Stabilizing

People are still asking me how I'm doing, and I don't have a terribly interesting answer these days.  My hearing is mostly stabilized, and it seems that the changes and improvements are a little more slow to come. In some ways, that's a good thing because it means that I don't wake up in the morning wondering what to expect. In other ways, I find myself becoming casual about the miracle that has been wrought. The really unpleasant side effect is that I don't have as much to blog about!

It's kind of hard for me to do a self-evaluation here. I like to think that maybe my speech is a little clearer and that I ask others to repeat themselves less. But I don't know for sure.  And it's really not a question that I can ask: "Hey, friend, do you think that conversations with me are less frustrating than they were six months ago?" Maybe I need to start finding people that I haven't seen in a long time and asking what they think. Any takers?

On Wednesday, I have another checkup with Amy. This one is a milestone appointment because I'm going back into the sound booth. I wish that it were as exciting as recording a debut album, but it's not. Really, what we're going to do is tweak my processor settings a little bit more just like we've done at all of my post-surgery appointments and then head to the sound booth to test my hearing with the implant. The benchmark is the test that Amy did at the very beginning of my evaluation process. I think. So, I'll be listening to sentences and trying to repeat them as best as I can. And if I can get better than 25% comprehension, we'll know that the implant has worked at least a little bit.

On a slightly related note, I still haven't tried to make a phone call. Hearing aids have a nice feature called a t-coil that blocks out background noise during a phone call. I think that my implant's processor has something similar, but I haven't figured out for sure yet. I'll ask Amy on Wednesday how to get ready for phone calls.  But honestly, the prospect of phone calls still slightly terrifies me.  Maybe the sound booth testing on Wednesday will help my confidence a little bit there.  In the meantime, William continues to do a bang up job as my personal secretary.

And so it goes on this slow road back to hearing.