Road Trip

Dave and I went to the HLAA Convention that was held in Nashville, TN in June (HLAA stands for Hearing Loss Association of America).  It’s rare to find an event like this that we can both enjoy, so I was really looking forward to it.  We’ve done conventions for candle making quite a few times before, and they are always a bit frustrating…trying to talk to strangers in huge exhibit halls or at dinner, around a table with 10 other people.  We would attend workshops and never really understand what was being said, unless we could get the front row (for lip reading purposes) and if the person used a microphone.  (Most of the time they seemed uncomfortable with a microphone.)

I’m not really a terribly shy person, but I have a hard time with small talk and usually will not approach someone I don’t know.  My biggest fear is starting to talk to someone and realizing they have an accent, or talk very softly, or are hard to lip read.  It’s easier to avoid eye contact and stay by myself than get stuck in an uncomfortable conversation with a stranger.

But we knew the events at the HLAA convention would have CART, which means that someone would listen and type what was being said, and it would display on a big screen at the front of the room.  They captioned not only the main speaker but also audience comments and questions, which is so helpful.  I can never understand what people are saying if they ask a question or make a comment from the audience.

The convention was held at the Opryland Hotel, which is truly huge and breathtaking inside.  It’s like walking in an air conditioned rain forest!  I appreciated the chance to get a lot of walking in (and we both lost about 4 pounds over vacation, which was a nice plus…LOL).  The convention center was attached to the hotel…the only trick was not getting lost on your way there! 

We drove in on Thursday morning, and it was about 8 or 9 hours from Illinois to Nashville (including all of our little potty and food breaks).  One thing that we didn’t take into consideration was that registration closed at 4:00.  I never thought we would get there that late, and we actually did arrive around 3:30 or so.  But finding a place to park and then finding the registration area in the convention center took quite a while…by the time we arrived, it was 4:20 and closed down.  This meant we didn’t get our tote bags, program books, name tags, etc. until the next morning, when registration re-opened.   I wasn’t sure if we would be allowed into the events that evening (the opening ceremony and get acquainted party) without name tags.  A very nice girl who had been working the registration desk was still there and gave us temporary tags to wear.  Next year we’ll be sure to time things so we get there before registration closes!

This was our first vacation in 7 years so we made sure to work in lots of down time in addition to the workshops and exhibit hall visits.  It was really perfect because just walking around the hotel was a fun event in itself!

We went to the opening ceremony and then decided to forego the get acquainted party because we didn’t have name tags (the temporary ones didn’t have our names on them, just the name of the convention we were attending).  We walked in and looked around but it was so loud and everyone was already in groups talking, that we felt weird ‘crashing’ the groups and trying to explain who we were.  We decided to call it an early night to recover from all the driving, and get a fresh start in the morning.

We spent the next couple of days attending workshops and spending lots of time in the exhibit hall.  It was filled with so many interesting vendors, and it was where we ran into the most people.  I spent a lot of time at the Advanced Bionics booth, finally getting to meet in person so many of the people I’ve met online over the past year.  There is NO way to describe how exciting it is!  It’s not like meeting a stranger, and it just adds this amazing dimension to the friendship.

If you’ve ever wondered if it’s worth going to a convention like this, the answer is yes!!  What makes the difference for me is knowing that everyone there either has a hearing loss or knows you have one, so they make that extra effort when you communicate.  Lip reading is infinitely easier for me in these situations, and I’m never afraid to strike up a conversation like I usually am.  I felt comfortable walking up to the various vendors and asking questions, walking up to people I recognized and introducing myself, etc.  Normally I would just never do that.  By the end of the convention, I was even striking up conversations with total strangers.  Having that common bond of hearing loss just seems to make it easier for me.

We got to try out the new CapTel 800i phone – Dave made a phone call with it so we could see how delayed the captions were and how it sounded.  He was blown away!  I still avoid the phone like the plague, and I think this will be a great rehabilitation tool for me.  It’s not on the market yet but should be soon, and we’re on a mailing list to be notified so we can get one as soon as it’s out.  This way I’ll be able to listen with the phone and get used to hearing over the phone line, but I’ll have the captions to fall back on if I can’t hear.  I think this will really eliminate much of my phone phobia, so I’m pretty excited about it.  I know a lot of people complain about CapTel phones and say the captions are wrong or take too long, but it’s still better than nothing.  And as I said, the new phone really performed well when we tried it out, so we’re looking forward to getting one.

I think the hardest part of the convention was the birthday dinner – there was music playing, and just the room itself was already very loud with all the people talking.  Once they started playing music, it was basically impossible to hear.  I could do pretty well with lip reading and my CIs cutting out background sound before the music started.  Dave, however, was completely lost.  His hearing aids just completely shut down from the loud music, and he doesn’t lip read as well.  We stayed for an hour or two and then left to walk around the hotel.

There was so much to do and see, and we managed to hit just the right combination of socializing, information-gathering, and relaxation time.  Once we got home, Dave admitted he figured it would be something he’d have to endure (since he didn’t know any of the people I already knew online).  But he ended up having a really good time, and was really glad we went.  Of course, I knew this would be the case before we even left! 

We got the chance to visit with family too, because my aunt and uncle live only about a 15 minute drive from the hotel.  My mom happened to be visiting at the same time, so we got to spend the evening with my aunt, uncle, mom, cousin and her husband.  What timing!  Although they’ve been up here (especially my aunt, who comes up to see my mom usually once a year), I hadn’t been to see them since I was about 12 years old.

After we left Tennessee, we drove to Arkansas to visit with Dave’s brother and his family.  That was such a treat, because I’ve never been to their house (or to Arkansas at all, for that matter).  We had a great time catching up with everyone.

Another nice little benefit of our trip is that we found a great pet sitter, which makes future vacations easier to imagine.  With a dog, 5 cats and 2 guinea pigs, we never go anywhere that’s more than a day trip.  In the past we’d ask my mom to stop in and feed them and take Toby (our dog), but since she was also gone on vacation, we had to find a pet sitter.  The lady we found was perfect, and it gives us real peace of mind to know there’s someone we can depend on for the animals if we go on a trip now…without bothering my mom (whose allergies act up around all the cats).

The 2010 HLAA convention is closer to our neck of the woods, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  We are definitely planning to be there!

I didn’t take very many pictures (shame on me!) but the few that we did take can be seen here: HLAA Convention

Love & Patience

Until I met Dave in 1998, I’d never really been around anyone with a hearing loss.  As far as I know, nobody I went to school with was hard of hearing.  All of my friends and family members had regular hearing, except my paternal grandmother (who died when I was around 12) and one of my cousins.  So I grew up interacting with ‘hearing people’ and consequently depending on them to fill in the gaps if I missed something.

