The end of it all...

Well this blog has done it's job. It has been a record of my highs and lows through the CI experience and allowed me to connect with other CIers among the late deafened. I'm now the proud owner of an Advanced Bionics CI 'blob' on my head, I'm restored to something like functionality, and I am a cyborg of six months experience and counting. Time to close this blog and get on with life. Thanks to all for their comments and emails. Good luck to you all.

Sad loss

I have not been blogging for some time because, on Wednesday of last week, my lovely lovely mother died. She had been ill for some time and - as the result of negligible effective treatment at the hands of medics in two hospitals - she went home to try to deal with numerous complications of a liver abscess, and died of a pulmonary embolism. I am devastated. Without my mum, my life simply would not have been possible; without her, the joys would not have been as acute, the setbacks and sadnesses would have received no balm of kindness and love. She was, as all her friends have been telling me in recent days, a very special person. I miss her so much, the pain is a physical pain.

"Houston, we have a problem..."

Well, not quite as significant as Apollo 13, perhaps, but a problem none the less.

The 'lock' or 'hold' enabled by the CI processor is usually fairly robust. Bang a drum next to the mike in the earpiece and, while there may be an overwhelming sense of noise followed by momentarily depleted 'hearing', things soon return to normal. The CI can 'hold' the signal.

Not for me of late though. While my audiologist has been thinking of every conceivable way of tackling the problem (and, Vicky, you have gone above and beyond the call of duty on this one) - from increasing the RF signal between the internal receiver and the external headpiece transmitter, to reducing 'volume' at all frequencies, to changing the headpiece itself - the problem is still there. Maybe not as acute a problem as it was three weeks ago, but a problem nonetheless.

Maybe it's me, maybe it's my head that is the problem (too thick a skull? too delicate an auditory nerve?). Whatever causes this, one thing is undoubtedly true - the progress of the first few weeks has stalled a bit. I;ve even been having to ask people to repeat things for the first time in ages...not good.

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.