Not Quite Normal

Audiology appointment today.  First time in months.  Not what I expected.  I thought the CI levels would be "turned up," but -

Okay, this might need a tutorial.  See I have a remote that goes with the CI. A currently missing remote which I hope I tucked into a drawer at work and just overlooked Friday while searching for it because I turned my room and both cars inside out and cannot.find.it.

By the way, my sister would NEVER lose a remote this important.  Ever.  I wish that I had one-tenth her ability to be organized.

Come to think of it, my brother probably wouldn't lose it either.  Now.  He might have in high school, though.

Whoops.  Jumped track there.  So on this remote are different levels and situations that my CI can be tuned to, all with the push of the button.  Back in September when I was feeling like things were not loud enough (and knew where my remote was!), I actually switched it to setting 3, which was the highest of the settings available at that time.

Turns out setting 3 is pretty dang near normal hearing levels.

When GOA tested me today, I was hearing lower frequencies within the range that someone with "normal hearing" would.  Higher frequencies are peskier especially for me since my hearing loss is much worse in the higher frequencies, and he did turn up those just a smidge, but he didn't mess with the lower frequencies.

Nevertheless, what I really need, he said, is just more time.  And time.  And time.

Don't get too excited about these "normal hearing levels."  That just means I can distinguish the presence of a sound at decibel levels that a person with normal hearing can detect, it does NOT mean I am understanding sounds or voices like a hearing person is able to.  I'm not even close to that.  Read on for a better idea what I mean.

BTW, speech reading = lip reading.  I grew up using "lip reading," but as I learned in my deaf ed classes and by working with GOA, the term has shifted to "speech reading" to give a better idea of the depth involved because it is really not just lips that are being read, but many aspects of the face.

Anyway.

GOA tested me with very random sentences.  I mean these things were R.A.N.D.O.M. One might be something like, "Her sister struggled with anorexia", and the next one might be "How dare you think I am a spineless wimp!"  Yeah.  Like that.

He read about 15 or 20 of these suckers under 4 conditions (and the sentences changed with each condition; they were not repeated).  First was CI only (no speech reading).  Second was CI and hearing aid (no speech reading).  Third was CI, hearing aid AND speech reading.  Fourth was speech reading only (no sound).

With CI only, I understood 5%.

With CI and hearing aid, I understood 11%.

With CI, hearing aid and speech reading, I understood 97%!

With speech reading only, I understood about 32%.

You gotta keep in mind, too, that words like "I" and "You" counted.  They probably made up 1/2 of what I understood with the CI and hearing aid.  So that is pretty low, but I guess it might help people understand what is going on with my brain.  You also gotta consider that this was a controlled test.  You put me in the outside world, with all that background noise, and all the numbers will drop.

So I have a long, long way to go.  It is pretty exciting though, when these random noises coalesce into recognizable words without the advantage of speech reading.  It's not happening a lot, but it happened 3 times on Friday.  Yep, I counted.

I don't really know how I am feeling today.  Tired.  GOA mentioned how much energy it takes for people going through this to "hear".  It really, really does.  I'm tired.  I'm still struggling mentally, but I don't really want to talk about that today.  My last entry was like a mental vomit.  I don't want to go there right now.