A funny thing happened last night. I was doing laundry. I leaned over to pick up a pile of dirty clothes from the floor next to my dryer, and suddenly everything went completely quiet. I looked up, and my entire cochlear implant was hanging by the magnetic headpiece on the side of the dryer! I didn’t see that coming! Obviously, it was the external parts, but it was quite the sight! I hadn’t really thought about anything like that happening, but I guess I will need to watch how close I get to metal things! Crazy! It was good for a laugh!

I have made my decisions about which accessories to keep. I will keep the smaller battery as my third option. I like wearing the smaller ones better than the larger one enough to be willing to change it at the end of the day if needed. If I know I have a particularly long day, I will opt for the large one, but those days don’t happen too often. I am also going to keep my T-Comm Mic. It will give me the most flexibility with my Neptune and would be more expensive to add later than the cost of replacing a universal headpiece if I need it one day. I honestly was thinking that I am careful enough with my things that it is not too likely that I will need to replace it until it just wears out, but I have to say that after the dryer incident, there could be circumstances that would break it that I have not yet learned to anticipate!

My next audiology appointment is tomorrow. I am not sure exactly what we will do. I’m sure there will be more fine tuning. There may be more testing with sounds or word recognition. I will make sure that I fully understand how to use my Neptune processor since I will likely wear it on my trip next week. I wore it around the house one day and the waterproof headpiece is a bit heavier (it has a microphone in it, unlike the universal headpiece and has waterproof material protecting it). It fell off at one point. I think I will need to add an additional magnet to make sure it holds. I am a little bit concerned about the idea of using it for the first time in the water in the ocean. If the processor falls off for some reason, it could be lost for good. It will be clipped to my bathing suit strap pretty firmly, so that shouldn’t happen, but I may ask what my audiologist thinks about that. I won’t have time to try it out in a pool. Also, I think my dive mask strap goes over the spot where the headpiece goes. I will need to find out if I can put the strap over that part or not. I may have to take the processor off for snorkeling, but be able to wear it on the boat.

I feel like thinks have been so busy lately that I haven’t really spent much time contemplating all of these recent changes in my life and what it all means. I was prepared for a difficult period of time as I transition into this new way of hearing, but it really hasn’t been all that difficult. It felt like I barely missed a beat with my lifestyle. I am hearing and understanding just as well with the implant as I was with my hearing aid before. I am very thankful for that!

I began doing some of my listening practice this weekend and it is going well. I can see that it will be tiring, but productive. It is a new thing for me to rely on hearing again rather than primarily on visual clues along with fairly unclear sound. How exciting! At this point, I am using visual cues along with what I hear to help my brain connect the two, but I am understanding the majority of what I have done so far by sound. I am at beginning levels at this point and I suspect it will get much harder as I progress. It is exciting, though!

Thanks for continued prayers! God is good. I am thankful for my many blessings and the prayers, encouragement, kindness and patience from all of you!