A visit home

So I went home Monday night for a quick break from school before finals hit.

Things did sound different at home. Mom's voice was a little different. David's still the same. Evan, I have no idea because he didn't speak... haha. My mom's dog, Karma, annoys me with her bark. I didn't realize it sounded like a squeal mixed with a bark. It was ...unexpected.

Talking with Dad and Susie was the same deal - I understood Dad and most of what Susie said. Thought she said "burrito" but she said "hamburger". Weird. And Michael's voice was definitely different - he's my younger step-brother. His voice sounded like he babbles as he talks. I know that's just a kid's voice, but see, that's how hard it is to understand kids.

The waterproof processor is in progress. I really want it so my mom and I are trying to figure out how this will work out.

...That's all I can say for now. :-)

What to say?

So basically, I'm at a loss here. I have no idea what I could update about now. All I know is that I'm definitely picking up on words I hear from my teacher. I get annoyed when people chatter loud or when a girl talks about something she thinks is funny and her voice squeals while she says it... ummm. Haha. Sorry guys but I have no idea what else to post about.

All I know is I'm more focused on my upcoming few weeks because I have three weeks left of school and then finals week. I'm prepping for a test as well for my credential program application....

I know I'm really excited to have my implant back on because now it makes for easier conversation with classmates when needed. And makes for easier one on one conversations with my teachers... I still enjoy listening to music. I'm learning to ignore background noises, but I'm still so curious about them that my boyfriend tells me I just have to ignore them and not ask about what it is. Like one time, I was sitting on the couch and I could hear my boyfriend's roommate putting his hand in the bag of chips, which makes this crinkly noise.. I don't remember what I thought it sounded like, but it made me look and my boyfriend told me to ignore it. Hmph. :-)

I'm learning.... this is all a learning process with my implant, education... life.. Life is a learning process...

Three Days Worth

Hello everyone!

Been three days since my last post.

Thursday was my long day - had three classes all afternoon/evening. Tested out my cochlear implant from 12:30 to around 9:30. Needed a break by the time it hit 9:30. I'll explain why :-) It was weird to hear the male teacher's voice because as I've said before, I had lost all the high-pitched sounds so now when I hear males' voices, I can hear some high pitches. I've noticed my teacher says "umm" a lot and it's not annoying, but it's definitely something worth noting. I had a break from 2:45 to 4 because my teacher wasn't feeling so well. So I hung out with my boyfriend before class - we tend to meet up during my break. We were at Sierra Center - which is known for food and studying. The second floor can have a lot of group meetings for studying and unfortunately, I was there when there was a group of females with one or two males. They laughed and talked too loud for my taste. Or perhaps, it was because I'm so aware of everything, it is loud to me, but not others.

I decided to go to the deaf awards and scholarships ceremony where I was presented an award for "Outstanding Tutorial Service". I could hear the voice interpreters speaking for whoever was signing. The female voice interpreter was very clear, but I couldn't quite understand the male. Anywho, went to my class that's from 4 - 6:45. That's the teacher that talks really fast. And I figured out this - when I'm in an one-on-one meeting with her, I can lip-read and understand her voice quite well, but when she lectures to a classroom full of students, nope. Not so clear. Not impossible, but near impossible.

Friday - I went to Best Buy with my boyfriend. He said my name once and at a good sound level - I turned my head right away. He said that before my revision surgery, he would have had to say my name a few times before I caught it. I'm pretty proud of that.

Now, here's a mixture of Friday and Saturday because of one reason. Phone calls! I called my mom up on Friday and I was able to successfully chat with her on the phone. 95% of the time, I understood what she was saying!! Yay!! Today, Saturday, my dad called me up. I was confused about why he was calling me, but then he explained he wanted to see if I could understand him on the phone and wanted an update. Well, needless to say, I understood him pretty well too! I would say 95% as well. I'm so happy! This is really working out well for me. And I know that if I repeat what they say to me, to make sure I understand, is the best thing I could do right now so I don't misunderstand where the conversation is going. Pretty cool.

I'm taking another break from having my cochlear implant on because I got too annoyed with the car noises and birds chirping outside... Hehe. Who knew I'd be annoyed by those so easily? I'll get used to that eventually :-)

Music

So I realized why I love music so much - my mind has been playing tricks on me my whole life with music. I would memorize lyrics and know what the signers/bands are singing. It didn't matter how much I could hear - my mind just knew what they were saying. Kinda a bummer, but it's still fun to listen to music. :-)

I took a chance wearing my cochlear implant today. I bugged my colleague a few times during work. I didn't know the projector was so loud. He had to tell me that was making noise instead of my assumption that it was the computer. The computer tends to be softer. I tried to see if I could understand my teacher during class. I could at some point, but she moves her lips weird... Not an easy way to lip-read, and she pronounces words odd... But tomorrow, I'm wearing it again to see if I can understand my male teacher and then my female teacher who talks fast. Tomorrow shall be a challenge and I accept it! :-)

Today was the day!!!!

