One more to go...

Ok so I had tuning sessions on the 4th and the 20th. Both times the settings were very slightly increased and I could notice just small differences, so feel that there is no big news to report apart from steady but very incremental progress. My tolerance of the sounds continues to be good. The sounds do seem to be out of balance as the small sounds I didn't used to hear so well seem magnified and out of proportion, but I expect that in time they will balance out.

At last Friday's mapping session, before leaving, I asked how many more mapping sessions I could expect and to my surprise was told that only one more might be needed, in about three weeks' time. That is a bit scary as it makes me realise that we are reaching the limits of what the implant can do for me, at least in terms of volume. My brain can still do more work and adjustments, so it's pretty much all up to my brain now!

Before mapping I saw the surgeon briefly to review how things had gone since I last saw him, which was in the period where I was experiencing dizziness. He asked whether the implant was better than the hearing aid and my answer was yes and no. Yes because it picks up small sounds, and picks up more environmental sounds, of what is happening around me, and no because the overall sound is not rounded as it was with the hearing aid, it doesn't seem to have as much body, and it doesn't help with lipreading more than the hearing aid, though I still expect that to change with time. I passed on this observation to the audiologist who suggested that the small sounds might be getting in the way and that when the sound gradually became more balanced it would also feel more rounded. I guess this makes sense and hope she's right.

At this point I am realising that I was right to manage my expectations when assured by some implantees who can now use the phone that there was no reason why I shouldn't too, and feel a tad worried that some part of me might secretly be hoping that might be the case. I think that there will be more gradual progress, with sounds falling into place a bit more, and reaching the realistic, official objective, which was for the implant to a. allow me to hear environmental sounds better and b. be an aid to lipreading rather than superseding the need to lipread.

It also crosses my mind that I could simply be a less good implant user than some. My brother Tom's audiogram on paper is almost identical to mine, and yet in practice he seems to hear better so some things can't be measured scientifically. I imagine it follows that Tom would gain a lot more from the implant than I would.

However i keep telling people who ask that it's still early days, that it can take a couple of years to really get used to the implant and make the most of it.

On Saturday I went to the NCIUA summer meeting. The talks were interesting, on topics such as comparison of unilateral and bilateral implants in children, appreciation of music for adult CI users - this focused mostly on deafened adults, making use of their memory of sounds. I made a note on the evaluation form that I would like to see in future topics the case of pre-lingually, or born deaf implantees like me - and there were a few others in the audience too but we are a minority.