Experimenting.

On a whim, I left my hearing aid turned off all day today. And I did fine.  My day included several phone conversations (both land-line and cellular), a couple of office meetings, a Starbucks run, and a few hours at the climbing gym. The only times I caved and switched the hearing aid on were when Steve and I were driving home in the Very Loud Civic, with the windows rolled down, and for a phone conversation with a client calling on the crappy prison phone system. All in all, a very satisfying little experiment. I might try to do it again tomorrow, although I can tell that I hear better with both ears engaged.

I also played around with my four different programs today, switching to the louder one for a while and using the telephone program for a phone conversation with Steve. I liked the former, but think I can hear better on the phone simply by activating the telecoil while in my regular program. Also, it seems that I have to hold the phone in exactly the right place on my processor, or the sound becomes garbled. This is a bit annoying, and makes multitasking a challenge. I'll have to play around more with phone usage, to try to see if there's a solution that will allow me to use my right ear for the phone without sacrificing the ability to send e-mails and run Westlaw searches at the same time.

Many sounds are becoming more "normal" with the CI. For example, I noticed on may way into the office this morning that the elevator voice, the beeping of the security-entrance keypad, the creaking noise of the heavy entrance door opening, and the office intercom system all are starting to sound much clearer and more nuanced, more like I'm used to them sounding with my hearing aid.

The same thing is happening with people's voices; I can tell male and female voices apart, and people are starting to sound just like I expect them to, instead of like unisex robots. I keep thinking that I should try a blind voice test with a bunch of my friends. Perhaps tomorrow night over our post-Stroke & Stride beers.

Comments

[fish]

very, very cool!!! soon you'll probably hear better than those of us who went to too many ramones concerts!!!