This past week I was good in doing more listening practice by reading along with just my left CI ear for a total of three hours.  I only lost my place once and that was because I was at a interesting part in the book and forgot what I was doing and read way ahead.  Still haven't finished the book yet as it takes longer to listen than it does to only read.  I need to figure out how to make my auditory practice more challenging without making it too much harder.  Still can't make out the words without having the book to follow.  In any case I plan to continue to do lots of listening to books, as I'm sure that's very good for my auditory brain development.

I've been noticing that I can hear people's conversations from a distance and even sometimes understand what they're saying!  It's weird when I'm walking down the hallway and know that people are talking when I can't even see them.  This is when I'm wearing both of my "ears" walking d!!own the hallways at various schools that I go to.  A few days ago when I stopped at La Roca, a burrito stand right on the main drag in Philomath, someone struck up a conversation with me while we were waiting for our orders.  Turns out this guy was a log truck driver, and that he was also heading towards Newport.  After giving him a bad time about the powerful engines of log trucks, we started talking about the prices of various species of logs.  I need to look into growing some alder trees in our woods!  Anyway, we were talking outside in windy conditions and lots of traffic was going by, and it occurred to me as I was eating my lunch in my car that I had an easy time conversing in spite of what would typically be a difficult listening situation for me.  I think that having two ears is a definite advantage in that I can hear farther away and can tune out background noises better.

Bonnie, thanks for following my blog and leaving comments and questions!  You asked when I'll know if I reach my limit in what I can hear with my CI.  There are a few ways to answer that question!  I'm hoping my brain will continue to develop auditorally throughout the next year or two so that I can at least have as good speech discrimination with my CI alone as I do with my hearing aid ear and then eventually surpassing even that.  It would be great to achieve 100% speech understanding!!!  With my right hearing aid ear alone, I get about 50% speech understanding (without lipreading) at 45dB which is the typical volume of speech.  My hearing aid cannot amplify the high frequency sounds as I don't have amplifiable (is that a word?) hearing at 3000Hz or higher which is why I can't hear sounds like s, sh, z, th, f, etc.  I'm hoping that eventually I will be able to distinguish among those sounds with my CI which would enable me to achieve a better speech discrimination score.  Also another thing to consider is that the software in my CI processor is continually upgradeable, so that the potential to do better always exists.  I've already gone through one software upgrade!  So to answer your question, I may never reach my limit!!!

If you haven't fallen asleep reading this yet, this might do it.  I discovered a few nights ago that I can now sleep comfortably on my CI side for a long time.  Of course, right after my surgery (oh, I just realized that it was exactly four months ago!), I couldn't bring myself to sleep on that side.  Then after two months or so I was able to do it for a short time after I put a "dent" in my pillow to leave a space for my sensitive area.  Well now I don't even have to do that!  The implant that's under my skin by my skull does stick out a little--you can feel it if you were to feel my head--so I never thought that I would get comfortable sleeping on it.  I'm happy that I can now as I like sleeping on both sides to even things out! 

Good night!

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