My Experience With the Nucleus 6

I posted a review of the Nucleus 6 on Cochlear Implant Online's website. Check it out!

In other news, I leave for college in a week. It feels like I've been waiting to go forever, but now that the time has finally come, I'm in total denial mode! I'm so excited for new experiences, but I guess you could say I'm less than wild about packing :)

Also, I am finally hearing well on my reimplanted side. It's not quite perfect, but it's getting close!

"Look Familiar?"

My sister is a junior in college and majoring in communication disorders. Right now she's taking a summer Intro to Audiology class. She just sent me this picture of her study materials with the text message "look familiar?" and I couldn't help but laugh. I'm sure this list will look very familiar to many of you as well! 

I can still remember being a kid sitting in the soundbooth sick of hearing these words over and over!

I did it!

A few select photos from my high school graduation...My cord is crooked in the first couple (it took me a while to notice) which totally bugs me, but what can ya do!

With my dad, sister, mom and grandma!

My sister, mom, and I

Me and my sisters!

This picture of my mom and  I afterward is blurry, but I still love it!

Summer has officially started, and I am staying busy! I am working at a daycare a few days a week and going on a couple of trips towards the end of July. Also dealing with some not-so-fun medical stuff, but nothing too out of the ordinary. I move into my college dorm in just two months, and it is crazy to think about! I am so excited, but I'm getting anxious to find out who my roommate is. Still have quite a bit of dorm shopping to do, though!

Progress

I've had my reimplanted ear turned on for a little over two months now, and things are slowly improving. I have come to realize just how impatient I am! I have been going back to AVT and trying to get in the habit of do listening exercises. It's funny, when I got implanted the first time around everything was so exciting and new. I was eager to hear everything I could, and could not do enough listening practice. Now that I'm being reimplanted I  guess you could say the excitement is gone and I just want to go back to hearing like I could before!

I've started realizing that I am totally being too hard on myself. I had a mapping today and did my fist set of testing with the new implant afterwards. My audiogram was at 10-15 dB across the board, and we also did single syllable word  testing. Those were pretty difficult, and I'll admit to feeling defeated and absolutely certain I was getting every single one wrong. I was definitely surprised when my audiologist told me I had scored 74% correct! It's not where that ear was before (I've consistently scored at 90-95% previously), but it's not bad at all. I know progress was much faster when I got this ear implanted the first time, so  I can't help but constantly compare. My AVT will tell me I'm doing great for two months out, and I can't help myself in saying "But last time I could talk on the phone just a few days after it was turned on!" I also looked back at an old post and saw that 4 days post activation when I went bilateral, I scored 60% on the same test (four days this time around I couldn't hear anything!).

I need to stop the constant comparisons and just accept the progress as it comes. I should not be getting discouraged when I am clearly doing well, I just need to not have such ridiculous expectations. The one thing that bothers me is that voices just don't sound right. I can understand them, but they don't sound the way they should. I can only hope that continues to improve with time as well. Actually, I can do more than hope. I can do some of that practice that I've been avoiding :)