Wednesday 27 March 2013
Flat at the Post Office
So there I am standing in line at the post office and I finally make it to front of the line. Standing there waiting to be called and ................ I go flat, literally. Mad rush to change my battery so I can hear when I'm called for my turn.......... too late. The person behind me taps me on the shoulder, oops, I've been called, ah well.
Wednesday 13 March 2013
A day in the life of .......
This is my day:
6.30am: still asleep, dreaming of hundreds of paparazzi taking my photograph.
6.31am: wake up and realise that the paparazzi dream is actually my iPhone flashing to wake me up. Press snooze on phone and go back to sleep.
6.45am: wake up again, disappointed that I'm not a celebrity. Check who is in bed with me. I don't hear people coming or going so it could be any one of my family members, or none, or the dog.
6.46am: reach over and grab iPhone from bedside table and check emails and messages. Have silent (from my end anyway) conversations with family members wandering in and out of my bedroom.
6.47am: annoyed family members grab my cochlear implant, hook up the battery and hold it out for me to put on. Sound kicks in and I have to officially start my day.
6.50am: take CI off again and have shower. CI stays off for half an hour while I have wet hair which means family members generally leave me alone to get ready for work (yay!).
7.45am: sit down to eat breakfast and read paper. Turn off CI so I can read newspaper in silence (bliss!).
8.10am: turn CI back on and leave the house for work.
8.30am - 4.30pm: work, with the ability to turn off CI when the office gets too noisy to concentrate. I hang it over my computer screen so everyone knows "Jane's switched off".
5.00pm - 8.30pm: general evening activities, dinner, cleaning, ironing, homework, read a story to the kids and put them to bed.
8.30pm - 9.30pm: studying or internet time with CI switched off so I can concentrate. Charge flat CI batteries in charger.
10.00pm: take battery off CI, put CI in drying machine (to suck moisture out of it) and go to sleep. Generally sleep through EVERYTHING, including storms, street parties, noisy neighbours, dogs barking, rain, loud cars, snoring ....................... dream I am a celebrity surrounded by paparazzi .........
6.30am: still asleep, dreaming of hundreds of paparazzi taking my photograph.
6.31am: wake up and realise that the paparazzi dream is actually my iPhone flashing to wake me up. Press snooze on phone and go back to sleep.
6.45am: wake up again, disappointed that I'm not a celebrity. Check who is in bed with me. I don't hear people coming or going so it could be any one of my family members, or none, or the dog.
6.46am: reach over and grab iPhone from bedside table and check emails and messages. Have silent (from my end anyway) conversations with family members wandering in and out of my bedroom.
6.47am: annoyed family members grab my cochlear implant, hook up the battery and hold it out for me to put on. Sound kicks in and I have to officially start my day.
6.50am: take CI off again and have shower. CI stays off for half an hour while I have wet hair which means family members generally leave me alone to get ready for work (yay!).
7.45am: sit down to eat breakfast and read paper. Turn off CI so I can read newspaper in silence (bliss!).
8.10am: turn CI back on and leave the house for work.
8.30am - 4.30pm: work, with the ability to turn off CI when the office gets too noisy to concentrate. I hang it over my computer screen so everyone knows "Jane's switched off".
5.00pm - 8.30pm: general evening activities, dinner, cleaning, ironing, homework, read a story to the kids and put them to bed.
8.30pm - 9.30pm: studying or internet time with CI switched off so I can concentrate. Charge flat CI batteries in charger.
10.00pm: take battery off CI, put CI in drying machine (to suck moisture out of it) and go to sleep. Generally sleep through EVERYTHING, including storms, street parties, noisy neighbours, dogs barking, rain, loud cars, snoring ....................... dream I am a celebrity surrounded by paparazzi .........
Saturday 9 March 2013
I can read your mind .......
I tell my (adult) students that the cochlear implant allows me to read their minds. I've been teaching at TAFE for so many years that most of the time I know what questions the students will ask before they ask them. The other day a student put up her hand during a lecture to ask a question and I pretended to adjust my CI to read her mind and told her what the question was that she was about to ask. I was correct and she gasped in shocked disbelief. Now I've got the rest of the class wondering if I really can read minds, a very handy skill to have as a teacher.
Monday 4 March 2013
Quote for the day
Regular readers will know how much I love my iPhone and iPad so when I saw this quote I had to share it as it's exactly how I feel: “iOS devices are a lifeline. They’re a bionic enhancement — a pocket full of superpowers. They’re tools of independence, and of participation.”
Matt Gemmell (developer, technology speaker and writer)
Friday 1 March 2013
Mapping - otherwise known as a cochlear tune-up
This week I had my 12 month mapping. That means that I spent a few hours with my audi doing a number of hearing tests and getting a final tune-up. This was important as I was able to see what I was hearing without the cochlear (see audiogram in post below), and the progress I'd made from when I first had the cochlear turned on to now, 12 months later. Take a look.
Now I only go back to my audi every 12 months to get a tune-up and that's about it. It's now just me and my cochlear to face the world alone. I think we'll do OK :)
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| First mapping, shows a limited range of sound |
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| 12 month mapping shows a wider range of sounds, the further apart the red and green, the better! |
Now I only go back to my audi every 12 months to get a tune-up and that's about it. It's now just me and my cochlear to face the world alone. I think we'll do OK :)
Fame and fortune again!
Ok, maybe not so much fame, or fortune, but I can only dream. I wrote a letter to the Editor of the Western Australian newspaper last week in response to an article about mothers wishing for a bit of silence. They published it this week! Woo Hoo!
My audiogram
This is my most recent audiogram. It shows what I hear from my left ear (remember the right ear hears nothing at all) down the bottom in blue, and what I hear with the cochlear in the middle in red. A huge difference! A person with normal hearing would usually test between 0 and 20 right up the top. As you can see without the cochlear I have severe hearing loss in my left ear, with the cochlear I'm way ahead :)
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