Alarming rate of teen hearing loss

I figure most of you have heard this by now, but being a teen I think it alarms me that much more to consider the number of friends that I have who will likely require hearing assistance when they are older. So, I'm posting this for those who already haven't already heard...


1 in 5 teens in the US has a slight hearing loss.*

1 in 20 US teens have mild or worsening hearing loss.

This is a 30% increase since the mid '90s.


Links:
Yahoo! Associated Press Article 
USA Today Article

I think the problem is both a lack of education about noise exposure, as well as the all-too-common idea "it won't happen to me." The other day I got into my seventeen year old (hearing) sister's car, and as soon as she turned it on the car was shaking with the radio blasting at full volume. I could feel the beat in my chest, and could hear the low frequency sounds pumping without my implants (I can tell when I'm able to hear something with my residual hearing alone. It "comes through" differently.) I glared at my sister, and she turned off the radio. Lately she's been complaining about hearing a buzzing or ringing in her ear. I went on to tell her that this could damage her hearing, and that this tinnitus could actually be a sign of hair cells in her cochlea being killed off. She was actually surprised, and went on to ask me why *I* get to turn my iPod speakers up so loud. "Well, sis. I don't know if you've noticed yet...but I'm already deaf! I've got nothing left to lose!" (I suppose she doesn't think it's fair). I'm pretty sure as soon as I got out of the car she turned the radio right back on, but who knows. I'm sending her this article.


*"Slight" hearing loss in teens is consider to be a loss of 16-24 dB, and most of these are in only one ear. It is important to realize that many hearing aids (and even cochlear implants) don't always amplify/provide sound down to this level, it is very quiet. With my cochlear implants, the softest sounds I can hear range from 5-20 dB. With my hearing aids, it ranged from 40-80dB hearing loss (or so, this is based off of my memory). However, as these teens with hearing loss grow up and lose hearing from age-based hearing loss, they will need stronger hearing aids earlier, such as in their 40's rather than 50's, 60's, or 70's.

Perlman

I got very little sleep last night. In addition to having a huge test today, I went out last night. Where, you ask?

Why, to see the famous Itzhak Perlman!

At the moment you are either thinking "WOW!" or you have a very confused look on your face. That's okay. None of my friends knew who he was either

He's one of the best violinists EVER! He was born in Israel, but I believe he now lives in the US.You can read more about his accomplishments here.

It was amazing. I had to leave at the intermission because it was late, and I had to study. We had front-row (as in the VERY FIRST ROW) seats, which was pretty cool. Howevere, they were at the very right edge of the stage (where the Cello section of the orchestra sits) and the violinists sit toward the left area of the stage. If they dropped a cello, it would've landed on me :P. After the first song (out of 3) they moved him and I could only see his foot from the angle I was sitting. I could hear him great though, and put my left ear on my music program for even better enjoyment (I thought having it on both ears would be a bit too much) Anyway, it was really cool. Not only did he play really well, but he conducted the rest of the orchestra during the songs he played! How awesome is that?!

There's another thing about Mr. Perlman. It's not the first thing many people mention it when talking about him, since it's irrelevant to what makes him so amazing. As a child, he contracted polio and now must use either crutches or a wheelchair to get around.  He used crutches at the performance I attended. He struggled to get on the platform which he had to perform on. After 5 minutes of him trying various methods of getting on the platform, and with the rest of the violin section looking quite nervous that he would fall, he made it in his seat. He turned to the audience, laughed, and gave a thumbs up.

I just love his attitude. He displays such intense emotion while he plays, you can see that he feels the music within.

I looked up some of his quotes, and stumbled upon this,

" Sometimes the wheelchairs don't arrive, the chairs are broken, or there's only one leg rest. There's an awful lot not being done. If we talk about it enough, someone will make it improve. "

I couldn't agree more, Mr. Perlman. I couldn't agree more.

Clearing the Air+ An AWESOME Lights Show

After rereading my last post, I realized it sounded a little harsh. I feel like I come across as regretful of choosing Cochlear, which was not my intent in posting at all. My equipment rarely breaks, and when it does, 99% of the time it is replaced promptly with a functioning piece of equipment. The thing is, I don't blog about those times-who wants to read about something going exactly as it should? I've gotten so used to such a high standard, I was pretty shocked with the way things were handled last time. I'm hoping it was just an isolated incident. I was annoyed when I wrote the post, and therefore left out how satisfied I have been with Cochlear the rest of the time. I also picked Cochlear because of their superior reliability (so far, so good!) of their implants and their great reputation of making their processors backwards compatible with older implants (which I will soon be taking advantage of). I think the real reason I wrote that post was
A) because I wanted to vent my frustration
and B)I was hoping that I would be proved wrong, and that someone from Cochlear will apologize, or at least make it right. I really hope to be able to write another post expressing my satisfaction with how the situation was resolved.

