2nd Readjustment Scheduled!

I was supposed to go to Chicago to have my second Esteem readjustment and to meet with my surgeon, Dr. Marzo, to have him check up on everything to make sure I was healing properly. However, some unforeseen circumstances arose and I, unfortunately, had to cancel my trip at the last minute. Since things are still a bit crazy around here, I will probably not be able to get to Chicago until July. So, I decided to just have Michelle, my Esteem Engineer, come to Denver for a readjustment. Envoy is very booked right now so the soonest they were able to get out here is April 23rd (a month and a half after my originally scheduled appointment!).


While I am very very excited for my readjustment, I am also very nervous since I did not get very much gain from my last adjustment because of the fluids in my ear. I am hoping since I will have had 5 months to heal that I will be able to get the gain that I am look for. It is really strange because when you first get adjusted (or when you turn up the volume on the remote) everything seems so loud and great!  But as time goes on, you get used to hearing at this level; things just sort of level out a little bit. Right now, I have been at the top volume for the last 3 weeks so I REALLY need a little more UMPH! and I hope that I am able to get that from my appointment in April. I also really hope that my tone and test scores go up as well! Fingers crossed! X (that "X" is supposed to be me crossing my fingers.. just in case you were wondering).


I have to say that it is crazy how dependent I am becoming on my Esteem ear. When my implant was first activated, I relied much more on my hearing aid since that is what I was used to but now, I am very dependent on my Esteem. There have been times when I feel like I am completely deaf in my hearing aided ear (because the sound in my Esteem is so great!) and I often have to check to make sure that it is actually on and didn't run out of batteries or something. And yes, it is always on... Seeing how much more I am hearing out of my Esteem as time goes on make me want to have my other ear implanted SO badly. I hope like hell insurance companies start covering this device soon. As of now, my insurance company, Great West Cigna, still considers middle ear implants as "experimental".  They also consider the Esteem to be like a "hearing aid"... Man, these insurance companies need to get their facts straight because, in my opinion, FDA approval does not qualify as "experimental" and this device is NOTHING like a hearing aid! I mean, I wish that each and every one of them could actually experience having a severe loss of hearing because I do not think that any of them could last a day in our shoes. Hell, they probably couldn't even last an hour... I think if they knew what it felt like to struggle in every day conversation that they would be pushing much more for the coverage of hearing.


Well, enough of that... I am going to go enjoy this beautiful sunny Denver day and get my tan on! and maybe enjoying a few mimosas as well! Happy Saturday! :)

Life is YOUR Choice

I have to say that the last year of my life has been quite a struggle. Hell, the last 6 month in itself of learning to hear again has been a spiraling journey of ups and downs. There are days that I feel on top of the world and others that make me want to just give up on this journey all together. While my implant has given me hope and improved my hearing on so many levels (and hopefully many more to come!), I do still have my "I cant hear very well" days where everything seems a blur. 

Sometimes when things do not seem to go right in our lives, we attribute our feelings to the situations in our life. And rightfully so... We wouldn't have to deal with the situation at all if life didn't throw it at us while we weren't even looking, right? While we may not be able to choose our life circumstances or how we initially feel about certain things that happen in our life, we DO have a choice about how we react to these unforeseen situations and how we let them affect how we live our lives and our overall happiness. 

Obviously, feeling sad, frustrated, angry, or depressed doesn’t feel good, so when it comes down to it, we have to ask ourselves, is it worth it? Is it so important that it is worth holding onto this negative energy? Letting it ruin your day? Letting it make you feel upset? No, it is certainly not! 

Yes, it is frustrating that I have to wake up every morning as a hearing impaired individual and go through my day wondering if I will be able to hear people or not. Yes, it is not fair that I have to live with a hearing disability, while I see friends my age being able to so effortlessly and happily live their life. I hate more than anything that it is difficult for me to keep in touch with and communicate with my loved ones. Sometimes I get SO mad at God when things get difficult. Why me?

However, what I have learned is that by holding onto this negative energy, the only person you are hurting is yourself. By being jealous of someone else's life or by being frustrated when you cannot hear someone, you are only hurting YOU! These feelings are truly a waste of energy that could be used to feel good about something. So, stop honing in on the negative, and boost up all the positive things that are happening in your life right now!

Always keep in mind that while you cannot control the crappy life circumstances that are thrown at you, you can control the level you take it too. If you take the time to explore whatever it is you are feeling, you will be able to better understand yourself, which will make it easier to learn from and let go of the negative experience that may be holding you back. With hardship comes growth, but only if we take the opportunity to learn from lifes' happenings. By focusing on the lesson instead of the struggle, we are bound to become wiser and happier individuals...

Run Like Hell

With the weather being so beautiful in Denver lately, I have attempted to get my lazy butt back into shape. Before I received the Envoy Esteem implant I was running about 5-10 miles 5-6 days a week! I was actually hoping to run a marathon at the end of last summer but between having to move into a new home, my husband losing his job, and my Esteem surgery, it just didn’t seem possible.

