Who knew my fan was so noisy?

So I've had my implant on for almost two weeks (and unfortunately I'm realizing I've failed to post in just as long!).

To say the least, it's been an exciting two weeks. However, it has had its share of frustrating moments, but since I'm not allowed to complain, you won't hear much of that here!

So the bells are still there...but they don't seem as loud or uncomfortable as they once were. There seems to be more substance to the bell sounds, so rather than JUST hearing bell sounds, I feel like I'm finally starting to hear something else...except it's competiting with those bells.

It's very hard to explain, and to be honest, part of the reason why I haven't posted is simply because I don't know how to describe the sounds I'm hearing. I can tell you, however, that despite it sounding like bells and being completely non-understandable, I am hearing a LOT of things with my CI that I did not hear before.

At first, with my implant, all the sounds around me ran together into one giant cacaphony of bells. Eventually, my brain began to sort these noises out, and some noises started to distinguish themselves from others. At times, when it was very quiet, I'd think maybe my implant had stopped working or something, and I'd remove my magnet just to see if I was actually hearing anything. It always surprised me that what I thought was silence was not so silent. When I remove the magnet, even when it feels like it's quiet, I notice a DEFINITE loss of sound, which means that all those background noises that made so much noise at first are starting to become just that, background noise.

So, after a few days, certain noises that were not a part of the background started to stand out from the rest. These included a whole host of things, but most importantly this meant voices began to stand out a little more. Unfortunately, I am unable to understand these voices. This is completely expected, and should change even more over the course of the next few weeks and months. What is really interesting is that when I know what's being said (i.e. if I can watch closed captioning, read along a passage in church, or just by reading someone's lips) I am actually able to tell what word is being said and when it's being said. This may be easy to do with lip-reading, but when I focus on the captioning while watching TV, I have found that I can tell what word is being said and when. It's all about the baby steps!

There's a whole lot more to be said, but I need some time to break it down into manageable chunks...perhaps I shouldn't wait so long to post! ;-)

Before I go, however, I want to leave you with a list of sounds that I have heard in the last two weeks. Much of these past two weeks have been of hearing sounds and then trying to locate the source of the sounds...here are some of the results, most of them surprising.

- A few days ago, sitting on my boat in a canal behind the Isle of Palms, I first heard a boat enter the canal. The occupants docked a few docks away (about fifteen to twenty yards away) and sat in the boat for awhile. Eventually, I realized that despite the distance, I could hear them talking!
- Once, while on my couch in the den, I heard a noise, looked up, and realized I could hear the key turning in the lock as my mother entered the house. Holy cow!
- In my car, I heard my blinker. I always knew blinkers made a noise, but never could hear it...until now!
- While playing video games in the den, I suddenly realized I could hear someone talking. I asked my dad, who was sitting nearby, if someone was talking, and he broke out into a huge grin before telling me that my brother and mother were having a fairly quiet conversation in the kitchen. Not only were they in another room of the house, but the noise was enough that I actually noticed it while completely engrossed in a Halo game!
- I have a cat who is typically very affectionate, but she does have a mean streak in her. Once, while playing with her, I made her mad and she hissed at me...I heard her hiss. Hissing is such a high frequency "s" sound that I never really did hear it with my hearing aid, but I heard it with my implant!
- It took me awhile to figure out that the annoying, repetitive noise I keep hearing in my room is nothing more than my ceiling fan rattling. We probably just need to tighten the screws to keep it from rattling so much...but it didn't really matter in the past because I couldn't hear my fan in the first place to know it was rattling so much!

So many little things are standing out, and it's amazing and exciting! Please keep praying that these sounds will begin to clear up and that I will continue to be patient through this process...it is far from over!