TODAY WAS THE DAY IT WAS TURNED ON!!!!

Okay, obviously I'm very excited about this. I'll just say this - there are 16 electrodes for sure. And they all work! Yippee!! But the audiologist turned off the 16th electrode because it's pretty common among patients that they don't need it. I'll explain in other terms: the 16th electrode is the highest pitch it could hit, ever.

For those who asked, how is it possible that I get this mapping done within two weeks? I asked my audiologist and the answer was simple: It's because I had a revision surgery, not my first surgery. If it was my first surgery, they would have given me 4 to 6 weeks before turning on the implant. So... It's pretty exciting because with my former implant, I didn't have a huge range of what I could hear. What I could hear were low sounds, but high-pitched sounds were not possible.

Since I've had this turned on, I've heard a variety of high-pitched sounds such as my music, for one. Seriously, I missed my music so much, but when I turned it on in my car, what the heck was I listening to?! I couldn't recognize most of it at first because it takes a while for my brain to process the stimulation from the music. I was listening to Glee, so of course, a lot of the music has a lot of high-pitched sounds. I'm discovering that some male singers I have on my iPod can hit high notes while singing. Adam Levine, Edwin McCain, Dirty Vegas, Justin Timberlake, even Michael Jackson.

(From People.com)


It's a whole new world for me right now with this music. I can hear freezers running, the fan is less annoying in my bathroom, and the girls that I've talked with so far sound completely different because there's finally that distinction of high sounds in their voices. I've always known that when I start up the car, it does a dinging noise, but I never realized exactly how it sounded till now. Same with when I lock my car with the electronic remote...thing... My keys jingling together sound different too!

I just have to say - I am stoked and excited to discover more as the weeks go by.

Oh and odd thing. Apparently my company has this water proof cochlear implant as well. I have three different processors (meaning the one behind my ear and two more) and the audiologist said I can replace one of the two that I have in exchange for the waterproof one. I can swim...underwater...with this thing. I can shower with this thing. I can walk in the rain with this thing. It's astounding and shocking and weird.... I'm not sure if I want to get it but I'm so curious about it. We'll see what happens because if I want it, I have to get it as soon as possible.

Throughout the day, I had to get adjusted to sounds, like I mentioned before. One thing that is annoying - Japanese. How am I hearing this? My boyfriend's roommate watches this anime show and they speak Japanese... extremely annoying haha. I tried talking to my mom on the phone. Not bad for first try after turning the implant on. I was pretty excited :-)

Communication

This is something that has been on my mind the past couple weeks. I've been thinking about how I communicate with some people and why does it succeed/fail.

With my family, there have been ups and downs in terms of communication. I've always been able to understand what my mom says to me. Same with my dad. That's one of the benefits of growing up with them for 21 years. As for my brother, it's the same concept. They're easy to lip-read. I recognize their voices. I can talk to my mom pretty easily on the phone. My dad and my brother - not so much because they have low voices. It didn't matter whether I had been growing up with them all my life - I still couldn't understand them on the phone. I noticed that it's easier for me to talk to females on the phone. Whenever it's my mom, my aunt, my two grandmas, my cousin from Indiana, and a few friends of mine, it was easy to carry on a conversation. But when I had to talk to someone on the phone that was a male, and developed their voices, it was not so easy. I always had to guess what they would say. Sometimes, that would be true in person as well.

When it comes to family gatherings, that always proved to be a challenge. Trying to catch the context of the conversation happening, why they were talking about it, and what they were saying about it. Trying to figure out who was saying what. Where the voice was coming from. Trying to lip-read from afar. Sometimes it would be dark outside or it would be shadows covering their lips. My younger cousins and step-brother are sometimes easy to understand. It depended, really. Whether they were really excited about something or sad, they tend to talk fast and with their lips moving fast, that definitely made it hard to understand. When they get excited, their voices go high and that is a challenge for sure. But just because they're hard to understand doesn't mean I don't want to play with them. I just miss out on the information they tell me to play games and stories. It's okay though, because they're family. And they will get older and easier to understand. I think that's why it's hard to understand kids sometimes - because they have random moments, they talk fast, have high voices, and they look around a lot because they have short attention spans. I know that's why I don't want to be a teacher for children. But I love children anyway. =)

