The life aquatic

Hello again!

Apologies for the long delay in updates - I have been on lots of baby-delivering on-calls, but have also been away on holiday which was lovely. We go to this amazing place in Devon most years and are always fortunate with the weather - after retooning to the very grey Northeast I am deeply tempted to move back down there and live out my days as a hippy GP in Totnes.

The swimming pools are the highlight of the holiday (after the cider and cheese and walks) and we all go and splash about every day, often twice a day. Normally I take my hearing aids out and rely on lipreading to chat to people while swimming or in the hot tub. However this year I had my Cochlear Aquakit! Practically as soon as we had arrived, I excitedly pushed my implant into its little silicon body-stocking, put on the Aqua coil and rushed out to the pool. This is me right before:

and an action shot:

It is SO EXCITING! I can go underwater and blow bubbles and hear them! I could hear David's bizarre underwater voice and my own splashes as I swam around, and instead of swimming to me to pat me for my attention, people could shout for my attention and I could turn around to see them! AAAAAAAH! 

Mum and I swam 60 lengths the final morning and could chat all the way. Splendid. 

The sound is a bit muffled and I got a lot of noise interference when I walked, probably because there was more transmission through the protective case touching the microphone. This didn't seem as apparent when swimming though. 

It is so exciting - after years of being worried about going near a pool wearing my hearing aids in case I forgot and just jumped in - to be able to run and jump in and hear my own "AAARGH" at the cold water! (Am still Southern pansy despite 9 years in the Toon). And swimming which has always been a very silent experience is now a delight of bubbles and splashes and talking to people. The joy! 

We also headed to the Eden Project in Cornwall which was stunning, just like last time (with fewer proposals however - as David has already shackled me to him in wedlock). 

After spending a week eating my bodyweight in scones and cheese, we headed back up to Nottingham for the wedding of the year. It was so lovely to watch one of my oldest friends get married and I shed a little tear or two ... Hearing-wise, I struggled a little in the church but that was because it's always hard to put yourself in a good place to lipread at weddings, and a lot of the talking is done facing away from the congregation. I managed to follow the vows though and it was all rather magical. The best thing was being able to follow most of the speeches and laugh at the jokes like everyone else! 

Actually, no. The best thing was staying up til 5am dancing at the silent disco because I could hear the music through the headphones! I still haven't rushed into the world of music with open arms, but I was so amazed at how much more of the beat I could follow - without the implant it was just bumbling rumbling background noise, but with it back on came a beat and an urge to jive (and also dance like my dad.)

I still couldn't tell you which instruments were being used or any of the lyrics but it was all very exciting. I've just had a go at listening to "Home" by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros which has always been one of my favourites just for the lyrics and general loveliness - surprised at how much easier it is to follow the lyrics and the different melodies. Obviously still not the same as a hearing person but I feel I am getting much more out of listening. Wow! Also, the Clash's "London Calling" is AMAZING. I can hear the drums and guitar - v. exciting.

I'm noticing more and more that I can pick up what people are saying without looking at them - last night I could hear snippets of a conversation going on in the lounge before I went in, and when driving people home from town on Friday night I could hear some phrases and words from the back seat. I still couldn't follow a complete conversation without looking, and if people turn their heads away from me and mumble I still get a bit frustrated and have to remind them that I am not suddenly magically "normal-eared". But on the whole, life is so much easier.

A note on batteries: I have a good system going now - a "big" battery will tend to last 2 days, while the "little" one will last a good day/day and a half. This is great as I had previously been really worried about having to constantly change them in the middle of an on-call, or being caught short without them. In fact, this was one of the things that nearly put me off getting the implant. It's so hard to imagine how I would do without it now, but I think that pre-implant I had no idea what it would be like, so I grabbed at all the things I could imagine, like batteries and a magnet feeling weird and all the possible side effects. Now I'm on the other side these things pretty much pale into insignificance next to my new ninja hearing, but I would have no way to explain this to my pre-implant self.

I'm 3 months in now and this is better than I could have ever imagined. I've not had my 3 month follow up appointments yet with Ruth or Sandra but this should happen soonish I think - I'm particularly excited to see Ruth because this time we are doing my BKB scores and I can see an actual objective measure of my improvement!

Until next time kids! xx

P.S. Almost forgot the obligatory corgi pic: