HAPPY ONE WEEK ANNIVERSARY TO ME! My Envoy Esteem device has officially been activated for one whole week! I turned up the device to C3 today. WOW. One week and I am almost through the programming! Is this good or bad? I asked the Envoy Technician and she said that she was happy I was progressing so quickly, and said “NO!”, I am not progressing too quickly!
I also scheduled my readjustment appointment for December 19th. My two month marker would have been December 26th but they allowed me to schedule this a little bit earlier. What a WONDERFUL Christmas present this will be for me! I was told that this appointment is really focused around making it easier for me to understand sound (especially voices) and programming the device to be optimal in environments that are difficult for me. The technician even told me she will bring music so we can test the device to see how it sounds. Live music sounds great, but music on the radio sounds a bit distorted and if something is too loud, it comes off a bit squeaky almost.
Oh man! I seriously cannot wait! And I am SO happy that I am able to be readjusted before the socialness of the holidays! I wonder if it will be easier than last year...
Last year we celebrated Christmas at my oldest sisters house and I remember it being very difficult for me to hear. My family is very close and we can always find fun in anything that we do as long as we are together!! Everyone gets really into games and so we decided to play the game Catch Phrase. I LOVE, well used to love, this game. For those who have not played this game before, you have this circular game piece:
You pick a category and a word will pop up on the screen. You have a certain amount of time to make your team guess what the word is on the screen. So if my word was "Sweater", I may say something like, "This is a piece of clothing you put on when you are cold." Obviously, the words are a little more challenging than this but you get the picture.
Anyways, while you are trying to get your team members to guess the word, the game beeps slowly and then very rapidly when you are about to run out of time. When it was my turn, I would ramble on and on, even when the buzzing had stopped, because, well, I couldn't hear it. People with hearing loss, in a way, have selective hearing. This may not be the best way to describe it, but it is the only thing I can think of at the moment. If we are not focused on the noise, chances are we don't hear it. Our attention has to be focused on the source of the sound we want to hear at all times. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD, which, I think, factors in to my hearing comprehension sometimes so you can probably imagine how difficult it is for me to focus my attention and how much energy it does take me to be in a conversation.
When we were playing this game, I was so focused on the game that I would go off on these little tangents oblivious to the fact the buzzer had stopped. Everyone would stop guessing and be like “Als, your out of time”. My family is very athletic and so we all grew up playing competitive sports. Growing up in this environment give you a little bit of a competitive edge. Obviously, no one likes losing, but in my family, we REALLY do not like losing. Me especially. I'm stubborn. My husband once beat me in the 007 James Bond game on Nintendo 64 and I was so mad that I literally did not talk to him the whole day. I couldn't even look at him. He thought it was hilarious. Every time he would see me, he would just look at me and smile, which, obviously, just pissed me off more. We now look back and laugh about this moment but we learned one very important lesson about our relationship that day: We must always play for the same team, no matter what the game. Even the game of life.
Anyways, I was in such a competitive state of mind that I didn't have my attention on the buzzer, but instead on winning the game. So, I just kept missing it going off. Actually, I do not think I was even able to hear it buzzing at all over the sound of my own voice and other voices trying to guess the word. One of the (many) limitations of hearing aids is that they just amplify sound and make it very difficult to distinguish and filter noises. Either all of the sounds come together as one muffled noise, or the loudest sound in the room (my voice in this situation) overbears all other sound. This is part of the reason noisy situations are so difficult for hearing impaired individuals; background noise is so loud that we cannot hear the people we are trying to have a conversation with.
I am very comfortable with my family but it is still so embarrassing when this type of things happens to me. It just hurts my heart. Fraser and I did not spend Christmas together last year and I know if he was there he would have seen the look on my face and it would have broken his heart too. I remember thinking to myself that night, "Gosh. Why can't I just be normal and have fun and be able to hear like everyone else?". At this point in my life, I honestly cannot imagine a social life that is easy because it has been so difficult to communicate in these situations for so long.
I also scheduled my readjustment appointment for December 19th. My two month marker would have been December 26th but they allowed me to schedule this a little bit earlier. What a WONDERFUL Christmas present this will be for me! I was told that this appointment is really focused around making it easier for me to understand sound (especially voices) and programming the device to be optimal in environments that are difficult for me. The technician even told me she will bring music so we can test the device to see how it sounds. Live music sounds great, but music on the radio sounds a bit distorted and if something is too loud, it comes off a bit squeaky almost.