Communication is tough. I know it was when I was in school. Having to catch up with what's happening in group discussions. I didn't like having to rely on people for what I missed. It happened too often. That's why I was happy when I met a few people who knew ASL in high school. I started hanging out with an older group who were all Deaf and hearing that knew ASL. My parents knew they could trust them, even though they were already in college and I was still in high school. It gave me a new perspective on how to understand things happening around me. Things were becoming clearer. That's why I chose to go to the college I'm attending now. There are more Deaf students and more Deaf Studies majors who I could communicate with easily by use of ASL. I'm even a teacher's aide for a deaf class with a deaf teacher. This gives me more of a hands-on experience for when I become a teacher of the Deaf later on. I'm learning different ways of communication through ASL. It isn't easy. It's the same idea of having to find different ways of communication though English when I was in elementary, middle, and high school.

Communication is very important to me. That's why I love having a phone. I can text a lot of people. I can use Facebook to keep in touch with those who went on a different path of life or to keep in touch with family that don't live near me. I love using Skype and Tango and Whatsapp to keep in touch with other deaf friends of mine. It doesn't matter to me where they're from, if they're from India or if they're from a town over from me. It makes for easier face-to-face communication using ASL instead of English.

I miss being able to talk on the phone with my mom. To be able to call her up randomly with a few questions, comments. Being able to call up a few random family members once in a while to see how they're doing.

(From Google - random images)

That's why I'm looking forward to this new cochlear implant. To see if it can give me a new perspective on how I can communicate with everyone. See if it helps me figure out a better way of communicating with family and friends. I'm hoping for the best. And I know it will be a huge improvement.

DISCLAIMER: These comics I just posted are not my creation. It was by Matt & Kay Daigle. It's their comics. And they are hilarious. "That Deaf Guy" Comics!

Recovery process

The day of surgery (April 3rd), I mentioned I went back home with a bandage on my head, sleepy. All day and night of Tuesday, I was in pain. Good thing I was still sleepy. Wouldn't have handled the pain otherwise. Wednesday, I had to take Tylenol to relieve pain. Dad came over to cut the bandage off. It was awful because my hair was a mess... They had put my hair in weird places in order to put the bandage on my head. They shaved the area where they were supposed to work on. Now I look like one of the people who shaved that area to look cool - you know that fad?

(I don't take credit for this picture - I'm sure this was a professional model picture)

Thursday, it seemed that I had no pain so I only took medicine for when I went to sleep. Recovery process wasn't too bad - all I did was sit on the couch and watch TV all day and night. I barely did anything - I should have done my homework, but I didn't want to :-) Sunday, which was Easter, my dad took the tape off and the stitches were dissolved already. It's looking good - no problems so far. I just hope I don't get another infection - seems like I am risk because I had two before.

Being at school is a different thing. i had to go back the Monday after Easter. I felt exhausted at the end of the day - class, going to the bank, food shopping. That was more tiring than I expected. Tuesday (yesterday) was even worse. I had to sit at work for an hour and then I had a two hour break until class. There wasn't much for me to do. I was tired already and I hadn't done much. I finally went to two classes and I felt like I was already done for the day. I wanted to go to sleep and be able to sleep all night long. Instead, I went to my boyfriend's apartment so I could study for the midterm. I studied for a bit, but I found myself dozing off so I went to take a nap for about an hour. When I woke up, I still didn't feel refreshed enough, so I sat there, watching TV until I was ready to drive back to my apartment. When I got home, it was straight to bed and I passed out fast.

(Cartoon from google images)

Not so easy sleeping, by the way. I have to stay on the right side of my head, just like this guy in the picture! I'm so stiff from staying on that side. Haha, but I can't wait until I can sleep on the left side of my head. My body will feel so much better after :-)

Today, Wednesday, wasn't too bad. I'm still tired, but it seems like my body is starting to realize that I'm doing the best I can without interfering with the recovery. Right now, the area where the incision was made is still swollen - it will be a while before it gets smaller, but as long as it doesn't get bigger or tender, then I should be okay. All I'm doing is waiting for my appointment for mapping, then I can get more excited about this cochlear implant. It will be a huge change - there will be more sounds. Things will be more clear. Hopefully, talking with people I just met will be easier to do. And the best thing I look forward to is being able to talk to my family on the phone with ease.

That's all for now. I hope you have enjoyed reading my blog so far!