My hearing loss didn’t really affect my dating life.  I usually didn’t even mention it until my hearing aid would inevitably squeal and give me away.  I did the regular things people did on dates – went dancing, went to movies, to parties – and faked my way through.  Lip reading got me through at parties and clubs, but oh what a lot of work it was!  Movies were another issue, since back then they didn’t have open captioned movies.  I would catch a few words here and there, lip read if I could, laugh when everybody else laughed.  Sometimes I’d whisper and ask for something to be repeated, but I tried not to do that.

My biggest nightmare was being somewhere dark, where lip reading was difficult or impossible, and trying to carry on a conversation.  Bonfires, late night trysts, dark clubs or rooms were all things I tried to avoid.

I got married for the first time at an early age, 20 (although I turned 21 a couple weeks after the wedding and I really felt old and worldly at the time…ha ha).  My first husband had normal hearing and quickly learned that I had a deep hatred and avoidance of the telephone.  He was very gregarious and loved talking on the phone, but the kind of calls I usually needed him to make were not fun for him (calls regarding insurance or other technical matters where I was the one who knew the details of the issue being discussed).  Still, we fell into a pattern where he made the phone calls and I did anything that involved writing, including writing checks and paying bills.

Because he was really outgoing and loved being around people, he liked giving and attending parties.  I hated parties, not only because I could never hear over the music and background noise of people talking…I’m also terrible at small talk, and can’t think of things to say to people I don’t know.  I’m the person who will latch onto you at a party and stay by your side all night, while you try to get away from me and mingle with other people.  I used to ask my ex to stay by me and not leave me alone at parties; he would promise but inevitably wander off and leave me stranded.

So anyway, you get used to having this person there who hears what you miss.  When the kids were born, we had baby monitors that flashed lights if the kids made noise.  They didn’t much help me at night when my hearing aids were off and my eyes were closed, but my ex would hear them crying and attend to them or wake me up.  If we were both home and the kids were calling to me or getting into something and I didn’t hear them, he would alert me.  He’d hear the doorbell or telephone ringing, tornado sirens going off, or if the car was making strange noises.

When we split up, the kids were pretty young – Paige was 2 and Eric was 6.  One of the hardest parts of being a single mom for me was not hearing them at night.  There were also a few mornings when they got up WAY before me and got into mischief as I blissfully slept away, hearing nothing.

I met Dave through an online hearing loss support group called the Say What Club.  It wasn’t until I was alone and had nobody to depend on that I really had to face what a hardship my hearing loss was.  Up until then, I kind of dismissed it as an annoyance much like having to wear glasses.  But I depended more on help from others than I ever realized.  This was the first time I was really on my own;  before I got married, I lived at home with my parents.  I prided myself on the things I was learning to do by myself, and figured that I really needed to address my hearing loss and learn to advocate for myself.

It wasn’t until 1997 that I discovered alarm clocks that would vibrate the bed, for instance.  As I joined support groups and started talking to other people with varying degrees of hearing loss, I realized I shouldn’t be embarrassed to let people know up front that I had a hearing loss.  It just made things so much easier!

Back then I did still have some hearing, so I wasn’t dealing with total deafness.  I was hearing pretty well with my bi-CROS hearing aids, even though I was profoundly deaf in my right ear and had a moderate-to-severe loss in the right.

Once Dave and I realized that our online friendship might be more than just friendship, we decided to meet in person.  This was my first time meeting another person with the same degree of hearing loss as me, who wore hearing aids.  Dave lost his hearing as an adult so he doesn’t lip read as much as I do.  I found myself assuming he could hear much better than he really could.  As funny as it sounds, it took me a while to get used to having to repeat myself and put myself in his position.  You’d think that would be second nature for me, since I deal with the same struggles he does, but I was just so used to being around people with normal hearing.

It took some time for me to remember to face Dave, to talk clearly and not toss a comment over my shoulder as I was walking away.  Things I was used to doing in other dating situations, like going out to restaurants, movies or bars, were things he really had no interest in.  I never had much interest in them either, but I used to go along for the sake of being part of the majority.  As our relationship continued, we developed our own little ways of doing things.  We order food from a restaurant and bring it home to eat, most times.  If we do go out to eat, we try to be seated in a corner and I make an extra effort to talk louder because Dave has a harder time than I do in a restaurant.  (I really depend on lip reading in those situations.)

Because I lip read better than he does, I try to take over in situations where we’re talking face to face to somebody.  If he misses what they say, I’ll let him know.  Usually I’m the person who talks to cashiers and clerks.

I made the mistake of taking him to a dance club in the early days of our relationship.  NEVER AGAIN.  He still brings it up, 11 years later, and tells me I owe him!  I really didn’t comprehend his balance problems, even though he’d told me about them before.  His vestibular nerves were damaged when he had leukemia, so he gets his balance from his eyes.  It took him a long, long time to be able to walk without a cane, without bouncing off the walls (literally).  If it’s dark, or there’s nothing for him to focus on and get a “horizon line”, he’ll wobble.  I see it at night if he’s walking down the hallway and it’s dark – he’ll do a subtle veer into the wall.  In movie theaters, he makes sure to hold the railing as we walk through the dark theater to our seats.  We don’t take walks at night for the same reason.

But…I took him to a dance club!  Wall to wall people, in a dark room with lights flickering on and off.  I was meeting up with some people from work.  Dave made his way to a wall by the dance floor and literally held on for dear life, while I danced.  He told me later he couldn’t even tell if he was right-side up or not – everyone was moving up and down and there was nothing for him to focus on.  It didn’t take long for me to realize he was genuinely uncomfortable and for us to beat a quick exit.  He was awfully good-natured about it, and I only needed to make that mistake once to learn what he could and couldn’t handle.

There were many times I’d assume Dave would hear something, only to realize he was in the same boat I was.  One thing we still laugh about was the first time he made coffee for me.  He was adding milk and sugar and told me to say “when” when he’d poured in enough milk.  I was standing next to him and said, “when”.  He kept pouring.  I said, “when”.  He kept pouring.  Finally I tugged his sleeve and yelped “When!!”  He glanced up, surprised, and stopped pouring just as the cup was about to overflow.  Then we both cracked up – he said, “I was wondering just how much milk you wanted…it seemed like an awful lot!”

He tends to wander around with his hearing aid off, especially first thing in the morning, so I’ve learned to glance at his ears before I start talking to him.  He can still hear me, but I have to talk louder and be sure he can see me if his hearing aid isn’t in.  I’m the opposite – the first thing I do when I wake up is put my CIs on!  However, sometimes I’ll have them off (after a shower, for example, when my hair is still wet) and he’ll start talking to me and not realize I have no idea he’s even speaking.

