Ten Days After Activation

It's been ten days after activation and things are going very well. I'm already talking on the cell phone on the right ear (something I would've never even tried beforehand). I'm hearing sounds and retaining that auditory memory much more than earlier. As I go through my day's now I'm getting better at locating where sounds are coming from, I'm no longer doing the full visual sweep trying to see if somebody is looking at me after I hear my name said, I know where the sound came from. I'm very happy with my choice to have gotten the cochlear implant, best $70,000 I've spent to date!

I've been required ever since I've been activated to go to my audiologists office for "mappings" and therapy twice a week. After my third mapping and before my fourth mapping I went into the hearing booth to receive a hearing test. As I was going in, my audiologist said that I was going to be tested on my hearing on only my cochlear implant side. I was thinking in my head that I had read online that usually people suck on these things. It turns out that I made a 100% on the test. I was told that that is better than some people that have cochlear implants for years test on these things.

I was thinking yesterday what it was like to be in two hearing aids all of my life, and how I wish I could've done this sooner. I mean for most of my life my right side had been silently dead. Now with the cochlear implant it has been completely turned on and it is really awesome how great it is. I anticipate that I'll be needing some adjustment over the next month at school, but it will be worth it. The sound from hearing aids is so different from a cochlear implant. Hearing aids literally try to BLAST sounds in your ear, and if you have a severe hearing loss like I do, it doesn't work. Cochlear implants work differently, they send sound straight to the nerve so there is no need to blast. And I'm getting to where I understand everything on that side. Something I would've never expected.

So I'm getting ready to go back to OU, and that is going to present itself with a whole new set of challenges. A whole different array of sounds and voices that I need to learn, and quickly. Ever since activation I've had the luxury of being surrounded with all of these people who have gone to therapy with me and have heard explanations from my therapists and audiologist about how difficult it is to adjust. I'm not going to get that any more. Now I'm jumping in headfirst into school, I've got the feeling that the next couple of weeks are going to be very crazy.

The video is coming, slowly but surely. I've been working on several different projects and that had fallen on the back burner, It'll get done though, I've got one of my friends working on it. 

Have a good weekend guys! Thanks for reading!