Pulses

Wow.

Nothing, nothing could have prepared me for this.

I cannot even figure out how to describe the experience to people who have working ears in a way that there are going to get it. I don't think it is possible.

So let me just start by saying this is difficult. This may be one of the top 5 difficult things I have ever done, right up there with getting sober and leaving my husband. What I am getting right now doesn't sound like sound as I know it, the familiar comfortable sound I get from my hearing aid.

There is nothing I want to do more than yank this lime green contraption off my head and flush it down the toilet. It's uncomfortable. Painful even. But I know that if I quit, it is never going to sound better than this. So it is staying attached to my head and I'm determined to make it work.

So I'll just share what yesterday was like.

The first thing the audiologist had to do was check the electrodes. I have 12 electrodes threaded into my cochlea. They all work. She said sometimes one goes bad during the insertion. You have to picture how tiny they are, and how small the thread they are attached to is. Have you ever snapped off a piece of loose elastic from the band of your underpants? Think of how thin that piece of elastic is. That's about the size of the electrode array that is inserted into the cochlea. The electrodes themselves are maybe the size of the head of a pin. So it is easy to understand how one might go askew during insertion. Luckily for me, none did.

Then the audiologist had to "map" each electrode individually. Mapping involves emitting a beep or pulse onto that electrode and I have to indicate the point at which the "volume" is as high as it can get before it reaches a painful level. It was kind of like being back in the sound booth and having to listen for the beeps. At first I thought my heart was beating really loud and fast before it registered to me that I was hearing the beeps and pulses of the electrode mapping. I continued to think I was feeling it in my heart throughout the course of the electrode mapping, although the audiologist thought that was mostly nerves. Feeling it in my heart sounds so beautiful and uplifting, but truthfully, it didn't feel very good. It was very unsettling, like I was having arrhythmia issues!

After she had mapped all 12 electrodes, she played a string of sound along the course of the electrode array that reminded me a little bit of when someone plays scales on a piano. When she did that, I started to cry. It really hit me then that for the first time in 38 years, I was hearing with my left ear and it sounded beautiful.

After that was done, the device was "turned on." At this point, my sister and brother got to be the first voices I heard. They didn't sound at all like I was expecting them to sound. They didn't sound anything like how I heard them to sound with my hearing aid and they didn't sound anything like that beautiful string of sound the audiologist had played along the electrode array. It was hard to find their voices in the pulsations of sound that were reaching me. They sounded very computerized and robotic and their "real voices" seemed to be buried at the bottom of what was reaching my brain and I couldn't get them unburied. I could understand what they were saying with lip reading and I could match up some pulses of sound with words, but I had to concentrate very hard and it made my head hurt.

I am so, SO grateful they were with me, though, and that their voices were the first I heard. Much love to you, Kelly and Jeff!

Then the audiologist did a word test on me. She covered her mouth and said the days of the week, but not in order. The only one I could get was "Tuesday." Then she did the same thing with colors. I was able to get "blue" and "purple." I was very excited to get purple. Kelly told me today also that it was really amazing for her to see me get purple.

Then the audiologist did have to do the sound booth beep test on me and she said my results were good for the first time after having it turned on. Then we talked about care and treatment of the processor and its components. I have a remote control! I got a lot of stuff to take home with me. I also need to be very careful that my processor doesn't end up in the bottom of a fishtank the way my hearing aid did...

My ear doctor wanted to see me. Kelly and Jeff had left by then. I sat in the chair in the doctor's office, turning the pages of a magazine and it sounded very loud to me. Each page I turned made this distinctive "FWIP!" sound. I found myself turning the pages back and forth because I was so fascinated with the FWIP FWIP FWIP I was hearing.

After all that, it was late and I had a soiree to attend at a friend's house, but I had to wear my hearing aid for it. I couldn't follow anything without it. I left my processor on also and I had to fight some dizziness. I've been on every antidepressant under the sun trying to find one that works for me and the sensation I get when I am coming off an antidepressant is one of sporadic waves of dizziness assailing my head. It felt like that. It still feels a bit like that. I think it was just the sound pulses.

On my drive home, I tried to listen to Christmas music and pick out what song was playing, but the only one I could recognize on my own was Jingle Bells. Everything else started to sound like ... wait for it ... you will never in a million years guess what the Christmas carols sounded like to me ... The Stray Cat Strut. Yes. That 80's song by the Stray Cats. Could I make this up?? I kept hearing, "... with my tail in the air ..." At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I don't think the "round yon virgin" had her "tail in the air." Oh God, I'm going to Hell, aren't I?

Finally I just turned off the music and talked to myself. I said street names as I passed them by. I pronounced the names of restaurants like "Taco Bell" as I drove past. I recited license plates "GTJ 3827, WCX 1823, VCK 4590" just trying to associate what I was hearing with what I was saying. I even saw a Dallas Cowboy star sticker on an SUV and said, "Dallas Cowboys," and right after that "Suck ass" came right out of my mouth, but that was completely spontaneous and unintentional. :)

When I got home, I watched some Friends episodes with the processor on and I kept hearing this pulsation of sharp noises even when no one was talking and it took me awhile to realize I was hearing the laugh track.

Today I am finding myself very distracted by my breathing. It sounds like a loud "uuhh WHOO," especially when I take a deep breath.

My sister told me today that the audiologist told her and Jeff that I would hate the way everything sounded at first and to make sure I kept it on. My sneaky siblings kept that from me yesterday.

And the keys on the laptop sound very loud!!

So that is where I am now.

MTC.