Once I got used to communicating with someone who’s also hearing impaired, I realized how nice it was to be with someone who felt the same way I did about parties and loud social events.  It’s great to know, for instance, that if we go to the movies, it will be an open captioned show.  Closed captioning is always permanently on if we’re watching TV, and if a show isn’t captioned, we don’t watch it.

Every day we have little hearing misunderstandings and we both can laugh about them.  Just today, I told Dave I was making an extensive packing list for our trip to Nashville later this week (for the HLAA convention).  He looked confused and said, “Why?!”  I said, “Um…so I don’t forget anything?”  Then he said, “Wait…what did you say, again?”  I told him and he laughed – he’d thought I said an “expensive” packing list!

Later on he was telling me how, when he was growing up, he lived for a while on a farm.  People would buy their cattle, and I thought he was saying that “poor people would buy part of the cow”.  I kept saying, “Really?  I would think only rich people could afford to do that.”  He looked confused and then started laughing, saying, “No!  I said FOUR people would go in and buy the cow.”  Four rich people, I assume.  LOL

So I’ve had to learn tolerance and compassion for my own hearing impaired partner, which was more eye opening than I expected it to be.  I can’t rely on Dave to hear everything for me and I have to step in and help him out in areas where my hearing is better than his.  I have to be patient and repeat myself (as many times as necessary) until he understands what I’m saying, with no snapping or saying, “Just forget it, it’s not important!”  And he does the exact same for me.  There have been times he’s repeated himself so many times that he will finally start fingerspelling to help me understand him.  We have our own sign language we resort to, with signs we both know and some fingerspelling thrown in, that we fall back on in noisy situations.  We laugh together about the things we mishear.

To sum it all up, I think the most important aspect of being in a relationship (no matter what kind) with someone who has a hearing loss is patience.  It’s not easily learned, but it’s so important.  Dave never makes me feel like communicating with me is frustrating.  And I hope I never do that to him.

HLAA Convention in Nashville, June 18-21

The Hearing Loss Association of America is having its annual convention this month, June 18-21, in Nashville, Tennessee.  Dave and I are both HLAA members but we’ve never been to an HLAA convention.  We decided to splurge and attend this one…we really can’t afford it but we haven’t had a vacation since 2002.  This will serve as a mini-vacation plus be an information-gathering event, so we are just plunging ahead and we’ll deal with the financial aftermath later. 

Dave is usually not thrilled about convention-type settings since they are horrible as far as hearing and comprehending go.  However, we went to an ALDAcon convention in 1998 and had such a good time that it wasn’t too hard to convince him that we could actually enjoy this HLAA convention.  It makes such a major difference when the seminars are captioned, and pretty much everyone attending the convention either has a hearing loss as well or they know how to communicate with those that have a hearing loss.  Sign language, lip reading, note pads…people would do whatever they had to in order to communicate, and it was fantastic!

The 1998 ALDAcon was an unexpected gift from some friends we met through the SayWhatClub online.  They had paid for the package and couldn’t attend at the last minute.  It was being held in Chicago and we are local to the area, so our friend offered the package to us so it wouldn’t go to waste.  It was quite a gift and even 11 years later we are still thankful!

This convention will be a little different because most of the people we’ll be meeting are folks I’ve talked to online but that Dave doesn’t know.  When we attended ALDAcon, he actually knew more people than I did because he’d been a member of SayWhatClub longer than me.  So this time around, I’ll be the one introducing him to people!  I think he’s going to feel like he knows many people already because I share stories and information with him as I read blogs, etc. and he also interacted with some people over on Hearing Journey, the Advanced Bionics forum, after my surgery.  (He went online and posted about my surgery experience when I was wasn’t yet up to the task of getting online and composing a post.)

So!  We are pretty excited here – Nashville is about an 8 hour drive for us, and we are really looking forward to staying at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.  My aunt and uncle live nearby so we’ll be driving over to visit them Saturday night.  (There’s a trip that evening to the Grand Old Opry that we aren’t participating in, so we figured Saturday would be a good night for visiting.)  Ironically, my mom is going to be in Nashville at the same time, staying with her sister (my aunt) so we’ll be visiting not only with my aunt and uncle, but my mom as well!

It’s going to be our first trip with just the two of us since our honeymoon in 2002.  We’ve planned other trips and something always happens to make them fall through, so I have my fingers and toes crossed for this trip!

I know Dave is hoping to get his hands on some gadgets in the Exhibit Hall…he would like to play around with the Blackberry Curve, for one.  I have a bunch of seminars I’d like to attend, we’re attending the HLAA 30th anniversary party on Friday night, and it’s just going to be a good time in general.  Not to mention the people…I am so looking forward to meeting people in person after talking online for the past year!

If you’re going to the convention, please leave a comment and let me know so that I can keep an eye out for you. 

Sick Hearing

So last week my hearing got really weird.  I realized things were sounding really loud again and I was tempted to turn down my volume.  I thought, “Oh, maybe this new T-Mic is going out like the other one” and switched it with one of my back-ups.  Nah, everything still sounded the same (and weird).

As the day went on, I realized everything sounded like it was echoing, especially voices (including my own voice).  The volume stopped being an issue, and instead it was just the quality of the sound…echoey and almost like I was in a tunnel, hearing things shouted down to me.

It kind of freaked me out, so I went and changed out my headpiece (the magnet that attracts to the magnet inside my head).  I even went to one of my back-up processors, but still, everything sounded weird and echoey.

This is one of the things I still need to get used to with my cochlear implants.  When things sound different from what I’m used to, does that mean it’s an equipment/hardware problem?  Do I need a new mapping (which is the software that the audiologist programs for me)?  Or is it just a temporary change due to fluctuations in my health?

Maybe in time it’s one of those things I’ll just get a feel for, but right now I’m hyper-sensitive to any changes in my hearing…especially after the recent revelation that my T-Mic wasn’t working to full capacity.  So my first move now is to check the hardware.  I switch out my processor, T-Mic and headpiece to my back-ups and see if there’s a change in how things sound.

Since there was no change, I figured my next move would just be patience.  If it was a health-related hearing change then I would expect to see improvement in about a week.  If a week or so went by and my hearing didn’t improve (or got worse), I’d put in a call for a visit (and mapping) with my audiologist.

