June 2008 - Ups and downs with CI in June.

After my experience with the magnet keeps falling off when I play badminton, I have now got a stronger magnet and now have no problem with it staying on - it's perfect now.

Sound wise, it has been a month of dramatic up and downs with the cochlear implant which I feel some hearing people cannot fully understand. The cochlear implant has continued to develop brilliantly for music and for environment sounds which is fantastic. But… it has seemed to make group situations in real life situations worse. The cochlear implant is really helping me loads especially with the radio aid that I can follow most people with lip-reading most of the time on a one to one basis only. And with people I know well like with some of my friends I can sometimes pick out sentences without lipreading with the FM providing I know the topic. But it is a completely different story when it comes to groups (regardless of whether I know them well or not, deaf aware or not) and people I don’t know and people who are not so deaf aware on a one to one basis!! The main frustrations that I have had are group situations and trying to pick up conversations in order to make a contribution to it. I am much more aware of people talking, but I am completely unable to follow conversation between people. And therefore I am frustrated and confused that if things are improving on a one to one basis, why is it worst in a group situations. It is because like I said before, I am more aware of people talking and therefore more aware of what I am not picking up. Now I feel trapped. Do I take off the implant and restrict myself back into my silent, Deaf and and less frustrating don’t know what im missing world or do I keep the implant in, perserve with sounds and speech that don't make sense and to keep on working at it. The CI don’t just bring language problems in the hearing world, it is showing me more of hearing culture which I am also trying now to interpret. I feel like a stranger in a foreign land where I cant understand the language and culture there when you are exposed to it.

I continue the listening practices with one of my friends. We have now developed several new listening games:

Sat navigation by following in our cars and using FM to hear directions.

Drawing pictures

Where’s Peter? – learning to hear instructions of where to go to look for Peter Rabbit in a room.

Saturday 14th June 2008 - Deaf Badminton Training weekend

I went along to a Deaf Badminton Training weekend with the Great Britain Badminton Team. I had a great time with them and there was about 30 of us there and we were all British Sign Language users. About 8 of us had cochlear implants which I thought was interesting and it was good to see other CI BSL users. But I had only met these on a one off basis.

We had a great time, and I noticed that as I was still on a weaker magnet, every time I went to hit the shuttlecock, my magnet fell off and I had to keep trying to put it back on between shots. It was a fiddle.