Carole M - Cochlear Volunteer

By the time I went for my second mapping I knew I needed to bump up the volume. I could not really tell if the second one was on or not unless I took the magnet away for a minute. I wanted more sound from it. I discussed everything with my Audi and told her I rather liked how music sounded even though it sounded far away.

            First, of course, we did the “beep dance”. It was a little stressful and I felt I needed to really pay attention to hear the number of beeps. I pretty much got most of them and afterwards realized how tense I was. Okay, now we are going to do some beeps with the older CI. Piece of cake – I could hear them loud and clear. They just sounded different so I asked if they were the same frequency as the ones I was listening to with the new CI. To my amazement they were. Of course! I was really struck with how much my first implant has improved. The new one is just a baby…awww.

            My Audi then told me that they were going to turn each one on to see how it sounded, then both together and try for a comfortable, balanced sound. After just a little tweaking of both for quality and comfort level of hearing she then told me she was going to turn them both on. I realized that I will really be hearing out of BOTH ears at the same time after 40 years of not being able to. Emotional moment? Oh yeah!

            With almost no adjustment the sound out of both of them was balanced and sounded great. It was interesting how she had me look at her nose and then listen to what she was saying. Already I could tell that the quality of sound was much richer than with just one. Since I was getting sound out of both neither one was putting out a lot of volume but both together had all the volume I needed. Now the older one does not have to work so hard to listen…how cool.

I was still experiencing each ear doing their thing. In a way it made me think of those lizards whose eyes rove around in different directions. I mean you are listening to the same thing with both ears but at the same time you are still aware of each one. It didn’t take even a day this time for my brain to put it all together.

I now have both programmed with the same thing. The first two are for everyday listening and music with smart sound 2 Adro. The second one is the same as the first only louder for when I am ready for more volume. The third program on both is for listening in noise and the fourth is “focused listening”. It is a combo of Adro, auto-sensitivity and beam…real fancy! Can’t wait to try that one.