Birds....

I am making such progress with the CI that I am trying hard not to get ahead of myself. My speech and language therapist at the RNTNE Hospital tells me not to run before I can walk, but the running ahead is fun. Now that I can hear conversation after one mapping session (one delayed courtesy of an illness for me that kept me confined to bed and off work), I've been consciously pressing the boundaries - listening to speech radio (BBC Radio 4 has the most wonderful afternoon plays), listening to spoken word recordings and following the text in a book and watching TV with the subtitles off, all with the intention of pushing me be less reliant on visual clues.

However, I have hit a small stumbling block in the mottled, feathered form of a bird regularly chirping outside my window at home. Now I know that birds are loud and that the human ear has come to, as it were, recess the sound; but the CI can't do that on it's own. At the moment I am trying to get to grips with a world in which the sound of a bird chirping can prevent me hearing other things and find a way of getting the brain to recess the sound. It'll come. I know it will. Until then, if anyone knows of a humane, efficient bird silencer, I am in the market for one...

Activation day

Just returned from activation and, I have to say, I am getting SO MUCH from the CI that I can't quite believe it...and all after four hours. Voices, trains, doors, levers, footsteps but, most important of all, the sound of my son Alex speaking to me. Four hours. Advanced Bionics, you have my profound admiration.

Blogging again soon, but for now it feels like the hope has returned.

Next day: ...and the wonders continue. I am hearing so much without any adjustment beyond the setup that it is quite unreal. I have just (and I can't quite believe it myself) had a meeting in the covered quadrangle of one of the main university buildings - a bustling meeting place if ever there was one - and held a perfectly good conversation with a colleague without lipreading on my part. I am astounded. The train journey to work was a little surreal (trains passing my train sounded quite eerie!) and the swish of cars reminded me of Michael Chorost's comment that, after his switch on, that was one of the things that impressed him.

Thanks for the blogs...

Becoming a CI user isn't easy, but it is an extraordinary experience. That's why I wanted to take time here to thank the many many CI users whose blogs, webpages and columns have been a personal inspiration thus far for me. People like Abbie Cranmer and Jennifer Thorpe have been trailblazers for many of us - telling of the experience of unilateral or bilateral implantation as it is, with humour but also with enormous honesty. Committing to a CI is as much an emotional journey as a physical one, and their openess and candour has been really important. To all of you guys blogging away about the experience of CI life, thanks. You're an inspiration.

Can we turn off the noise now?

Funny experience, post-op, sitting at home or at work with the worst case of tinnitus ever. It's not always like that, but when it's at full strength, it's pretty debilitating. I can usual switch off from it, but this is an order of magnitude worse than 'normal' (pre-implant) tinnitus.

Will anything change on activation day (6th January for me)? Or will the tinnitus stay this way? Could go either way. Oh, and the musical hallucinations have stayed. Or got worse.

Back at work

...but feeling still pretty knocked about, even after ten days of working from home and resting. Still, the silence (despite the tinnitus) is a rude sensation. I now hear nothing, but - remarkable thing the brain - I find myself kind of 'imputing' sounds. So much so that, if I didn't know better, I'd say that I 'heard' the doors of my London Underground train swish shut this morning. I am assuming that the brain is trying to be comforting. Now that I know I am waiting for activation on 6th January, I am getting used to the idea of a silent Christmas. Perhaps 'Silent Night' has never been more appropriate....

In...and out

What an experience. A five hour operation, and - as the picture suggests - I was feeling pretty rough immediately after the whole thing. The length of surgery meant that I had to stay overnight, which was unexpected - I'd planned on being home straight away. (The wretched picture is taken in dim light on the only thing I had to hand, a mobile phone! And yes I had pretty much just sat up after surgery that minute. Not the most appetising image or advertisement for surgery at the Royal National Throat Nose and Ear Hospital). As ever the staff and specialist clinicians were both professional and caring. Now all we need is for the aggravated tinnitus to stall for a bit, the pain to subside and the activation to take place...and then a slow and winding road to regaining some hearing or sense of sound from there.

Anyway the implant is in, two weeks to clinic appointment and a period of rest and recovery until then. No date yet for activation, but I'll take it one day at a time.

I've joined the CI tribe.

CI implantation date

It's happening. 20th November.

I'm afraid tickets are not available for the event...