Wednesday 25th February 2009 - Back to the CI centre

Today I went back to the CI centre for a retune. We managed to balance the low frequencies and the highs and now it sounds much better. I was also able to pick up a few words from the announcement at the train station but still so frustrated that I cannot get the whole thing.

Thursday 19th February 2009 - A leak

Was so annoyed to discover that when I got back to my house to discover that there has been a water leak from the back of the toilet cistern in my ensuite bathroom. I therefore had to call in an emergency plumber. He has now fixed the problem and I could hear dripping of the water in the cistern after the cistern had filled. That was a new sound for me there.

Wednesday 18th February 2009 - Back to work

Today I went back to work after my ski holiday. I also noticed that my implant was playing up - became too bassy. So I made an appointment to go back to the CI centre next week on my another week off.

Monday 16th February 2009 - last day of ski holiday

Sadly today was the last day of my ski holiday in Switzerland. My Uncle took me to this pretty steep slope the other side of the town and I went down that. It was steep I mean it. I fell a few times cos it was so steep and needed steeper turns. But I had my ski helmet on. Then on the last ski down i went down straight at the bottom bit and turned the corner to the flat and whizzed pass my Uncle doing a High 5 as I passed. He then said - "Fancy a beer?". My response was "ooh yes please". So we went to this Alpine bar near the cable car station and had a few bottles of beer and a really good chat. He became alot more cochlear implant aware during the week which was really good.

Friday 13th February 2009 - On the Pistes

What glorious weather on the top of the mountain on the Swiss Alps and what amazing views.

Several new sounds have been picked up today which Ive never heard before. You can hear the beeping from the snow bashers as they smooth out the pistes, and you hear the humming of the cable on the button drag lift and cable car and the rattle when the cable rattle on the pylon wheels.

I could also hear the skis moving in the snow - swish, swish swish!! But dont ask me about direction of sound.

I also realised at one point my Uncle was talking to one of his friends in French. I had never heard a foreign language being spoken. However I did manage to pick out "deux semaines".

Thursday 12th February 2009 - Swiss Alps here I come!

Today I flew to Switzerland to the Alps for my 6 day ski holiday. I flew from Birmingham International Airport and although I fly on planes regularly, I hadnt flown since getting my CI so I was alittle unsure of what to expect and how the pressure inside your ears when descending to land would affect the cochlear implant.

Inside the airport, when I got to security, I was not allowed to walk through the security thing as we are a cochlear implant user and so we could trigger the alarm on this machine. I had to go round and get searched by a hand held security thing. I always carry my cochlear implant id card with me. I got through security no problem. After wandering around the duty free I then made my way to the boarding gate for my flight to Geneva. I still cannot hear the tannoy in the airport, so still was completely reliant on the flight detail screens to keep me updated about my flight departure.

Finally I got onto the plane and sat down at my seat in my usual place which is in front of the wing, next to the window and on the left hand side. Why I always sit there, I do not know. But I do LOVE the window seat as I am a town planner, I LOVE on clear days being able to look out of the window and see England below and recognising exactly where we are, by looking at the road pattern, landmarks and location. Anyway whilst still docked to the boarding gate on the ground, I kept hearing this bing bong sound on the plane. It did start to annoy me alittle. But I ignored it. Then we were ready to go. As we were taxiing along the taxi way to get to the end of the runway for take off and at a different time to the emergency instructions, I noticed some kind of talking over the tannoy system. I could not make out a single word so had no idea what this was about so took no notice of it. We had to wait for this Irish plane coming in to land and using the runway before we could use the runway for take off. The Irish plane then landed and cleared the runway and off we went. The power and my goodness the NOISE that was made as the engines forceably went into intense acceleration as we careered down the runway and then climbed steeply up into the air leaving the houses and the field and power lines and cars getting smaller and smaller as we ascended. I found the plane far too loud. Mid flight when we were cruising above mid France somewhere I took my implant off. Phew - some peace and quiet!! Also at this point I also started talking to the lady sitting next to me who was also flying to Switzerland for a skiing holiday. I mentioned about the tannoy when we were taxiing along the taxi way to the end of the runway prior to take off. She never heard this tannoy. Then I realised I was picking up the radio communications between the cockpit and the control tower!!

Anyway we came down to land and the descent and ear popping moments that are widely experienced were no different to that pre implant days. There was no problem with flying with a cochlear implant at all apart from the plane being noisy, everything felt normal. One advantage, I do not get affected by temporarily hearing loss that some people experience after landing. With a cochlear implant, my hearing levels remain the same as whats normal for me regardless whether you are trying to balance the pressure in your ears or not after a flight.

Thursday 5th February 2009 - More snow!!

Today, we had more snow. I drove to work after the rush hour had finished in the hope that the roads were more clear.

Today I hear two new sounds. Whilst walking in the snow to my hairdressers at lunchtime there was a pigeon and I noticed that it made a cooing noise....how weird is that?

Today I felt really tired and I struggled alot more to understand what people were saying even though I was picking up the environmental sounds beautifully. My boss told me that it was cos I had been retuned yesterday and that it's normal for me to feel tired, struggle to follow speech more on the first few days following tuning so told me that its ok to feel like that and not to worry about it.

And then when I got home, I went into my house via the front door. It had been snowing lots and there was some water dripping from the snow on my gutter and as I stood by my front door outside I heard this tapping noise and I felt a wet drip on my head, then I realised I was hearing the water dripping onto the patio path beneath my feet :-)

Wednesday 4th February 2009 - ONE year ANNIVERSARY o of my CI!!

Exactly a year ago I had my CI op and funnily enough I had to be back that the hospital again this morning to be retuned.

So at lunchtime I went to the pub with my work colleagues and had a great lunchtime and we talked about how much I had advanced with the CI in the past year. I explained about the huge jump in environmental sounds but still struggle with speech and I also explained about the quietest sounds I can hear with the CI.

Today as a result of retune, heard two new sounds - traffic lights beeping tells pedestrians to cross from INSIDE my car and heard some metal clanging from a building site some 500 metres away!!