Day One: What I Heard Today....

A series of double beeps of various tones
A rattle rattling (my favorite of the audiologist's noisemakers)
A little hand bell (which did not sound like ringing)
Birds (every time I was outside)!! Yay, birds!
The doorman's whistle as he summoned our cab
The arrivals/departures board flipping every time a train moved up
Money falling on a counter
The public address system in Baltimore's Penn Station and on the train (as a disparate sound--weebly oobly--from the background noises)
Sally and Cathy talking (but not recognizable as human speech)
Myself talking (ditto)
The pager keys tapping as I typed
The computer keys (ditto)
Two or three test sentences ("It's a nice day today" is only one I remember)

Note on pager, 11:55 a.m.: "Waitin fr train back to dc. It's incredibly different to hear all these sounds I haven't heard for over 40 years. But it's not like HEARING. It's like hearing every single particle of every single sound and not knowing how they fit together. V interesting! Back tmw for more tweaking. I can't have it up as loud as I need just yet. [And only have two of the 4 programs installed so far] Also, it's like hearing splinters of MUSIC."

Yeah, music...who could have predicted this?

Note on pager, 4:07 p.m.: This is a trip! I cn hear the keys on this thing clicking fr the first time. And I cn hear Sally and myself speak [Cathy in another car], but it doesn't sound like talking yet. Can hear self chewing crackers....munch, munch, munch. Best of all, when I go outside, I DEFINITELY CAN HEAR BIRDS! Dunno wot kind, but birds fr sure. very reassuring, them birds."

Most of the time I hear weird background-kinda noise--eggs frying, crickets having a rock concert. Having the TV on in the other room was too distracting--had to shut it off.

Peggy called while we were in Baltimore Penn Station waiting for the train back. Sorry I could not hear you over the phone, Peg-o, but once I get the hang of phone calls, you'll still be the first person I call.

I keep thinking of the whole cognitive question. I asked Ronniecat if she'd noticed any cognitive changes since she got her implant. She's thinking on this and will write about it when she formulates her reply, but I can think of one: how the brain takes all these tiny splinters of music and comes up with the recognizable sound of a human voice speaking. My brain as processor seems to be waaay out of practice. Except, there's so much missing. Hmmm...

Well, it's changing hourly. I'd go back outside and listen to some more BIRDS, though it's past their bedtime.

One other thing that is very nice about the implant sound is that it's not painful or overwhelming or constantly stressful like with hearing aids. LOUD sounds are just different--so far, anyway. Now that I'm not hearing with a hearing aid, I realize this. One step at a time.

Oh, man!! Two more sounds I just picked out of the haze: my soda fizzing in the bottle as I lift it to my mouth to take a drink, and myself breathing! So all this breathing sh*t is what's contributing to the background noise!! How do you hearing people DEAL with this???

This is fun. This is very different from what I could ever have imagined it to be. This is like learning Martian.

Thanks to dear Cathy and Sally for being with me today. No gurl is an island.

DAY ONE AND A HALF....

I'm realizing that I'm hearing EVERYTHING...even the individual fibers in my shirt scratching together when I move my arm!! Hearing folks must just tune this stuff out completely. Ha. They'd have to or they'd go nuts.

This must be why one of the most devastating experiences as my hearing went away was when I could no longer hear myself walking around. I felt like a ghost.