Today was incrementally better than yesterday. I tried hard to separate out distinct sounds throughout the day, with a bit of success. At Dawn's suggestion, I turned the CI up louder, then gradually increased the volume as the day went on. Surprisingly enough, by the end of the day, I had the processor set at the highest volume setting on the loudest program, and things sounded noticeably better than they did yesterday.
Don't get me wrong, I'm still hearing mostly whistles and beeps, but the persistent "white-noise" whistles and beeps are starting to fade into the background, and the sounds I might actually want to hear are starting to emerge from the electronic mists. Nothing sounds like I want or expect it to, but many more sounds are distinguishing themselves within the droid-babble.
The most tangible sign of improvement came tonight, when Steve and I finally did some of the exercises my audiologist assigned me. The first task required me to listen to Steve say two words, and then to tell him whether they were the same word repeated, or two different words. No lip-reading or hearing-aid use allowed!
Last week, when I tried to do this exercise, it left me in tears. Even if Steve tapped me before he said each word and paused between the pairs, I couldn't even tell if he was speaking, let alone that he was saying two separate words, so trying to compare them seemed an impossible feat. But tonight, I scored 100%. I couldn't tell you what any of the words actually was, but in every case I could hear the two words as distinct sets of sounds, and could tell whether those sounds were identical or different.
The next exercise was similar, but my job was to determine which of two words had fewer syllables. Again, I got them all. And again, I could hear each word as a very distinct collection of sounds, easily identifying the shorter word in each pair.
Overachiever that I am, I wanted to keep going. But the next set of exercises seems beyond my current capabilities, so I asked Steve to sing a song that I would know, and I would try to guess what it was. We did this with three different songs, none of which had anything to do with the other in theme, genre, artist, or era, and I got them all. By the last one, I thought I might even be hearing an actual word or two.
NOW this is starting to get exciting. . . .
Hi Mad, this is great! I'd love to hear more about the exercises you got or maybe even see a copy of them if you have them on your computer (I doubt it!). I received nothing like that....but I am going in for a fourth mapping next week and asked in advance for exercises/resources so hopefully!
Posted by: Hayley | June 07, 2006 at 05:25 AM
Madeline, I am absolutely amazed at what you're doing! As somenone with a little background in audio, I know how frustrating it can be to work with equipment that has no way to distinguish important sounds from everything else. You're doing a great job so far! Please keep the progress reports coming, and we all look forward to seeing you (and testing your bionic capabilities) in NYC!
Love, G
Posted by: Gideon | June 08, 2006 at 07:06 AM