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Black is the new… black

24 February, 2016 by Vicki 2 Comments

2 black speech processors on a black background

Peer closely and you will see my new Sonnet speech processors.

After seven and a half years with bilateral cochlear implants, I have finally upgraded my original speech processors. I am now the proud new owner of two sexy matte black Sonnets, by Med-El.

Black, it would appear, is the new black.

It is remarkable, really, that the previous pair lasted as long as they did. It’s true I took very good care of them (at A$12,500 each, it was no doubt wise to do so) but it’s also true the plastic was getting brittle and they were literally falling apart.

Still, they had a pretty good innings. They didn’t even die while we were living in our mouldy rainforest home! And thank heavens for that, as I didn’t have access to an audiologist who dealt with cochlear implants up in Far North Queensland.

My health fund unfortunately didn’t automatically agree to pay for the upgrade. (Apparently only Medibank Private does, and HBF doesn’t cover them at all. The other funds appear to vary in the degree of difficulty of approval.) There were a few hoops to jump through and the process took about 7 months altogether. I can’t pretend I didn’t feel I was bashing my head against a brick wall for much of that time but really, I’m just grateful that the day finally arrived when I received an email from the Lions Hearing Clinic telling me the money was in their bank account. I could now come in and be fitted with the sparkly new speech processors that had been ordered and delivered months beforehand.

When I walked into my audiologist’s room, she had already started to unpack one of the boxes containing the speech processors and accessories, and had ripped open some of the small boxes containing the accessories too. I felt like a disappointed child, not allowed to unwrap my own presents! So when it was time to open the box for the second speech processor, I stopped her before she got stuck into it, and snapped a photo while it was still sitting on her lap.

Shallow rectangular cardboard box containing an number of smaller boxes with Med-El branding

Brand spanking new cardboard boxes, er, I mean, speech processors.

It’s a far cry from the fancy aluminium cases my first two came in! But that was, admittedly, pretty wasteful. This is too, really, in a different way, and has much more packaging overall from what I can remember. (I do still have those old cases — they are far too good to throw out — but wouldn’t know where to find them.)

On this visit, my audiologist mainly copied over the settings from the old speech processors to the new ones, which didn’t take long at all. I have a follow-up appointment booked in early March for any fine tuning that might be needed after I’ve used them “in the wild” for a few weeks.

The most amazing thing

I’ve found by now that there are indeed a couple of annoyances, and will see if those can be eliminated at the follow-up visit. The main benefit, however, has been an absolutely remarkable one to me. The Sonnets are far more moisture-resistant than the Opus 2s, which makes a very practical and quite astounding difference to the quality of my life.

It might seem a small thing on the surface, and of course I realise it’s minor in the scheme of things, but I don’t actually remember the last time I was able to hear while taking a shower, or directly after washing my hair.

You see, when my speech processors are out, I am totally deaf. I have zero hearing. Not even the faintest sounds — just total silence. So, in the past, I would take off my speech processors (or, before that, hearing aids) to shower, then put them on again afterwards. If I washed my hair, I had to either blow-dry my hair straight away so I could put my “ears” back on again, or be totally without hearing for the hours it takes my thick, below-shoulder length hair to dry.

Likewise, at the beach, I’d take my “ears” off and, most times, keep my head above water so as to avoid getting my hair wet. Wet hair means no hearing until it’s dry again, which in turn means I am not only in silence while actually in the water, but also while packing up and walking back to the car, then during the car journey home, in the shower once home, and until my hair had been blow-dried and I could put my “ears” back on again.

I’m sure you can appreciate that not being able to communicate for significant chunks of time is somewhat less than ideal.

When out diving, I’d have to bring a hair dryer if I wanted to be able to hear at all between or after dives. I was on the receiving end of some strange looks and incredulous comments, I can tell you!

It was inconvenient, but that’s how it was and for more years than I can count, I lived with it. As you do, when there’s no other option.

