Saturday 8 March 2014

The wind in your hair .......

I know you read this with a romantic sort of whimsy but alas that is not the case for me. Wind and cochlear implants DO NOT go together well. There are two little microphones on top of the processor that sits on the ear. These microphones are very sensitive so when the wind is blowing outside most of what I hear is, well..... wind. It sounds a bit like when a TV reporter is outside on a windy day and you can hear the wind blowing in the microphone. Only for me the wind sound is in the brain and makes it hard to listen to speech.
Yesterday was an example. I'm down at the beach, windy day, with my son and another child from his school walks up and starts talking to me, telling me a story. I had no idea what he was talking about and there is no point saying pardon over and over again as I was never going to understand him with the wind blowing in my cochlear. So I just looked interested, smiled, and said "oh that's cool". Afterwards I asked my son what he was talking about. This little boy was telling me how his mother ate chicken the night before and got such bad food poisoning that she had to go to hospital. Oops, maybe smiling and saying that's cool wasn't the right response. Luckily, kids are very forgiving with deaf adults :)