My recovery from surgery was pretty tough (story for another time) and by the time I started to feel like myself again, it was too cold outside and was getting dark before I would get home from work. I had bought myself a treadmill about a year or two before and, unfortunately, we had lost a few pieces during our recent move.  Time went by, things got busy, and I slowly drifted out of my routine. Completely. I swear, there is just something about the winter, snow, and cold weather that makes me not want to do anything but curl up on the couch and watch movies or read a good book.  So it has been a loooooooooong, cold, lazy winter for me, to say the least.

I got the “okay” from our veterinarian that I could finally run with my puppy! So, I decided to treat myself to some new “kicks”, which are pretty darn cute, I must admit (see picture below). It is hard to tell from the picture but they are a bright, raspberry pink! Very “me”.  THANK YOU DSW! I also found some very cute Tory Burch look a likes (ballet flats AND black paten leather flip flops. VERY excited about them). Did I mention I love shoes? :)

People always think that I am crazy for having “run a marathon” as an item on my bucket list but it has always been a dream of mine. Actually, when I told this to one of my friends his response was “it is on my bucket list to NOT run a marathon”.

I have to admit, didn’t always like running. In middle school, our gym teachers would randomly have us run a timed mile once a month and I would try desperately to get out of it if I could (i.e., fake a cramp, twist my ankle, etc. You name it. I probably said it.). When I reached high school and started to play sports more competitively, I realized I would much rather run a timed mile (7-8 minutes) than an hour of intervals and sprints! It wasn’t until college, when I was able to run on my own time, that I realized how great it made me feel. It helped me release tension and clear my head, which was quite helpful when I spent the majority of my senior year in the library writing my thesis. Running just made everything feel better; it still does.

Anyways, as I set out for my very first run of the spring season, I turned on my Nike+ App on my iphone and hit the pavement. The first thing I noticed was how GREAT the music sounded! I honestly couldn’t believe my ears! When I tried to listen to music a few months ago on my iphone, it sounded like crap so I just gave up on using it but this time it was unreal! SO much of a difference compared to last time. Also, I didn’t even have to fool around with the settings on my Esteem to make it sound good, it just sounded magical on its own!

As the song switched, I found that it seemed a bit loud to me. When I went to turn it down, I noticed that the volume level was on 6 out of 16! When I would run before my implant, I wouldn’t be able to wear my hearing aids so I would have to blast the volume as loud as it would go, and even still, it would sound all muffled. I would have to specifically choose songs for my “running mix” that had a deep base backbeat because, well, that is all that I could hear. But today was great, much better than I ever could have hoped or imagined. I can’t wait until I have both of my ears done because I can only imagine it will be twice as awesome!

And you know what was even more amazing than this?!?!?! When Rufus (my pup) stopped to play with some other dogs, I was able to take my earphone out confidently and have a conversation with the other dog owners! When I would run before the implant, I would dread running into someone I knew in fear that I wouldn’t be able to hear them without my hearing aids in, which is actually part of the reason I bought myself a treadmill and avoided going to gyms or exercising with other people. It is truly is amazing being able to hear in any situation and feeling much more confident in these types of situations. I think this is honestly the most amazing thing about the Esteem implant!

So, I made it a whole 1.5 miles for my first run! Ha! I am definitely out of shape and have lots of work to do! I am not sure if I am just really out of shape or if I am just hearing much better, but I breath REALLY loudly when I run… I was able to hear this over the music even! That is something I need to work on so people don't think I am going into cardiac arrest when I run! 

So while today was a great day, there was one thing that did bother me… the wind. When the wind would pick up I would have a difficult time hearing the music which was a bit frustrating. When I asked my husband about this he said that he can hear it but it doesn’t interfere with music. But it did a lot for me today… I hope this is something that will get better with more time and some adjustment!

Aural Rehabilitation (Free Practice)

Aural Rehabilitation is a form of speech therapy that is directed towards helping individuals with hearing loss learns strategies to promote the effectiveness of their communication. For those who have decided to take the next step and get hearing aids or an implant, Aural Rehabilitation is extremely important in helping individuals (re-)build neural pathways in their brain to make sense of the sound they are now able to hear. While this will happen naturally through your everyday communication, Aural Rehabilitation helps speed up the process.  Just an hour a day can go a long way!

Below, I have provided some options for anyone who is interested in starting their own Aural Rehabilitation at home for free:

The Listening Gym

*These activities were created for cochlear implant recipients.

http://www.hearingjourney.com/Listening_Room/Teens_and_Adults/Listening_Gym/index.cfm?langid=1

Cambridge| Interchange Arcade

*These are phonics games that were originally created for kids.

http://www2.cambridge.org/interchangearcade/sortbytype.do?level=0&type=Cup_word_up

*Interactive activities (that I found to be sort of fun) that are geared towards children to help them understand language but listening to sounds is a large part of the activities.

Many Things

*These activities were specifically created for ESL students.

http://www.manythings.org/repeat/

*Listen and repeat exercises.

http://www.manythings.org/lar/

*Listening to conversation dialogs.

ESL Lab

*These activities were specifically created for ESL students.

http://www.esl-lab.com/

*This website provides SO many practice examples at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Activities consist of listening to a short conversation dialog and completing quiz on the content of the conversation.

Posit Science

*These phonics activities were specifically created for kids.

http://www.positscience.com/games-teasers/brain-games-kids/sound-discrimination

Also, if you do a google search for "phonic activities", most of the programs you find should be helpful as long as listening is a large piece of the activity.