Katrina's 2nd implant Switch-on Diary
The big day - Switch on
Hi to everyone – and thankyou all so much for your good wishes.
It has been a very interesting day – running around with a television news crew, and then they tell me that they want to film me at home with my two boys – well did I have to run fast – I quickly got home and did a mad minute tidy up. My story will also be appearing in the Advertiser newspaper tomorrow and I am hoping that it will be available on the internet, so if you are interested the address is www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/news/state and hopefully it will be there.
Sam Salier at Cochlear has asked me to do a “My Story” for the next edition of the ‘hear always’ newsletter and she also wants me to do a diary of the switch on for her. So below is what I sent to Sam just a little earlier this evening to explain what my first day was like and it also lets you guys know what I went through.
"Today (Monday 6th November) I was switched on at the South Australian Cochlear Implant Centre (SACIC). My audiologist, Nina, explained to me the procedure that we would be going through and we proceeded to map all 24 electrodes. I sat patiently going through all the sounds listening for the softest sounds and then listening to the loud sounds. When it came to switch on, it felt like there was this huge rush of power for about 20 seconds then it settled and I felt like I was in a tunnel and it was very, very windy. But I could hear Nina talking, I could hear myself talking (although we did sound a little weird), Nina gave me a sound test where she said the sounds "oo, ah, ee, ss, sh" etc hiding behind a piece of paper, and I was able to get the sounds correct. I was very surprised as it was so different to my first switch on which was 8 years ago and I have to say that the level of what I was hearing today took me about 2 weeks back then. But like Nina said my brain has already been 'wired' for sound so it’s a little easier.
Now its later on in the evening, and I have had my implant on for a few hours now and if I just listen with my new implant it still sounds very windy, also a little tinny, but once I turn on my original implant it goes away and my left ear overrides what I am hearing with my newly switched on right ear. I have been given instructions on how to change batteries if necessary, turn the processor on and off and how to adjust the volume, that is all I need to know for now and tomorrow I will be back again for more fine tuning. But all up I was very impressed with what I could actually hear today compared to my original switch on 8 years ago. So until tomorrow...." Thanks to all of you for your warm wishes once again." Regards Katrina.
Day 2 switch on
“Well today I had my second appointment, this time with Keith at the SACIC at 11am. I have to admit that everything was a lot calmer today (i.e. no media looking in at what was going on) so I was able to concentrate a lot better. One thing that I have noticed with my new implant is that when I turn it off I feel really deaf! I don’t know if this make sense to anyone but it’s as if my brain is slowly adjusting to hearing with the two implants, that when I turn off the new implant, it seems to say “Hey what is going on” as it seems so quiet! However when I turn off my original implant and just have the new implant on it still sounds a little weird.
Today Keith and I went through all my electrodes again and we reset quite a few and when he turned me back on again he sounded a lot different. I still feel as if it’s very windy – i.e. its not sounding all normal yet but when Keith speech tested me on my listening skills I got 98% accuracy. I really could not believe it, nor could Keith. He kept firing off harder and harder stuff at me (and getting really excited) until I completely got the last sentence wrong. He was trying to say “Good night, see you in the morning”, but I had no idea what he was saying – but up until then it was all going perfectly and Keith was a little suss that I had my original implant turned on, which I didn’t.
Travelling home in the car I turned on the radio and just listened to it with all the traffic noise. Normally with the one implant I can’t hear the radio unless its quite loud, the kids are not in the car and there is not so much road noise going on i.e. driving along a main road with cars, truck and buses etc. Well I was able to hear the radio and follow a conversation on what some ex-servicemen were doing for their Melbourne Cup Lunch, normally I would not be able to understand that with the one implant. So I guess my brain is already working in cutting out the background noise a little – but then when I was at school this afternoon to pick up the boys it was a little hard to have a conversation with one of the mums and all the kids tramping up and down the corridor at home time (I couldn’t get out of there quick enough!!)