You know how your hearing gets weird when you have a cold?  Usually it gets kind of muffled, and you feel like if you could just yawn and “pop” your ear, things would be clearer?  I assumed that kind of thing wouldn’t happen to me anymore now that what I hear goes right from the electrodes in my cochlea to my hearing nerve.  I figured I was bypassing all the stuff that makes your hearing get weird when you have a cold.  But I’m not a doctor and don’t know the workings of the inner ear very well.  A while back, I’d mentioned to other CI recipients that when I felt like I might be coming down with a cold, my hearing (with the CIs) got weird.  Most said the same thing happened to them.

So I thought, well, a cold has been going around the house.  My husband and daughter had it, and my son and his girlfriend stopped by the Monday after Mother’s Day and they ended up getting sick too.  I never got sick, but I figured maybe my body was fighting something off and I didn’t have the usual symptoms (runny nose, sore throat) but it was still affecting my hearing somehow.  I don’t know – maybe the Eustachian tube was swollen or something?

So I waited it out.  It was a little scary because the first day I noticed it (this was earlier this week, on Monday or Tuesday) I was actually having a hard time hearing by the end of the day.  I had my volume up around 2:00 (12:00 is the normal level) and I never, EVER move it past 12:00.  The next day it was a little better though…voices were still echoing a bit but my volume stayed stable all day long.  By the third day, things sounded back to normal again.

I never did have any typical cold symptoms, other than being a little more tired than usual, but I’m going to assume this was a health-related hearing fluctuation.

If anyone knows why hearing changes when you’re sick even once you have cochlear implants, I would love to know!  Or if you’ve experienced the same kind of thing, please leave a comment and share…I just find it really interesting that this happens (and I like to know I’m not alone, as well). 

Going to Court (with cochlear implants)

One afternoon in April, Dave brought the mail in and began sifting through the envelopes.  Then he froze, staring at one envelope in particular and murmuring “Uh oh” under his breath.

“What?  What’s wrong, what is it?”  Sometimes Dave can be dramatic but usually a comment like that from him is very much warranted, so I was worried.

He pulled the paper out of the envelope, looked at it and passed it to me.  It was a subpoena, addressed to me.  I’ve never even seen one before, and my first reaction was that somehow I’d gotten in trouble for something I didn’t even know I’d done.

It came from the Cook County Criminal Court, and I tried to calm down and read over it in order, without glancing all over the page trying to glean some quick information about what this pertained to.

I noticed that it was a case brought by the State of Illinois against somebody I’d never heard of.  Then I saw that I was being called to testify, basically as a witness.  It stated that if I didn’t show up, I would be in contempt of court.

Finally, it said I needed to be in court May 11 in Chicago at 9 am, but to report to a certain room first.  Then it said to call a phone number when I received the subpoena.

This was late on Friday afternoon, so we knew there was no point calling that day…it would have to wait until Monday.  Why do things like this always arrive on the weekend, making me worry for nearly 3 days before I can find out any information?!  It’s like an unwritten rule…even my doctor’s office always tends to call with test results late on a Friday afternoon, so I have to wait until Monday to call them back. 

So I sat there, quietly freaking out.  People, I have NEVER been to court before.  I’ve only stepped foot in a courtroom two times before, and never for my own self.  Once with a friend in high school when she got a speeding ticket and showed up in court so that she could get the fee waived and go to driving school instead, and once when my son got a ticket for being out after curfew when he was 16 years old.  Both times I was just there as an observer, not involved at all.  The one time I got a notice for jury duty (back when I still had some hearing, in the early 2000s) I told them I would need CART, and included a note from my doctor to confirm my hearing loss.  They wrote back and told me I was excused and didn’t need to show up at all.

And really, I had NO idea what this subpoena related to.  Never heard of the person named.  There was no information at all included with the subpoena, telling me what they wanted from me.  It was completely mind boggling!

I sat and tried to think of every possible situation it might involve, and then I remembered that a while back, I disputed a balance transfer made against one of my credit cards.  It was for a HUGE amount ($8,500) and the credit card company sent me an affidavit that I had to sign, stating that I had no knowledge of the transfer and I didn’t approve it.

I couldn’t remember when exactly this happened, just that it was in December (because it was the credit card I was using exclusively for Christmas gift purchases) and that it was before I went totally deaf, because I called them as soon as I saw the charge show up when I checked my account online.

I pulled up my Quicken program and found that yes, it happened Dec. 13, 2007 – so it was a year and a half ago.  I remembered we had some weirdness about 6 months later with a lady calling us, saying she was with the Mail Fraud department of the post office.  Dave talked to her and explained that I was now deaf (these calls started after April of 2008) so I couldn’t talk to her.  She mentioned a guy’s name that we didn’t recognize, asking if we’d ever heard of him (I hadn’t).  She was asking Dave for account numbers and other things he assumed she would have if she was really working on this case, so he got suspicious.  He didn’t talk to her again after that phone call but he actually wondered if she was one of the thieves, somehow trying to get more information out of us.  It was all really strange and we never received anything in the mail or heard more about it.

I asked Dave if he thought the name on the subpoena was the same as the one mentioned by the Mail Fraud investigator and he agreed, he did think it was the same person.  At the time we were getting calls from the Postal inspector, I did a search on this person’s name in Google and saw they had been convicted of credit card fraud in Colorado.  So I did another search, entering in the name of the person on the subpoena, and got that same article.  Yep, it was the same person.

Once I realized what it was all about, I calmed down a lot.  But really, couldn’t they give you at least a hint why you’re being called as a witness?!  It’s kind of crazy!  So we let it go for the weekend, and on Monday Dave called the State’s Attorney.  He never did answer the phone (Dave called more than once) so he left him a message, explaining that I was deaf but that we did receive the subpoena.

It took a couple of weeks but we finally got a return phone call (when we weren’t home, of course) and the State’s Attorney left a message saying that the case was still on, and to show up at that office the day of the case.

So on Monday of this week, we got Paige off to school and left the house at 7:30 am.  It’s about a 45 minute drive to Chicago from our house, but rush hour traffic is terrible and unpredictable, so we wanted to give ourselves plenty of time.  I brought along the credit card statement that showed the fraudulent charge and the subsequent credit the credit card company gave me after I disputed the charge, just in case.

Traffic wasn’t too bad getting into the city, but once we got within sight of the parking garage things pretty much stopped dead.  For some reason, there was no left turn arrow onto the street where the garage was located.  Oncoming traffic was totally solid so nobody could turn left except after the light turned red…then 3 or 4 cars would zoom through the red light, making a left turn so they could get to the courthouse garage.  It was really insane!

After we made our own wild left turn (yes, I closed my eyes) we found out that yes, we were at the right garage and it wouldn’t cost anything to park, and we were finally walking across the street to the courthouse.  My heart was pounding by this time because it was 9:00 already, we still had to go through the long security lines and my morning coffee was making itself known … there was no way I was doing anything until I got to a bathroom!

