My First Weekend of Re-Sound

I was back to work on Friday, ready to see how much Chip would help me out. Not sure if it is fortunately or unfortunately but Friday turned out to be quite a quiet day at work - not a lot of hearing challenges. My teammates were out and it seemed the rest of the office was out and about as well. The few people I did talk with, I noticed that I could definitely understand what they were saying without having to focus so hard on watching their mouths.

Friday night was also very uneventful - I was so tired from the week that I enjoyed a quiet night at home. What I should note to everyone is just how exhausting simply hearing again is! I'm not sure if my brain is overwhelmed with getting used to hearing so much sound all at once from nothingness or the extra concentration it takes for my brain to convert the robot voices into something meaningful - either way, zzzzzzzzzzzzzz! By the end of each day, I barely have enough energy to stay awake.

I didn't notice any sort of dramatic hearing improvements on Saturday or Sunday. However, I was so focused on getting caught back up on errands and what not, that I wasn't actually focusing on what little things I could or couldn't hear. In general, it seemed that any noise I paid attention to hearing, I could. What was great though, was going to stores and being able to have a true conversations with people. It was so nice to have some of my independence and confidence back in myself to talk to several people while I was out and to actually understand what they were saying. I can't tell you how many times I would forget I couldn't hear and then ask a question in a store - only to realize that I couldn't hear a dang thing the store attendant was saying! So I would just smile and nod and make a point to ask Mom or Matt for help getting answers later...

I have noticed that it is quite difficult to hear much at all in a noisy environment - it is very challenging to distinguish a particular person's voice or I can't seem to understand what is being said if more than one person is talking at once. I have also learned that in noisy settings it is hard to tell "where" or what direction a sound is coming from. We lose the ability to localize sound when only one ear functions. It really is quite weird to experience - thinking someone is talking on one side of you and in reality it is the other! This yet another thing my brain has to get used to - learning to process information from one auditory input instead of two. I imagine I'll want to have my second ear implanted when I pass the 6 month mark for these two reasons - two ears allow much better hearing in noise and enable you to localize where voices/sounds are coming from.

Probably the biggest thing I did hearing-wise this weekend taking the first attempt at using my cell phone. Yesterday, I called the weather recording again and could still make out most of the words. So I called Matt to see how it would go with a "live" person. Not sure what I was expecting because I called him while I was driving! I could understand a few words here and there but not much at all. The conversation was short. The car is in general a noisy environment, so I wasn't exactly putting myself in a situation of achievable success for my first live call! My second attempt was to call my dad later in the afternoon to wish him "happy birthday"... he didn't have his phone with him and I got his voice mail. Good news is that I could understand his voicemail recording (but then again, I already knew what it was going to say!). I ended up missing my dad's return phone call. So basically, I still don't really know how able I am to use the phone again. I suspect I'm not quite ready - but I'm guessing I'll keep trying anyway (I'm too stubborn not to)!

It's like night and day in what I can hear now to just a couple of weeks ago. Everyone still sounds like a robot but less so than before. My voice hasn't started to sound human yet either. And I couldn't for the life of me pick anyone out from a robot voice line up (I could most likely tell if the speaker was male or female...maybe!) =). I just have to somehow keep reminding myself to pace myself and to take baby steps. I'm so eager to get to "normal" hearing that all I'm doing is wearing myself completely out in the process!! But all in all, I'm quite pleased so far.