Now, I can wear my speech processors in the shower and in the water at the beach, as long as I don’t get my head wet. If I do, well, I still have to take the speech processors off, but the difference is that a quick towel dry later, I can pop them back on again. I haven’t been diving since the upgrade, but the same thing will apply — a quick towel dry and I’ll be able to hear. No more worrying about whether or not a boat will have power for a hairdryer, and no more feeling quite so like a freak.

Being deaf is extremely isolating. This seemingly little thing is actually huge to me.

As a bonus, when I let my hair dry naturally it’s curlier, more bouncy, and feels softer and just generally more pleasant. It still feels like a real luxury to be able to do this again.

Still waiting…

The Sonnets actually have reusable covers that are waterproof, but for some reason they’re not yet available in Australia, even though they appear to be elsewhere. I’m looking forward to them becoming available here, as then I could actually go swimming wearing the speech processors. That would be amazing. It’s hard to imagine being able to put my head underwater, come up again and be able to hear if someone spoke to me.

Nope. Can’t imagine it.

Another feature that hearing aids and other cochlear implants have had since I got my original speech processors is bluetooth capability. The Sonnets do have it built in, but for some reason beyond my comprehension the facility for this is also not available in Australia yet. This means that I have to physically change the battery covers and plug cables in to connect my speech processors to a computer or device if I want to listen to music, or a podcast, or anything else with audio. This is not exactly convenient, especially as when I’m “plugged in” I can’t hear other sounds, so if someone speaks to me it is not a matter of simply hitting “pause” — I have to change the battery covers back again first.

Rechargeable batteries are yet another accessory that is available elsewhere but not here. It’s good that the Sonnet takes only two batteries instead of the three my previous speech processors took — and they last just as long before they need to be changed. Still, they require replacing every two days, and even though I’ve now reduced battery usage from six every two days down to four, it does gets expensive and means a lot of poisonous waste in the environment that has to somehow be dealt with.

Catching up

A bonus of my new Sonnet speech processors is the Dry-Star electronic drying station that came in the box. Each night, the speech processors must be given the opportunity to dry out to prolong their life. If we’d still been in our rainforest on solar power I might think differently about the power usage but, as it is, it’s much more effective than before. Instead of a little screw-top plastic container with disposable silicon-filled tablets, I have this.

The drying station is a white plastic container with small vent holes in the top that light up blue, and a glowing blue button at the front

Dry-Star UV electronic drying station.

I believe that in later years the Opus 2 processors have come with an electronic drying device, but “back in my day” it was just the small plastic tub I’ve had all these years.

I do like getting new toys!

So there we have it — and hopefully my new, sexy black Sonnets will be as good to me as my original speech processors have been.

Filed Under: Cochlear Implants Tagged With: cochlear implant, cochlear implants, med-el, sonnet, speech processors

Clink!

23 September, 2008 by Vicki

It’s time to celebrate!

On Tuesday, 30th September, 2008, I start a new job.

This is really exciting for me as it’s a significant career move, in terms of both career advancement and finances, so naturally I’m pretty happy about it.

I had thought I would be with my employer of the last 12 months somewhat longer — but circumstances conspired to give me reason to hasten my departure, and I landed the new job within days. The way it all fell together was so neat, it had to be right — though I did joke at one point that I thought it would never happen because if it did, it would be too neat!

The new job is an IT Manager role at a private RTO (Registered Training Organisation) which is growing rapidly, and it will be exciting and challenging to set up and manage their IT, web and eLearning strategies, systems and processes.

The company is based in Bunbury so I expect to spend a fair bit of time down there, at least at first. But my own job will be based in East Perth, just one very short block from the river and The Cove — I love that area and will be in heaven after the dull, miles-from-anywhere-nice location of my previous job.

The one downside is that leaving my old job when I did meant I could no longer attend the Web Directions South conference, and the tweets from attendees so far this week have been a tinsy bit painful for me. Ah well.