Besides, these people gave me my hearing back- how could I not be grateful? I think every company makes mistakes at one point or another, and this is definitely a minor thing in the scheme of things, especially when I hear all these stories about companies recalling implants. As in, the internal part- I can assure you I am happy with my choice! As one person commented, the controller could have gotten damaged in shipping, for all I know.

Now that I've got that cleared...

On Friday evening, I babysat three of my cousins with my sister. They're neighborhood is RIGHT next to this neighborhood famous for their amazing Christmas (and Hanukkah, surprisingly enough) lights. We didn't finish babysitting until late at night, but we felt like we'd regret not stopping to look at a few houses. We were aimlessly driving around, when we saw a house with TONS of lights flashing. As we got closer, I spotted a tiny sign "Turn to FM 97.5 to listen to the lights!" My sister and I frantically started fooling with the car radio, until we found the station. What we found was truly amazing. Such a sensual experience- the lights went along with the music. The lights were cool on their own (as was the music) but together, it was just astonishing.

We stayed for a couple of minutes, but then decided to go back home as it was starting to get pretty late.We vowed to return the next night, which we did with one of my sister's friends. We drove around looking at a lot of houses that had elaborate light displays, but we could not find the same house! We drove around for an hour and a half, and my mom started texting us saying we needed to come home. No way, not until we found the house! We were getting desperate, and finally decided to put on the radio station, since it becomes clearer as you get closer to the house. Between one of the songs, they said the name of the family who did the lights show. I quickly googled it on my phone, and, alas- an address! My sister shouted for her friend to get her GPS out of her purse. Her friend looked, only for us to realize it had been left at home!

We drove around and finally found the street, and followed the line of about 20-30 wanting to see this awesome house. I got quite a few videos and pictures on my phone, but they're not very high quality. Luckily enough for you ;) the house has it's very own website complete with plenty of videos. Right now the videos are not yet up for 2009 (they change the songs every year) but the ones from 2008 are just as cool! Here are a few:
*NOTE: PAUSE THE MUSIC AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SCREEN BEFORE PLAYING!*
We Wish You a Merry Christmas- Highland Pipers:

Gordon Lights 2008 - We Wish You a Merry Christmas from Gordon Lights on Vimeo.


Wizards in Winter- Trans-Siberian Orchestra:

Gordon Lights 2008 - Wizards in Winter from Gordon Lights on Vimeo.


And I'm leaving for IL in 2-3 days (depending on how you think of it). Imagine my excitement when I went onto weather.com and saw this:

OH YES! Snow angels, here I come!

Happy Holidays to all!

You know you're a bilateral CI user when...

You freak out that one of your implants has suddenly stopped working when you're listening to music, only to be relieved when you realized it's your headphones that are broken!

Less wimpy post to come soon, promise!

Good news is coming...

as soon as I have a spare few minutes to write about it! Stay tuned..
(Hint: look at the tags!)

Six Months

Today marks the half birthday of when I got my second implant activated :)

I've written plenty of posts on the benefits (and drawbacks) of being bilateral, so I'll try not to get too repetitive.

Bilateral=good

Regrets=none

When I was deciding on whether or not to go bilateral, the rumors about the Nucleus 5 had just started circulating. As much as I wanted the "latest and greatest" there was no telling when it would come out.  It could be weeks, could be years, and my audiologist couldn't squeeze anything out of the Cochlear rep. So, I (obviously) decided to go ahead with the surgery, as the timing was best for me. I had a full summer planned, and there was no way that I was interrupting my plans with surgery, and I sure as heck wasn't going to do it right after I started high school!

So, as you probably all know, the Nucleus 5 came out a month ago. As cool as it looks...

And as tiny/thin as it is...

And as amazing as the remote  may seem...

(Not to mention the bilateral accesories, AutoPhone, and improved mics...)

I'm still happy that I had the surgery when I did. I should be able to upgrade fairly soon, but had I waited, that would have been 6 less months that I would have heard from that ear. It's made life a lot easier. Without my new implant, I would not be able to use the FM (although I still do get some static, at least it works!) I was worried about music, going into my second surgery.  There's still a lot of ongoing research abot the benefits of having two CIs vs. 1+a hearing aid when listening to music. I was listening to music days after my new ear was activated, and I, personally, have found that it sounds much better with my 2 implants. It sounds great when I have it on my everyday ADRO, but even better when I have both processors set on the music program. I cannot even imagine going back to wearing one. When my batteries die on either ear, I wonder how I was ever able to do it with just one! While hearing in noise and in the classroom is still a challenge, it's a lot easier than it was before.

It was so worth it.

Amazing

An AMAZING end to a bit of a rough week. My throat hurts from screaming/cheering/singing so much.I am completely exhausted, but I can't stop smiling. This was my first concert with my CIs, and whoever says that cochlear implants dont mix with music is WRONG! I already knew that, but I just wans, ted to share :) My first/last concert was 8 years ago. I could not handle all of the noise (or the people... guess I've matured!)
Good thing about implants it nothing is ever too loud, and you never have to worry about going deaf ;)

I even got to touch Taylor Swift's arm! We had awesome seats and were near the aisle, and she walked down our aisle and was hugging all of these random people, it was so cool! I wish I'd gotten good pictures, but I left my camera at home and my phone's camera isn't the best quality...oh well, I have memories!

