Not much longer now....
...my little ticker is fast counting down the days until my second CI!! Just ten more days! I was kind of worried that the last few days would drag by, but I overbooked myself for the next few days and have been so busy that I think they'll fly by. Everyone in this house is swapping bedrooms and now that we've gotten started on it we have to finish it...at this point I actually hope we even have the time to finish!
If you've arrived here via the Advanced Bionics home page, you should know how excited I am that you're here. When Gloria Garner asked me if she could put my blog on the AB page, I immediately said yes. I love blogging and I have met so many new friends through the blog community over the past few years. When I started researching CIs in the spring of last year, I had to really search to find cochlear implant blogs, and the ones I found were often out of date. The ones that I found that were updated and maintained have become close friends...we have supported each other and encouraged each other, shared worries, fears, and joys. Bloggers by nature are sharers, as a rule, and they're so easy to get to know. If it's your first time here, check out my other CI blog friends...I have a whole list of them in my sidebar...all of them great reads!
I sent an e-mail to a few friends saying that the blog was up on the AB webpage, and heard back from my surgeon. He said, "Looking forward to seeing you for your surgery!" If that's the case, I just hope he gets to me before the anesthesiologist does...last time he just barely made it, as the guy was fixing to shoot me up with amnesiacs...if he'd come a minute later, he would have been able to talk, but I doubt I would have remembered it!
I went for a mapping on Wednesday...my last one before my surgery. I asked my audiologist if she'd consider putting one of my programs back on HiRes P to see if that helped my speech comprehension. It hasn't ever been GREAT, but it was actually better before I switched to the 120 programming. I think that, in my case, as far as speech is concerned, I need straight, simple sound. The 120 programming is the one to use for music...it is a much fuller, rounder program, and it picks up many more sounds than the HiRes does....and to that end, I was comfortable with our decision to leave it on the second slot. So now I have the basic HiRes P on slot 1, HiRes P with 120 programming on 2, and a 50/50 split on program 3 (I use it a lot to Direct Connect to my laptop). So far, I'm pleased with the results. I played with it at church Wednesday...switching back and forth while the Bible class teacher was talking (I'm sure I was horribly distracting). His voice sounded clearer on HiRes P to me...when I switched to the 120, it picked up more subtle nuances of his voice, but since my brain doesn't handle all those subtle sounds well, it just kind of echoed and sounded muffled. So it was back to HiRes P for the remainder of the class.
After class I tried the switch during the singing, and this time the 120 programming was the winner. Music on HiRes P was just OK...a little flat. I had a harder time picking up the soprano and overall it didn't sound as good. When I switched over to the 120 programming, it sounded much better...more like I remember it (still not exactly, but much closer). So I think I'll keep it this way for the time being...HiRes P for everyday speaking situations, and HiRes 120 for music (and I listen to it a lot, so it's worth keeping). I hope that as my speech comprehension picks up I'll eventually be able to switch back to the 120 for speech too, but right now it's just more noise than I can handle...it's too hard for my slow little brain to pick out speech with all the extra information it's getting!
Gonna get off here and get to work...I have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it!! Oy!
If you've arrived here via the Advanced Bionics home page, you should know how excited I am that you're here. When Gloria Garner asked me if she could put my blog on the AB page, I immediately said yes. I love blogging and I have met so many new friends through the blog community over the past few years. When I started researching CIs in the spring of last year, I had to really search to find cochlear implant blogs, and the ones I found were often out of date. The ones that I found that were updated and maintained have become close friends...we have supported each other and encouraged each other, shared worries, fears, and joys. Bloggers by nature are sharers, as a rule, and they're so easy to get to know. If it's your first time here, check out my other CI blog friends...I have a whole list of them in my sidebar...all of them great reads!
I sent an e-mail to a few friends saying that the blog was up on the AB webpage, and heard back from my surgeon. He said, "Looking forward to seeing you for your surgery!" If that's the case, I just hope he gets to me before the anesthesiologist does...last time he just barely made it, as the guy was fixing to shoot me up with amnesiacs...if he'd come a minute later, he would have been able to talk, but I doubt I would have remembered it!
I went for a mapping on Wednesday...my last one before my surgery. I asked my audiologist if she'd consider putting one of my programs back on HiRes P to see if that helped my speech comprehension. It hasn't ever been GREAT, but it was actually better before I switched to the 120 programming. I think that, in my case, as far as speech is concerned, I need straight, simple sound. The 120 programming is the one to use for music...it is a much fuller, rounder program, and it picks up many more sounds than the HiRes does....and to that end, I was comfortable with our decision to leave it on the second slot. So now I have the basic HiRes P on slot 1, HiRes P with 120 programming on 2, and a 50/50 split on program 3 (I use it a lot to Direct Connect to my laptop). So far, I'm pleased with the results. I played with it at church Wednesday...switching back and forth while the Bible class teacher was talking (I'm sure I was horribly distracting). His voice sounded clearer on HiRes P to me...when I switched to the 120, it picked up more subtle nuances of his voice, but since my brain doesn't handle all those subtle sounds well, it just kind of echoed and sounded muffled. So it was back to HiRes P for the remainder of the class.
After class I tried the switch during the singing, and this time the 120 programming was the winner. Music on HiRes P was just OK...a little flat. I had a harder time picking up the soprano and overall it didn't sound as good. When I switched over to the 120 programming, it sounded much better...more like I remember it (still not exactly, but much closer). So I think I'll keep it this way for the time being...HiRes P for everyday speaking situations, and HiRes 120 for music (and I listen to it a lot, so it's worth keeping). I hope that as my speech comprehension picks up I'll eventually be able to switch back to the 120 for speech too, but right now it's just more noise than I can handle...it's too hard for my slow little brain to pick out speech with all the extra information it's getting!
Gonna get off here and get to work...I have a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it!! Oy!
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