First rehab appointment

The day after my remapping, we headed down to JCUH again - on the day of the final years' MOSLER as it happens, which explains the perfect weather. We were there to meet my keyworker for some rehab (no, not the alcohol kind, though I probably need that too). Sandra's job is to help me make sense of the sounds that I'm hearing, and use them to maximum effect. She started me off with listening to some Ling sounds, which represent various different speech sounds from low to high pitch (frequency). They help to test my hearing and check I have access to the full range of speech sounds (these are necessary for learning language as a kid - when I was little I didn't really hear the higher ones, like "sss", "sshh" and "t", so I didn't learn to make them for myself - hence all the speech therapy.)

So, I listened to these 6 sounds with no lipreading, and I got 4 out of 6!!! I missed out "sshh" and "mm". Not sure why I would miss "shh" as it's high frequency and I could hear it, I guess I just wasn't sure what exactly the noise was as it was only the second one she tried. "mm" was lower frequency and I'm still not picking up those that much, as explained in the last post. Jeanette says she didn't get it either which makes me feel better! 

Then we tried some sentences. First I lipread Sandra saying the sentences (stuff like "I think he's sick" and "I think he's crazy") and then listened with my eyes closed and then had to say which one I thought she had said. Then she would say another 2 sentences, I would try those, then we did all 4 mixed up. I got most of them right! . The difficult one was "My socks are green" vs "My socks are yellow." Green and yellow look so different written down but apparently lots of people mix them up. How bizarre.

David found all this completely amazing to watch and admitted afterwards that he was welling up at one point! Awww.

We discussed various rehab tactics to help me towards hearing without lipreading. Sandra thought Harry Potter was a good plan, as long as David helped me with it to start with as there is quite a lot on each page! She suggested trying some kids' books first. We were still determined to try Harry Potter first - more on this later...

Next I went in to see the surgeon - not the same one who did my operation, but another member of the team. Scar is fine, I am cleared to swim and fly. Just no rollercoaster rides ever again (thank God for a legitimate excuse). I was permitted to take a photo of my X ray showing the CI electrodes! Here it is for any geeky medics and radiology boffins: 

Later on that night we decided to give Haz Pot a go. So we started..... and "Chapter One - The Boy Who Lived" appeared in my head. David helped me at first by pointing to where we were, but quite quickly I was managing by myself, though I did get lost a few times. I found that I could pick up certain sounds like MiSSSTTer DDursley and "DDumBBleDDore". "PProFFeSSSSor MCCCGonaGGall" as well. HaGGrid was easy too. I can hear so much more of the Ss and Ts and all those! I can also tell when Stephen Fry is being posh and lengthening his "a"s. AMAZING. We left it at the end of Chapter One as I didn't want to overdo it on the first day. 

Today I have been for brunch with my lovely GP group - I was quite nervous about my first large group situation since switch-on, so I put my hearing aid on too otherwise I would have heard nothing. Managed to follow most of what was being said but obviously in a big group it can be hard to follow what everyone is saying. The implant isn't going to fix this but it should make it a bit easier in the long run.

In other news - have done 5 loads of laundry, got the Hotbin up to 55 degrees (garden geekout), eaten some home-grown radishes. Enjoying this housewife malarkey.  Off to pub now! xx