A brief cochlear implant update

There isn’t a lot to report regarding my cochlear implants. Vists to the audiologist have reduced in frequency though I did have a check-up with the surgeon who — lovely man that he is — was really happy for me that everything was going well. He arranged for me to go back one year post-op and said, “I may not see much of you but believe me, we talk about you a lot in our meetings!”

Life goes on!

Filed Under: Cochlear Implants, Life Tagged With: cochlear implant

Cochlear Implant Assessment

2 September, 2007 by Vicki

I think it most apt to start a new personal blog with the momentous news that, after submitting to nearly two hours of a cochlear implant assessment a few days ago, I am (from an audiological perspective, anyway) suitable for a cochlear implant.

I was pretty nervous before the appointment, because although I’d tried not to get my hopes up too much, my audiologist had told me a cochlear implant was the only thing that was going to get my speech frequencies back. If they told me I was not suitable, there were no other options and I’d actually have to accept that I was going to be a social outcast forever. (Yeah I know that sounds dramatic but that’s what it feels like. It’s not that other people are casting me out, it’s that my hearing prevents me from being drawn in because I can’t hold a conversation in most situations.)

The cochlear implant assessment

My parents kindly wanted to offer their support and they drove me to Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital (SCGH) where the assessment was to take place at the Ear Science Institute Australia and Lyons Hearing Clinic and where the surgeon also has his rooms. We were told the assessment would take about an hour and a half so Mum and Dad disappeared to do… whatever… while they waited.

An audiologist conducted the assessment and she was just gorgeous and really put me at ease. Isn’t it fantastic to meet someone whose job is to help people and who clearly loves their job and takes it really seriously? (Don’t ask me about the man I had the misfortune to deal with at Centrelink last week! Now that was a demeaning experience.)

The audiologist asked some preliminary questions related to my hearing history. I hadn’t received my information pack in the mail, which apparently included some forms for me to fill out and send back, so she was really starting from scratch. Then we did a series of hearing tests, with and without hearing aids, including the standard “beep” type of test and also some speech recognition tests.

Basically, she learned what I already knew: I am deaf, and I am good at guessing what people are saying!

And the short story is that she thinks a cochlear implant would really help me.

She explained that I will never have normal hearing, but after the implants I should be able to cope quite well. When she said that the implants are designed to improve hearing in the speech frequencies, which means that music will never sound good to me, I confess to experiencing a certain degree of disappointment. I have always loved music and it has frustrated me that most music just sounds like noise to me and I can’t make out a tune, let alone hear the words — and it saddens me that I can no longer hear myself play the violin. But definitely, communication is the main thing, and if I can hear enough to know that my violin is in tune, even that will be a huge improvement. :-)

The audiologist showed me the two brands of cochlear implants that are used in Australia. Primarily due to strict standards in this country, only two are allowed. There is the Australian brand, Cochlear, and the Swiss brand, Med-El. For both brands, the speech processor (the bit that fits behind the ear like a hearing aid without a mould) is huge compared to a standard hearing aid. The Med-El speech processer was significantly more slimline, however my understanding is that each brand has its own programming advantages, and anyway Cochlear may have a new design by the time I get my implants, so it’s a very individual thing to be decided closer to the time.

It was really good to be able to see exactly what the implant looks like and to have everything explained to me. I came away from the assessment feeling both relieved and reassured. The knowledge that I was suitable, together with increased knowledge about the implant itself, was a big weight off my mind.

It’s All Good™

I still have to see the specialist, who is apparently the cochlear implant “person” in Western Australia — Dr Marcus Atlas — and make sure there are no medical reasons why I shouldn’t have the implant, and gain his approval (obviously!) but the outlook is positive. Yay!

And the icing on the cake was that Mum and Dad then took me out to lunch at Walk Cafe in Subiaco. There, I consumed a huge plate of yummy food (a very different kind of bruschetta, with pumpkin and marinated capsicum and other interesting stuff — and a ginormous side serving of salad) and a glass of red wine. Who could ask for more?

Filed Under: Cochlear Implants Tagged With: cochlear implant

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