Oh man! I seriously cannot wait! And I am SO happy that I am able to be readjusted before the socialness of the holidays! I wonder if it will be easier than last year...
Last year we celebrated Christmas at my oldest sisters house and I remember it being very difficult for me to hear. My family is very close and we can always find fun in anything that we do as long as we are together!! Everyone gets really into games and so we decided to play the game Catch Phrase. I LOVE, well used to love, this game. For those who have not played this game before, you have this circular game piece:
You pick a category and a word will pop up on the screen. You have a certain amount of time to make your team guess what the word is on the screen. So if my word was "Sweater", I may say something like, "This is a piece of clothing you put on when you are cold." Obviously, the words are a little more challenging than this but you get the picture.
Anyways, while you are trying to get your team members to guess the word, the game beeps slowly and then very rapidly when you are about to run out of time. When it was my turn, I would ramble on and on, even when the buzzing had stopped, because, well, I couldn't hear it. People with hearing loss, in a way, have selective hearing. This may not be the best way to describe it, but it is the only thing I can think of at the moment. If we are not focused on the noise, chances are we don't hear it. Our attention has to be focused on the source of the sound we want to hear at all times. I have also been diagnosed with ADHD, which, I think, factors in to my hearing comprehension sometimes so you can probably imagine how difficult it is for me to focus my attention and how much energy it does take me to be in a conversation.
When we were playing this game, I was so focused on the game that I would go off on these little tangents oblivious to the fact the buzzer had stopped. Everyone would stop guessing and be like “Als, your out of time”. My family is very athletic and so we all grew up playing competitive sports. Growing up in this environment give you a little bit of a competitive edge. Obviously, no one likes losing, but in my family, we REALLY do not like losing. Me especially. I'm stubborn. My husband once beat me in the 007 James Bond game on Nintendo 64 and I was so mad that I literally did not talk to him the whole day. I couldn't even look at him. He thought it was hilarious. Every time he would see me, he would just look at me and smile, which, obviously, just pissed me off more. We now look back and laugh about this moment but we learned one very important lesson about our relationship that day: We must always play for the same team, no matter what the game. Even the game of life.
Anyways, I was in such a competitive state of mind that I didn't have my attention on the buzzer, but instead on winning the game. So, I just kept missing it going off. Actually, I do not think I was even able to hear it buzzing at all over the sound of my own voice and other voices trying to guess the word. One of the (many) limitations of hearing aids is that they just amplify sound and make it very difficult to distinguish and filter noises. Either all of the sounds come together as one muffled noise, or the loudest sound in the room (my voice in this situation) overbears all other sound. This is part of the reason noisy situations are so difficult for hearing impaired individuals; background noise is so loud that we cannot hear the people we are trying to have a conversation with.
I am very comfortable with my family but it is still so embarrassing when this type of things happens to me. It just hurts my heart. Fraser and I did not spend Christmas together last year and I know if he was there he would have seen the look on my face and it would have broken his heart too. I remember thinking to myself that night, "Gosh. Why can't I just be normal and have fun and be able to hear like everyone else?". At this point in my life, I honestly cannot imagine a social life that is easy because it has been so difficult to communicate in these situations for so long.
I am not exactly sure why I started to reflect on some of these more negative moments in my life because as I am writing this I am almost in tears. I don’t want to be sad about the things I do not have. I want to be happy for every wonderful thing in my life right now. I DO have SO much to thankful for! Yes, a week into this journey, social situations are still pretty difficult for me. However, being able to hear so many sounds again has given me an incredible amount of hope and truly makes me the happiest girl in the whole world. Every day is like Christmas and every night is like Christmas Eve because each day I experience the miracle of sound and each night I get to look forward to the new noises tomorrow will bring. I think that hearing and experiencing new sounds reminds me of what I was not able to hear before my implant and it makes me empathize with others who are struggling to get by with hearing loss. It really is a struggle just to get up in the morning and face a day of ambiguity and stress of not being able to hear.
I just want to end by saying how thankful I am for my kind, loving, and supportive family who I will be able to spend Christmas with knowing that I will be able to hear better than last year.
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