They divided us up into a men’s line and women’s line, which Dave didn’t catch – they kept telling him he needed to go to the left but he didn’t hear them because it was so loud inside.  Finally I tapped his arm and talked right to his hearing aid, letting him know he needed to go in the other line.  I was wondering if my CIs would pose a problem, going through the metal detector.  They had a sign posted in front of it but it didn’t say anything about people with pacemakers or other types of implants so I just put my purse on the belt and walked through the detector…no problem at all.  They checked out my purse and that was fine, so I just had to wait for Dave.

Now that we were in the building, I calmed down a lot because my biggest worry had been actually getting down there on time.  We found a bathroom, then rode an elevator to the office we needed to go to.  I kept my CIs on the background noise program because it was just so loud in there – people talking, high heels clacking on the floor, everything echoing, etc.  Right after we checked in with the receptionist, the State’s Attorney walked up (we had gotten there before he did!) and we showed him the subpoena.  He told us he’d be back in a few minutes to explain what was going to happen that day.

We waited for quite a while, watching all the people coming in and out, the lawyers pulling carts full of folders and documents out to the court rooms, etc.  I mentioned to Dave that the background noise program made hearing voices a lot easier, so he tried it on his hearing aid and agreed – we both stayed on those programs for the rest of the day.

In the back of my mind I kind of hoped the case would be dismissed once the prosecution realized a witness had shown up – a lot of people told me that’s usually what happened.  But not for me.  A couple of different lawyers were working on my case – the original one was working on a murder case so we ended up working with his associate.  We walked with her down to the court room and originally sat down where all the observers sit.  She came back to get us and showed us to a room behind the actual court room.

The room was filled with police officers, detectives and lawyers.  After a while a few guys came in, witnesses for the murder case.  It was all kind of exciting and interesting!  We explained in detail what happened so the attorney knew the specifics (they originally didn’t know whether my actual credit card had been stolen, etc.)  I still don’t know how this guy got a hold of my credit card number, by the way – that was never explained.

They told me if they worked it out with the prosecution, they might just have me sign some papers and that would be it.  But apparently that didn’t happen, and I was actually called as a witness.

I had explained to every single person I came in contact with that I was deaf, but had cochlear implants to help me hear and also that I could read lips.  Not one person seemed taken aback or put off by this; they were all really nice and accommodating.  They offered to get an interpreter, but I explained that I didn’t know sign language.  I told them all I needed was to be able to see everyone’s faces so I could lip read.  In other words, don’t sit at a table across the room, looking down at your notes, and talk to me…because I won’t understand!  Everyone said it was not a problem at all.

Finally the time came and I was waiting outside the courtroom door with the bailiff.  They called me in and the witness box was right to the left of the door I went through, next to the judge.  I did the whole “raise your right hand and swear to tell the truth” business.  Then the State’s Attorney came right up and asked her questions.  I only had 5 questions to answer, about how and when I noticed the fraudulent transaction, etc.  I had to look at the two guys and say whether I knew them, whether I gave them or anyone else permission to make this transfer.  Then the prosecutor came up (right up in front of me) and just asked a couple of questions, including whether I had the credit card statement with me (they ended up keeping a copy of it).  And then I was dismissed!

We went back to the room and waited about 5 minutes, and the State’s Attorney came in and thanked me profusely for my time.  I guess these guys had been doing this from July 2007 through Jan. 2008 – there were a lot of other victims listed, but I was the only one who showed up.  I guess I was the only one intimidated by the whole ‘contempt of court’ thing!    Seriously though, I’m glad I did it.  It was a pain going to Chicago at that time of day, but it was kind of interesting and made me feel like I did my part to get some justice.

It also was one of the better experiences I’ve had as far as accommodations go.  Although I didn’t need much, they were pretty much willing to do whatever I needed to have total understanding/communication that day, and nobody seemed put out or annoyed.  They even had a victim’s advocate come talk to me, although I really didn’t feel too victimized since I wasn’t even out any money in the end.  It was just a good experience all in all.

Now I can chalk off another life experience … I’ve been to court and survived it!

Troubleshooting

For the past few weeks, the weirdest thing was happening with my hearing. Everything was starting to sound loud…painfully loud. When my CIs get programmed, the volume is at the 12:00 position…that is 0, essentially. I turn it to the left to decrease volume, to the right to increase it. I realized I was pretty much having to leave my CI volume at the 9 or 10:00 position if I wanted sound to be tolerable.

At times I would swear my right side CI wasn’t working. It just seemed so quiet. I would tap on the T-Mic and yes, sound was coming through…so I figured it must be because my right side is the one that’s been deaf the longest. Maybe it was rehabbing at a different rate, or in a different way, than my left. I just figured it was always going to be the weaker ear, hearing less than the left ear does.

Still though, it was puzzling and annoying to have sounds suddenly be so piercing and almost unbearable. I couldn’t figure out why, 9 months after activation, I suddenly would want LESS sound rather than more. Usually you get used to a mapping, things start to sound a little soft or fuzzy, and you know it’s time to go in for a new mapping to get things reprogrammed. I felt like I was sliding backwards if I couldn’t even tolerate the 0 setting for sound.

This was all happening at the end of April/beginning of May. On May 5, I was working on candles down in the workshop and Dave was upstairs, so it was very quiet…no conversation. I realized that although there was no sound/noise in my environment, I was hearing a faint kind of hiss or static-type noise from my right CI. I’d been noticing this periodically, never sure if it was an equipment-related noise or an actual sound in my environment. I also noticed that some mornings when I put my right CI on, the magnet would connect, sound would come in, then there would be a loud hiss that would slowly die away. It only happened right after I connected my magnet in the morning. The sound I was now hearing in the workshop was like that loud initial hiss, but at a lower, constant volume.

To test it, I walked upstairs and went into the bedroom, shut the door and listened. It was another quiet environment and I wanted to see if maybe it was an environmental thing I had been hearing down in the workshop. Again, I was hearing the soft hissing static sound in my right ear. I decided to do some troubleshooting to see if it was the CI.

My plan was to change the battery, try a different T-Mic, and try a different headpiece. The CI uses rechargeable batteries, which slide on and off the actual processor and blend seamless with it so it looks like all one piece (like the body of a behind-the-ear hearing aid). I have 8 batteries that I rotate through – two Slim batteries (with less power, smaller size) and two Plus batteries which are larger, a bit heavier and last longer. I tried a few of my other batteries and it didn’t change the sound.

The headpiece is the round magnet that I wear on my head – it attracts to the internal magnet and is held in place that way. The magnet connects to the processor part on my ear via a cable that snaps into the processor. I figured it was possible there was a problem with the headpiece, but I thought I would try the T-Mic next.

