodes much slower in a complex way. The
reason I said it was slow because I was hearing a sound in a wavy pattern and my brain was unable to process this slow signal
efficiently and smoothly.
As I said, this is a theory, but this is understandable as I used to hear better before therefore my brain
was already capable to process a faster signal! Just thought I should mention this interesting theory!!
Monday 3rd October - 3 Months Tuning A - Tracy O'Neill
This appointment came a bit late as it is only been 4 months since my implant was switched on but i am
not complaining though. It was a good to use my program that was created in my last appointment for a long
time so I can get used to it.
Again this appointment with Tracy is quite the same as last time as I did some tests and re--tuning of my
implant processor.
The tests I did were much harder I thought but Tracy told me that I made a significant improvement on my
results. Especially the listening to a man from a speaker without lip-reading, he was talking in a short sentences.
It was hard for me to repeat each sentences as it didn't give me enough time to pick a word out from a sentence
so I would know what exactly he is saying.
However, Tracy did say I did very well. Because I did the last tests very well, today's tests were
much more advanced. Meaning she gave me these tests was supposed to be for 6 months time in January 2006.
Now for re-tuning, it was a same procedure but she didn't make much changes as I was doing well with the
current program. Just a small modification......
She also downstrenghten my headpiece's magnet as she felt it was a bit tight. It is important
to have this done as the skin might get thinner and god knows what will happens then!
By the time, when she finished with me, she asked me if I have any questions. I asked her about the
T-Mic and some devices that enable to me to use to T-Loop system and use a walkman, MP3 players.
She then happily made new program for this T-mic which now on program 1. The new program for
the normal microphone will be now on program 2. My old program before today is on program 3.
These program settings she given me are quite confusing at first. It will take time for me to get used to it.
The T-Mic i have is NOT for the T-Loop system. The T-Mic model is designed to have a microphone down in middle of my
ear and it uses the shape of my ear to collect the sounds. For the T-Loop system, I will have to use T-Coil piece.
Also on Program 1, I will able to use personal stereo, MP3 etc, but have to take off the T-Mic piece first
and replace it with Connect piece on. This Connect piece is similar with the normal microphone. Also
with this Connect piece on, I can fit a T-Coil on and I would be hearing the T-Loop system without a background noise.
Also on program 2, I can use the normal microphone with Connect and the T-Coil at the same time. This
means that I would be hearing 50% of background noise and 50% of T-Loop system sound.
These settings I told you will be much clearer when I write about it in my 6 months experiece story.........
Monday 3rd October - Rehab with Hearing Therapist - Mary McGee
Another fun filled appointment with Mary but also was very exhausting. It was my fault for being
tired as I went to work early in the morning. i thought I learnt my lesson by now......From now on, next
time I see Mary, I will take a day off from work.
Anyway, about this appointment, it was the usual tests for me but much harder. However,
I passed these tests with ease as I got most of them correct.
All the tests I did were repeating what Mary is saying exactly. For example, she would give me topic and
then ask me few questions. I did not answer her questions but repeat her questions. It was funny at that
time because I didn't know whether I should answer her questions when I am not supposed to!!
The last part of the test was Mary telling a story that continued from last appointment. Again she timed
me for 5 minutes and see how far we progress on the story. This time, I was lip-reading Mary because I was toooo tired
to concentrate on listening without lip-reading. Mind me, it can be also hard to concentrate on lip-reading too.
As I was successful on these tests she given me. I am very proud because of 2 things. The room
was a bit noisy with a fan on. She did offered to switch it off but I was a bit warm. The other thing is that
she also given me some tests that meant to be for next appointment (6 months after the switch-on). It shows how much
and quickly I progressed this far. I just hope I don't stop progressing..........
Thursday 13th October - Medical Appointment - Proffesor
Donoghue
A waste of frigging appointment!! I had to travel 30 odd miles there and back to work for the 2 minutes
appointment. He just want to look inside my ear and then ask me how I am doing......wasn't very amused.
WHat is NeXt for mE??
Here are the date(s) I wil be attending:
- TBA (just in case
if you don't know what its stand for...To Be Announced) Most likely I'll see my hearing therapist before christmas
and also will have a Tuning appointment with Tracy sometime in January.
Here are the dates I already attended:
- Monday 6th June, 9:00am - Mrs Tracy O'Neill, Initial Tuning
A
- Monday 6th June, 12:00pm - Ms Dyan McKinley, Specialist Speech
& Language Therapist
- Tuesday 7th June, 9:00am - Mrs Tracy O'Neill, Initial Tuning
A
- Wednesday 8th June, 11:00am - Prof Gerard O'Donoghue, Medical Appointment A @ QMC, ENT Department
- Monday 13th June 11:00am - Mrs Tracy O'Neill, 1 Week Tuning
A
- Monday 13th June, 13:00pm - Ms Dyan McKinley, Specialist Speech
& Language Therapist
- Monday 18th July, 11:45am - Mrs Mary McGee, Rehab with
Hearing Therapist A
- Monday 18th July, 14:00pm - Mrs Tracy O'Neill, 1 Month Tuning
A
- Monday 3rd October, 11:00am - Mrs Tracy O'Neill, 3
Month Tuning A
- Monday 3rd October, 14:00pm - Mrs Mary McGee, Rehab with
Hearing Therapist
- Thursday 13th October 11.40pm - Proffesor O-Donoghue
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