First Esteem Readjustment

Today was my readjustment appointment. It has been about 16 weeks since my surgery and 8 weeks since the Esteem device was activated. I have to say that this has been a very long 2-month in becoming acclimated to the Esteem and I have not officially even made it all the way through the C program. Due to my cold, I am still hanging out at C3. 


Not to say that I am unhappy with the Esteem, but I wish I had been prepared for what a learning process this would be for me. I went into this experience thinking my life would change drastically over night and the reality of the situation is this is a learning process and takes A LOT of time. I was told that for some people, it takes over a year! 


While the sound that I do hear is natural, I have a long way to go in regards to learning to hear again. For the last 10+ years, I have become very dependent on reading lips, watching TV with subtitles, and I essentially stopped talking on the phone, so I literally lost my ability to truly comprehend by hearing. I hear by looking not by listening. I truly believe that part of the reason I am having a difficult time adjusting has a lot to do with how much I have isolated myself from situations that require me to hear. I wonder if I had continued to put myself in all those uncomfortable situations if I would still be having this much trouble understanding what people say. 


The Envoy Technician I met with today told me that I am still becoming acclimated to the device and that I really need to be practicing, every single day, how to hear without reading lips. She suggested that I find some old children’s books and have my husband sit in front of me, with the book in front of his face covering his lips. He would read one sentence at a time and after each sentence, I would repeat it after him. She suggested starting with childrens' books since the words and sentences are not very complex, and working up to more challenging books/articles/stories. Also, I told her I had looked into Auditory/Speech Therapy and asked what she thought about this. When I suggested this to the first Envoy Technician I worked with, she didn’t think it was necessary and just stressed what a learning process this is. However, my Technician today said that every little bit helps and thought this may be a good idea for me, particularly, since I am so dependent on reading lips for comprehension. This type of therapy is pretty expensive ($100/sessions) for my husband and I considering our financial situation and with my hubby still out of work, it is just financially not in the cards for me right now so I am hoping and praying that the new year will bring good fortune so that I am able to do this and help myself.

Overall, I felt that my readjustment appointment went fairly well and I have to say that I felt less emotional and much more satisfied with my appointment and settings compared to my initial activation. Having the film crew around for my activation made me feel a little flustered and it wasn’t until the end of the appointment, when we asked the film crew to leave, that I was able to address my concerns. At that time, most of the adjustments had already been made. I didn’t realize this until today, but I feel like I wasn’t really asked during my activation appointment how things sounded. I feel like I wasn’t really a part of the programming, and I guess it was probably because everything was so new to me and I didn’t know what it should have sounded like. I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell them either! 


Today, I feel like the focus was on me and I was able to test out a bunch of different program and volume settings to see which was the clearest for me. There were times in the appointment where the Technician would go back and forth between 2 different settings a couple of times before I could tell the difference and pick the one that was clearest for me. She also read out loud which allowed me to see which setting provided the most clarity in speech. One thing I thought we were going to do was listen to music, and I had mentioned it at the beginning of my appointment, but it totally slipped my mind by the end and I forgot to bring it up again so we could determine the setting that is best for listening to music. I will have to remember this next time if Music is still sounded pretty crappy...

I, unfortunately, am still getting over my cold and have a bit of congestion so the Technician was not able to advance my profile settings very much. From what I understand, her programming was telling her that my feedback threshold was higher and that I could take another step up, but whenever she set my device to that higher level, I would get high-pitched screeching feedback. The Technician has a little device that checks the amount of fluid in my ear and it indicated that there was some fluid, most likely from my cold and from not taking my allergy medicine in the last couple of days. She said this excess fluid in my ear is likely causing the feedback at the higher settings. So while I was able to gain some volume and range, it is disappointing that I couldn’t have gained more because of this stupid cold!

The way my device is currently programmed is A is my “Everyday” setting. B is my “Background Noise” setting, which I will use when I am in noisy places. This setting does not contain many of the lower frequencies of sound so is supposed to help eliminate background noise. My C setting is my “Music” setting and contains all frequencies and tones. She was a little concerned that when I am feeling better and there are les fluids in my ears I will want more volume, so instead of having 0-5 volume settings within each program, my volume range goes from 0-10. For some reason, having this wide range makes me feel a bit more in control of my hearing. As I did in the last 2 months, she said I will really want to keep track of how different noises sound on these settings and which situations are still difficult so she can fix these issues as best as possible during my next readjustment in 2-3 months. I left the appointment today on A7.

I also completed a hearing test, which I requested from my Envoy Technician. She said she would email this to me within the next couple of days, so I am very excited to compare these to my original hearing test scores. I feel like I have noticed such an improvement and hope that my hearing test reflects this.

My appointment lasted 2.5 hours and I truly feel satisfied that all of my issues/concerns were addressed and that the device is set in the best way possible to fit my needs, considering the fluid build up from my cold. While I cant help but feel a little disappointed that I was not able to get the boost I was hoping for, the situation is outside of my control so I must accept that this is my reality and move forward from here.

Well, that is pretty much the gist of my re-adjustment appointment. I also feel like there have been some positive changes in regards to my level of hearing and new sounds. I didn’t think it was possible but I feel that all noises generally sound crisper and clearer to me. Especially my whistle. Also, before my readjustment, I found most noises to sound more high pitch than I remember. I barely recognized my moms voice on the phone. Now, most noises seem to have a bit more base, which makes everything sound deeper, and to me, more “normal”. Probably because I am not used to hearing these high pitched tones as that is where my hearing loss is more profound. I have also found that noises that used to be extremely loud and cause distortion with my Esteem, such as cars driving by downtown or the blow dryer, actually sound "comfortable" and not too loud. I also found that I can hear pretty well on my cell phone but my work phone is still a bit difficult for me. I think I am going to have to play around with this more. Finally, all of my bodily noises (i.e., chewing, swallowing, drinking, etc.) are noticeable again.

While I was at work today, every time I went into the kitchen, I heard the refrigerators running. At the end of the day, I heard the dishwasher going too. There have been so many occasions where I would open the dishwasher and not realize it was on because I couldn’t hear it. The refrigerator and dishwasher are both noises that I have not heard in the 4 years I have been with my company, so this was pretty exciting for me. I had a large team meeting today and didn’t really notice the difference that I was hoping for, but I do think this has a lot to do with my dependency on reading lips more than the clarity of voices. Sometime I feel like I am attending a meeting in a different language. I can physically hear everyone in the room, but I just don’t understand what is being said most of the time (unless I am looking).

Since my appointment was downtown near were I work, I had Fraser drop and pick me up from work today. My mom called me as I was getting into the car, which I surprisingly heard on vibrate in my purse. She was anxious to hear how everything went so I updated her on the details of my appointment and she told me that I "sound really good". I was sort of frustrated when I talked to her so I wasn’t sure what she was talking about. She said that my voice sound better and more clear AKA less lispy. My mom still claims that she never noticed my speech impediment, but come on mom, its pretty apparent. Mom’s. Always trying to make us feel better about ourselves.

As I am sitting in bed writing this, I can hear the dishwasher going off in the kitchen 2 rooms away. Since my activation, I have been able to hear this noise while in the kitchen, but never this loud and clear from a distance.

The only thing I have not tried to do today is listen to music but my hubby, puppy, and I are roadtripping from Denver to St. Louis (12-14 hours) on Wednesday, so I am sure I will have plenty of opportunity to do test this out.