The T-Mic is a part that attaches to the processor of the CI and curves around my ear, down into my ear canal. It serves as an earhook to hold the CI on my ear, and has a microphone at the end of it which picks up the sound in the bowl of my ear, much like the way my ear would pick up actual sound if I could hear. As a side note, the T-Mic is not a T-coil even though it sounds like it would be. My hearing aids had a T-coil switch that I would use for the phone or other devices that utilize that kind of technology. My CI is capable of being T-coil compatible but it would have to be programmed into one of the slots on my processor. I chose not to do that since I use the T-coil so rarely.

So anyway, I took the T-Mic off and put one of my backup T-Mics on. (One nice thing is that I received backups from Advanced Bionics for each CI, so in essence I have 4 processors, 4 T-Mics, 4 Direct Connects, etc.) When I did this, I was utterly astounded. Sound poured into my brain…loud, rich sound. I pulled the CI off to check the volume level, thinking I had accidentally pushed the volume wheel when I was putting on the different batteries and other T-Mic. Nope, still the same. I took off my left CI and tried that T-Mic on the right side. Same sound, same level of volume. I put the original T-Mic back on and the sound dropped back to whisper level. All this time, my T-Mic had been barely working!

No wonder my volume seemed so messed up…my left sound was way out of sync with the right. In order to get the volume to sound even, I was turning the left side down. I realized I rarely ever turned down the volume on my right CI, it was almost always just the left. As I mentioned before, I just figured that the right side was the weaker one and naturally wouldn’t hear as well. I was wrong!

I came dancing out of the bedroom, telling Dave, “Talk to me! Say something!” I could hear SO MUCH more. Even though the volume was much, much louder than what I’d been used to recently, it wasn’t bothersome at all now that it was even on both sides. I was able to turn my volume back to the 0 level on both CIs.

I went back down to the workshop, to see if I could still hear the hiss. Now instead of the total silence I had been hearing, I heard the click – click – click of the clock on the wall as it ticked away. No hissing or static. I went back to the bedroom to listen…no hissing. Not only did I solve the hissing problem, I resolved a problem I didn’t even know I had!

This is such a learning process…I guess I was just used to hearing the way I did and didn’t even think it might be an equipment problem. Now I know better, and I’ll be aware of checking and testing my various CI components from time to time.

After I finally got over my excitement at all the wonderful sounds I was hearing again, I sat down and emailed customer service at Advanced Bionics. Within 5 minutes I had an answer from them. My T-Mic is still under warranty so they overnighted a replacement T-Mic to me, along with a postage-paid envelope to return the defective one. On top of that, they sent me a pediatric (Small) size in replacement, because the full size T-Mic is so long it nearly hits the bottom of my ear. When I asked if it was possible to get a small T-Mic as a replacement, they didn’t even blink an eye.

The small T-Mics not only fit my ear better, they relieve some of the aching so my ears are less sore (this is more of a problem with the Plus battery).

I am thrilled to have both ears working at full (comfortable) capacity again!

Silent Night

I don’t wear my CIs to bed, so every night I abruptly descend into silence.  First one CI comes off, and I carefully nestle it into its special case.  The sounds around me completely change, because if I’m just wearing one CI it makes a huge difference…it’s like a completely different environment, sound-wise.  The minute I slide the headpiece from its grasp on the internal magnet on the second side, there’s complete and total silence.

It’s hard to describe how weird it is to go from hearing the cats purring (because there’s always one or two cats already in residence on the bed…they share it with ME of course, not the other way around), hearing Dave breathing and/or talking to me (depending on if he’s already asleep), hearing various environmental sounds (the furnace running, rain outside)…to hearing nothing.  Even my tinnitus is pretty much silent…I might get a soft little sound here and there but it’s nothing compared to the loud cacophony I dealt with before my CIs were activated.

Once my CIs are off, I’m back to wondering how loud I’m talking, lip reading Dave, feeling the cats to see if they are purring.  It makes pillow talk pretty much impossible.  There’s no conversation after we turn the lights out, and if I want to talk to Dave at this point I have to make sure the light is on and I wear my glasses so I can lip read him.  If I take off my glasses to read before bed, all I see past the inch or so in front of my face is blurred colors.

Complicating matters is the fact that Dave also has a hearing loss.  (This is a post I’ve been composing in my head for a while – the difference between being in a relationship where both people have hearing loss versus one where one partner hears fine and the other has a hearing loss, since I’ve experienced both.)  He’s got his hearing aid out, so I have to hope I’m talking loud enough for him to hear me.  Because of this, we don’t usually have in-bed conversations that we don’t want Paige to overhear.  Unlike us, she has natural super-hearing and seems to hear everything, even behind closed doors.  If we mention her name at all in conversation, we’ll hear her yelling out (from wherever she is in the house), “I can hear you!” 

I’ve always been a little sad that we’ve never been able to whisper to each other in the dark and just quietly converse late at night.  Even before I went deaf it was difficult to talk with the lights out, unless we were both pretty much yelling (not very romantic).  Now though, it’s not even an option.

On the bright side, it’s pretty awesome to go to sleep and never hear snoring, the sounds of the dog snuffling and licking, birds outside (which, let’s face it, are not fun to listen to when you’re trying to sleep in the morning).  I always have total silence when I sleep, barring some minor tinnitus when I’m first waiting to drift off.

Of course, I can’t listen to music to soothe myself to sleep (something I used to do when I was younger), and I can’t hear the smoke detector if it goes off.  I can’t hear the phone or the doorbell, so if somebody calls or comes by, I have no idea.  Well, I do have a dog!  If I’m sleeping lightly, I wake up when Toby jumps up and starts barking if we have a visitor, because I can feel him bouncing around on the bed.  He doesn’t bark for the phone, but then again, I don’t use the phone so I really don’t care if it rings. 

I was trying to decide which I prefer…the total silence that I have at bedtime, or would I prefer to be able to hear?  I’ve never had good/perfect hearing at bedtime anyway, but for most of my life I was able to hear somewhat.  Even though it’s a little nerve-wracking that I can’t hear if there’s an emergency of some kind, I still think I actually prefer my total silence at night.

Thunderstorm!

I’m sitting here listening to a THUNDERSTORM. I’m not standing up against the storm door with my palms to the glass, trying to feel the thunder. I can hear it!! I can hear the rain. I can tell when it’s pouring down and when it slows to a light downfall.

I probably shouldn’t even be on the computer (this is a major thunderstorm here!) but wow…it’s so exciting!

Okay, there was just a HUGE crash of thunder so I better sign off. But I heard it!! Yay!!

