Not Loving It So Far

I'm going to lump the last two weeks since activation together in one post. The second day of of this process was much like the first. Everything was mono-tone. Most sounds were just beeps or warbles in the background hum. Voices, were starting to sound a bit like voices, but they sounded distant, and echoey, like I was hearing them over a PA system in a football stadium.

The morning before my second mapping, brought a big change, though. Just as I was leaving work for the clinic, I stopped to talk to someone. During that conversation, the tone of his voice suddenly dropped. Driving over to the clinic, I was actually starting to be able to distinguish between different voices, even if I couldn't make out what they were saying.

My second mapping was basically the same as the first one. We started with the threshold and comfort levels, and though my thresholds didn't really drop, my comfort levels increased a little bit. Then we did a balancing step: they gave me three tones in a row, and I had to tell them if they were the same volume or not. f they were the same, we went on to the next set. If there were differences, they made adjustments until they were all the same. The end result was a map that gave me more volume.

Since activation, I've been trying to do 20-30 minutes or more of listening a day. This has mostly been listening to Dr. Seuss books on CD, and trying to follow along with the book. When I have the book in front of me, some of the stories, I can pick out some of the words. Most of them though, I get lost after a few pages, but that is gradually stretching out, and I can follow more before getting lost. Of course, without the book, I still can't understand the words, unless it's a portion of the book that I've started to memorize.

Real voices still sound distant, but sounds are starting to come out. Early last week, I filled up a water bottle from a pitcher, and I recognized the sound of the water filling the bottle. Zippers and footsteps make sense most of the time, and I heard the wall clock in my kitchen tick.

My third mapping last Tuesday was more of the same process, but instead of giving me additional volume, they gave me three different programs for different listening environments. I've been trying them but so far, not a lot of difference.

And now the really lousy parts.

In the last few days, I've developed some serious non-stop tinnitus or something. And by serious, I mean loud, like stick your head under the car hood and blow the horn loud. Pretty much nonstop, It subsides a little occasionally, but usually comes roaring back. Thursday night, it pretty much kept me from being able to sleep, and much of the time, it's know loud enough that it seems to drown out most of the sounds I should be picking up with the CI. The sounds have been everything from similar to a car horn, to something like power lines summing in the wind, or someone running a finger around the rim of a glass goblet, I've also been hearing what seems like 4 or 5 different tones at the same time. Something I don't understand about this is that it seems to go form the implanted ear to the other ear, and sometimes even seems to be in the center of my head.

One other thing that I've heard, usually right when I first wake up, before the other sounds overwhelm it is what sounds like static or crackling in the implanted ear. What scares me about that is wondering if there might be something wrong with the implant itself.

I gave up wearing the processor yesterday afternoon, hoping that maybe reducing the stimulation might let it subside. It has a little bit, to levels that might be mid-term tolerable.

I left a message for my audiologist saturday telling her about this, and asking her if I might need to see the surgeon, or her before the next mapping appointment, so hopefully she'll get back to me quickly. If I don't hear from her, I do have an appointment for an auditory rehabilitation evaluation on Wednesday morning at the clinic, so I can let the therapist know then as well. I also have my fourth mapping on the 18th, but hopefully I can get some kind of information before then.

Until then, I'm not really loving this experience so far. They certainly warn you that this is not easy, but the tinnitus is not something I was expecting, and making it even more difficult than I had imagined. As I mentioned before, you read the stories of enough other people that make such rapid, if not immediate progress, it gets frustrating, especially when things you don't understand are occurring.