Taylor had some pretty good advice too... here are the lessons I took away...

• It's good to be different in high school (and life), even if it doesn't seem like it at the time.
• No matter how much high school sucks, hang in there the because the best days of life your life are yet to come. (I was pretty relieved to hear that... I was starting to feel like I had nothing to look forward to)
• The best revenge is success... and a song about the guy that broke your heart :) (okay, maybe the last part doesn't exactly apply to me!)

My back and neck hurt, which is probably due to the tumble I took down the school stairs on Wednesday. Yeah, I wasn't kidding when I said "rough week."

AWESOME BIRTHDAY PRESENT!

Birthday Girl

You may have noticed a small very significant change in my profile.

No?

I am now officially the big one-five. Yes, I am fifteen! That means that in a couple of days, I will be taking the test to get my learner's permit. It also means a sharp increase in my mom's panic attacks,

Kidding! Well, sort of :)

To celebrate, I went out to dinner with six of my closest friends and had a great time. We did plenty of reminiscing and some gossiping, and I still can't believe how fast we're all growing up. The restaurant was pretty loud and noisy, but my friends are even louder, so it wasn't too big of a problem! I am due for a MAPping, so I will be going in on Tuesday. I did just get a new one a couple of weeks ago, but it soon became apparent that it needs some tweaking. Whenever I need a new MAP there are number of signs that make it quite obvious to me and my family, but I will write another post on that later. Anyhow, I get to sneak a peek at the new Nucleus 5, so who am I to complain!

Note to self: Never think it's okay to eat a cheese sandwich for lunch the day of your birthday party. Lactose intolerance doesn't take a day off, even for birthdays! (yes, I learned the hard way...)

So, I'm posting this video although it seems to be about naivety (and naive is definitely not an adjective I'd use to describe myself), and there are other Taylor Swift songs that I like even more. So why am I posting it? Well, because it has to do with the two main reasons I'm writing this post:

1. Being fifteen
2. Taylor Swift

Taylor Swift? How could she possibly have anything to do with this post?

I know, I know- you're just dying from the suspense! ;)

Wellll, I got quite a few very nice birthday gifts. One of them I begged for hinted about months in advance...




TICKETS TO THE TAYLOR SWIFT CONCERT IN THREE WEEKS! *insert loud girl shriek here*

I love music. But if it's sung by Taylor Swift, that makes it about a thousand times better.

Can you tell I'm excited?

It's That Time of Year Again- Orchestra

Every year (okay, well I just started doing it last year, so for the past two years) I have written all of my teachers an email letting them know a little bit about myself, my hearing loss, and my implants so that they're not completely clueless on the first day. This year I wrote three different emails- one for orchestra, one for my core classes, and I'm going to write one for French soon. I am going to post these in case anyone wanted an idea of what I write, or if you wanted to write a similar letter yourself. So here is the letter I wrote to my Orchestra teacher.

**Some information is **ed out because it is private and/or irrelevant.


Hi Mr. ******,
My name Is L**** M**** and I'm going to be in your first period Orchestra class. I know you have taught me a few times at ***[my middle school], but I just wanted to let you know some things about me to make the year run a little more smoothly. I wear devices called cochlear implants in each ear, and without them on I am profoundly deaf. Rather than having thousands of little hair cell to hear all the different frequencies, I hear an array of 22 electrodes implanted inside of my head. With my implants on, I can hear most sounds, but they sound different to me than they would to someone with natural hearing. Because of this, it can be hard for me to tune my violin, and I may not always hear the more subtle differences in pitch when playing (or listening) to music. I am hoping this will not pose much of a problem, but if it does I will let you know you know and maybe we can figure out a time outside of class for you to help me with whatever I am having difficulty with. My hearing loss has not posed many issues in the past, so, again, I hope it is not too big of a deal in orchestra.

When you speak to me or the class, make sure you speak in a steady and somewhat loud voice so that I can understand you. I also read lips, so I need an unobstructed view of your face and mouth when you are talking. To help me hear a little bit better, I also use a device called an FM system. It's fairly easy to use, and you basically just have to hang the microphone around your neck. I don't know if you have used this type of FM before, but if not I would be more than happy to come by **** [my high school] today or Friday to explain everything. It shouldn't take more than a couple of minutes, but it can be pretty hectic on the first day (as I'm sure you know!) and it would be easier for me to show you how to use it ahead of time, if that's possible.

The last I wanted to let you know is that if we ever watch some kind of video in class with important information, it must be captioned for me to understand what is being said. If it does not have captions, I will need you to give me a copy of notes with any information in the video that I need to know.

Thank you, and please let me know if you would like me to come explain the FM!