One Year

One year ago today I saw the doctor and it was confirmed:  I was profoundly deaf in both ears.  I consider yesterday, April 15, to actually be the ‘anniversary’ of my going deaf because I knew my hearing was totally gone on that day.  I just happened to have the doctor appointment on the 16th.

You know that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop?  Kind of a vague fear of a future catastrophe…not that you want it to happen, of course, but feeling like you just know it will happen someday?  For me, it was going deaf.  For 15 years I had this very repressed, subliminal fear that I would lose all of my hearing…and then what would I do?

Although I’ve lived with hearing loss pretty much all of my life, my hearing was stable from the time my loss was detected, at age 4, until 1993, when I was 28 years old.  I was so used to it, and wore the same hearing aids for so many years, that I didn’t even really notice it.  It never occurred to me that my hearing might get worse.  We had no idea why I lost my hearing to begin with but it was assumed that it was from a high fever when I had roseola as a toddler.  I figured it was a one-time shot and never gave it another thought.

Then in 1993 I suddenly lost the little bit of hearing I had left in my right ear.  It was shocking and unexpected.  Although I already had a severe-to-profound loss in that ear (so it wasn’t like I lost a ton of hearing) it was still an earth-shattering event for me because that was the ear in which I wore my hearing aid.  My left ear was considered good enough, with a moderate loss, to not need amplification.

In one fell swoop I was faced with the fact that my hearing loss was possibly progressive and might get worse in the future, and dealing with suddenly only having one ear to hear with since I had no ear mold or hearing aid for my left ear.  It took a good two weeks to get a new ear mold made for that ear and to be fitted for a completely new hearing aid, a bi-CROS system.  During that two weeks I actually tried to squish the old ear mold into my left ear and wear my current hearing aid, so that I could hear at work and during social events.  (I specifically remember a baby shower I attended for my cousin during that time, and how isolated I felt because I had no idea what anyone at my table was saying.)

Once I tried the new bi-CROS hearing aids, though, I was amazed.  The transmitter I wore on my ‘dead’ right ear transmitted sounds via radio frequency over to the receiver I wore on my left ear.  Once again I had the sensation of hearing from both ears, and my world normalized again.

The first couple of months after I lost my hearing the first time were scary for me because nobody could tell me why it had happened.  I wasn’t sick and had no warning signs.  They did a CAT scan and blood tests, tried me on a regimen of steroids to alleviate any possible swelling that would’ve caused the hearing loss…nothing worked and no causes were found.

After a couple of months passed and my hearing stayed the same, I stopped actively worrying that I would lose more hearing.  The fear sank to the far recesses of my brain and remained there.  Every now and then I would bring it out and toy with it:  How would I deal with further hearing loss?  Would I feel like life wasn’t worth living?  Would I become bitter and nasty to my friends and family?  Would I retreat and become a recluse?

At the time, I didn’t know anything about cochlear implants.  I learned about them in the late 1990s and even then, it seemed like they were only an option for people with no hearing at all.  From what I could tell, they would enable a profoundly deaf person to perhaps hear some loud environmental sounds but that was it.

Life went on and then the other shoe dropped.

In a way, there was a weird sort of relief that this had happened and I survived it better than I ever expected to.  I look back and say, “Oh!  I went deaf and actually dealt with it better than I thought I would.”  It’s over now…I can’t get any more deaf than I am, right?

I do still have this little fear that something might happen to my implants so they don’t work anymore.  Becoming deaf as an adult is totally different from growing up in a community of deaf people who use sign language.  Since my world is a hearing world, I have to adapt to that.  Dave and I have a version of sign language that we use and it works for us, but it’s not ASL.  I can’t benefit from a sign language interpreter, for instance.

For now, all I can do is assume things will continue the way they are and my cochlear implants will continue to work for me.

An Apple A Day…

The past couple months have been mainly focused on medical visits.  At the end of January, I finally got an eye exam.  That was one of the things I refused to do after I went totally deaf, because I didn’t think I could handle lip reading in a dark room with my contacts out.  My vision is really bad so without contacts, I can only see things that are about an inch in front of my face.  I’d basically be French kissing my optometrist if I was close enough to read his lips without my contacts in. 

So!  Fast forward a bit, the cochlear implants are working marvelously and I’m having more and more of a difficult time reading small print with my 44 year old eyes.  Time for that eye exam!

I’ve been wearing contacts since I was about 12 years old, starting with the hard kind.  I switched to soft contacts when I was 18 and could afford to pay for them myself (since they were much more expensive back then).  Ever since, I’ve worn the same kind of soft contact lenses, the kind where they come in a glass vial and you wear them for about a year.  When disposables came along they just kind of seemed like a silly extra expense.

Now, however, it’s getting more and more difficult to find the lenses you wear for a year.  Disposable contacts are pretty much the most common ones out there, and that’s what I ended up with after my visit in January.  I’m still trying to get used to throwing them away, which just feels wrong to me.  I spent so many years being super-careful about NOT throwing my contacts away, or flushing them down the drain, or whatever…it is really strange to just toss them in the trash after a couple of weeks!

The eye exam itself was much easier than I expected.  I told my doctor about my hearing loss – it was my first visit, so he didn’t have any kind of prior history on me.  When I tell people about my hearing now, I say “I’m deaf, but I hear with cochlear implants”.  Surprisingly, a lot of people know what I mean without further explanation.  (I always like showing people my CI processors and explaining how they work though.)

I explained to the doctor that I lip read, so he did actually stay really close to me once my contacts were out and the lights were dimmed for my exam.  That was a little funny, having someone in my personal space, but it was also extremely helpful because I never had a problem understanding him.  All of the “Better or worse?  This one or that one?” questions were pretty predictable and not a problem for me.  He was a pretty talkative doctor though so the biggest challenge was the small talk, but it put me at ease and he was understanding if I needed him to repeat himself.

So I survived my first eye exam as a dear/cochlear implant gal, and now I use disposable contacts along with a pair of BIFOCAL glasses when I’m not wearing my contacts (early morning/late night).  I officially feel my age!  I also have a trusty pair of reading glasses that I use more and more during the day, when I have my contacts in.

After my eye exam, in late February, Dave went for his “I’m over 50 now” obligatory colonoscopy at the VA hospital.  That was quite an experience for him, one he promises he will NEVER repeat, LOL.  He had two huge boxes full of preparatory pills, liquid and powder, plus instructions on how to prepare the day before the exam.  Anyone who’s had a colonoscopy knows what I’m referring to here…you have to fast the day before, on a clear liquid diet, plus take all kinds of laxatives to clean your system out before the actual exam.