So for now, I am just taking it easy and letting it all settle until Thursday when I have my next appointment so stay tuned…” Kind Regards to all, Katrina.
Day 4 (Thursday)
"Today is Thursday and my 3rd switch on appointment was with Carin at the SACIC. One thing I have noticed is a continual 'hum' in the background.... I have to admit that it's driving me mad. Keith (the senior audie) came in during my mapping to try and work out what the problem was. I was thinking it was tinnitus flaring up again but when I turned the speech processor off the hum was gone... Keith explained to me that since the Freedom processor is so much more powerful than my current speech processor (which is the Esprit for the Nucleus 24 and 8 years old at that) I am picking up so much more background noise and that my brain will learn to adjust as time goes on. It was a relief to hear that cause I was thinking 'what is going on?' However, when I am using my two processors together I do not hear the humming noise. My mapping had some huge changes made and speech is becoming a lot clearer. I have to admit that when I was on the phone to my mum I swapped over to my new processor to see if I could hear her. I could hear her alright but she wasn’t that clear but then I did not use the telecoil switch, I will try that tomorrow (I have to remember that it is only day four...and to be a little patient!). One thing I notice is that I can now tell where sounds are coming from. Tonight I took the dog for a walk and took the opportunity to listen to all the sounds and noises that occurred. I could hear a dog barking from a lot further away and I could tell what side of the road the dog was barking from. Which is good to know because all hell breaks loose when I am walking my dog as she goes nuts when the other dogs bark at her! I managed to hear a jogger come up behind me so I was able to get out of the way before 'Kelly' who is very protective of me could have a go at him. And I can also hear cars travelling from further away and know from which direction they are coming which is great for safety. I even heard my neighbours kids while they were playing - I was so unused to hearing them that I thought something was wrong and ran outside to have a look but I realised they were only playing. My next appointment is Friday at 1pm will let you know more then." Cheerio Katrina
Days 5, 6 & 7 (Friday & the Weekend)
“Well today is Monday 13th November and its exactly 1 week since switch-on. I had an appointment on Friday at the SACIC and another appointment again today. I have been spending the last few days getting my head around hearing bilaterally and I was hoping that I could just find a couple of hours to experiment a little but the kids kept me busy for the entire weekend.
"When I was with Nina today we made some more changes to my map and we figured out why I was hearing a humming/ringing sound in the background – I was really starting to think that I was getting tinnitus!! However, it turns out that with my original speech processor that is on my left ear (which is an Esprit BTE for the N24) I can only access 20 electrodes, but if I was using the body worn speech processor I would be able to access all 22. With the Freedom BTE speech processor (on my right ear) I can access all 22 electrodes and those 2 electrodes that I can’t access in my original speech processor are the 2 highest ones. My brain does not understand these sounds yet and therefore what I am hearing with the Freedom is sounding like a ringing noise, Nina adjusted some settings and we have dulled those sounds a little and as my brain adjusts to hearing them we will slowly bring those electrodes back to where they should be.
I was very happy when I left the SACIC today – I feel normal and I can hear so much better (without that humming/ringing noise going on). While Nina was talking to me explaining the changes I made a point of turning off my original implant and just sat and listened (without lip-reading) to what she was saying (with just my new implant on) and I took it all in.
Sound seems so much ‘crisper’ and ‘sharper’ having the two implants and I can hear so much more and am enjoying testing myself on ‘where is that sound coming from’. I also tried out the phone, with the T-switch on and guess what it worked, I sat and had quite a long conversation with my mum – although I did say ‘what’ a couple of times, but all in all I was very happy with the result.
Compared to 8 years ago – I would not be hearing what I am hearing now after only 1 week and I am looking forward to achieving so much more over the coming weeks/months with my new bilateral implant and also look forward to upgrading my original speech processor shortly. Overall I am really pleased that I took the plunge to go bilateral and look forward to enjoying hearing everything in ‘stereo’ sound.” Kind Regards to all, Katrina Oliver.