Poor, poor Dave.  I felt so sorry for him.  He started his morning, at 7:30 am, with 10 or 12 laxative tablets.  Once those hit, he was totally nauseated along with the, um,  expected result.  I think those made him feel the worst, actually.  Later in the morning he had to drink a bottle, maybe 10 oz?, of some kind of liquid.  He did that, and then I mixed up this big gallon jug for him to start drinking later in the afternoon.  The jug came with just powder in it, and we had to fill it with water, shake it up, and leave it in the fridge until 2:00.  Then he had to drink 8 oz every 10 minutes until it was gone.  Every 10 minutes I dutifully set a glass of this stuff in front of him, until nearly 5 pm.  Then at 7 pm he had to drink another one of the (10 oz?) bottles.

In the meantime, he could have clear broth, Jell-O and popsicles.  Now he won’t even look at Jell-O…and I don’t blame him!

He said that day was the worst day of his life, even worse than when he had chemo before his bone marrow transplant.  It really makes me look forward to when I turn 50 and have to go through this! 

The exam itself wasn’t even a big deal, and he came through with a clean bill of health.  I spent the morning in the hospital waiting room, testing out my ears.  It was pretty amazing the things I could hear, and how much more relaxed I am now in a waiting room.  Instead of sitting, tense, watching every movement to see if our names are being called, I can relax, read, whatever.  In fact, when they first called Dave back, he didn’t even look up…he had no idea they called his name.  I tapped his arm and told him I thought they were calling him – I wasn’t positive, but I was pretty sure I’d heard his name being called.  And sure enough, it was!

After Dave’s hospital visit, it was my mom’s turn.  She’d been having trouble breathing for a couple months and it was getting worse.  In a stroke of good timing, the doctor she sees for her defibrillator checkups told her that she should really be seeing a cardiologist (she had a heart attack in 1999, which is when they gave her the defibrillator).  So she saw the cardiologist, who ordered a stress test.  That prompted him to order an angiogram, and during that she had 4 stents placed in one of her arteries because it was blocked.

After the angiogram, though, she was still having trouble breathing.  She made an appointment with a pulmonologist, who gave her some tests for lung function and diagnosed her with COPD and asthma.  This really freaked my mom out; she’s 70 and really takes pride in being very active.  She eats well, stopped smoking 30 years ago, and walks anywhere from 3-5 miles most days.  To get a diagnosis like that really depressed her.

Well, after that she just went downhill.  The inhalers that she got were making her jittery and lightheaded, and she was still having trouble breathing.  One morning in late February she called and asked us to take her to the emergency room.  She was just distraught, crying and panicked.  I was really glad that we live so close by (just a 5 minute drive) so we could be there with her, and my CIs helped me understand everything the hospital personnel said to her.  Dave and I stayed with her until it was time for Paige to get home from school; at that point they had done a bunch of blood tests, a CAT scan and an ultrasound.

This was all in the emergency room, in a big room where there were curtains pulled around to make a little room within the big room for each patient.  I could actually hear them talking to the person next to us, asking if she knew where she was, what year it was, etc.  I mentioned to my mom (later on, after we left) that I could hear them and she confirmed that yes, it was a patient they suspected had Alzheimer’s.  Again, a really weird experience with the inadvertent eavesdropping!

One thing I really puzzled over, though, was the announcements.  One was obviously a computer, not a person, and it was accompanied by these horrible bleats of something that sounded like an air horn.  I just couldn’t figure out what they were saying.  Finally I asked my mom and it was something like “Code Red, Building North, First Floor”.  Over and over and over.  Once I knew what was being said it made total sense to me but it’s a good thing I don’t work in a hospital because I wouldn’t be responding to any loudspeaker announcements! 

Anyway, we came home, got Paige and went back to the ER only to see my mom in the waiting room…they had released her with a diagnosis of anxiety and a prescription for Xanax.  Over the next month she had two more ER visits, with one resulting in an admission (and no real diagnosis that we heard).  It was starting to get frustrating, as she saw more and more doctors and kept saying that nothing was helping.  She was getting despondent, wanting to just give up, and we just felt helpless to do anything for her.  One doctor said she had COPD/emphysema, one said if she had COPD at all it was very mild.  She just hated the inhalers and was having trouble sleeping, plus she was really depressed.  I get my worrying and anxiety from my mom, and anxiety was definitely playing a part in her health issues.

Finally, she saw a doctor who felt her issues stemmed more from depression and that her COPD was actually very mild.  He prescribed an antidepressant, which I really felt my mom needed.  Initially, though, she refused to take it.  There were so many warnings on the package and so many potential side effects, she just couldn’t bring herself to do it. We talked to her about it and she finally decided to give them a chance (she breaks them in half) and now she’s like a new person.  She admitted that the biggest problem for her was that she was in denial about the COPD diagnosis…I think she was hoping to find a doctor who would say she didn’t have it, and give her a miracle pill that would make her all better.  Now though, her attitude is better (much more positive) and she isn’t panicking, which definitely helps her breathing.

There’s been a huge difference, dealing with medical stuff as a person who can hear (thanks to cochlear implants) versus being totally deaf, like I was when I had my pre-op tests and going in for the surgery itself.  I mean, any medical situation is nerve-wracking in and of itself (for me, anyway) and when you add in the possibility of missing most of what’s being said, it just makes the whole situation even more stressful.  I had such a calm feeling of being in control in all of these situations…eye exam, hospital visit with Dave, ER visits with mom…and what a difference it makes!  For once I can forget about myself and really be present for the issue at hand.

The final hurdle I have to jump is a dental visit.  I haven’t had a cleaning since late 2007.  I was actually scheduled for a cleaning in mid-April last year, just 2 days after I went deaf.  I went on April 16 to see Dr. Battista and that was the day I was officially declared profoundly deaf in both ears.  By that time I was hearing nothing at all.  My dental appointment was on Friday of that same week, and I had Dave call to cancel it.  Dental visits are hard enough, with those masks over their face so I can’t lip read.  I couldn’t imagine doing it without being able to hear at all.

Then we cancelled our dental insurance (can’t afford it) so now I’m kind of like, eh…my teeth feel fine, and I’d have to go to this new dentist (who takes the dental discount plan we now have…not insurance, but at least it’s something).  They’ll need x-rays and a new patient exam as well as the cleaning, and that’s SO much money.  Blah.  I’ll go sometime this year (probably when I schedule Paige for her 6 month cleaning) but I’m kind of dreading it.  I wonder if my processors and/or headpieces will fall off when they recline the chair?  Hmmm.

Hopefully we won’t have any more medical situations this year…I think I’ve had my fill of hospitals for a while!