A new sound map and an afternoon of tests

Days since activation of implant: 7

New sounds: Perfume squirting, prfft

Good job I had requested annual leave for this morning (before my 2nd mapping appointment) as I woke up to see Dear Son off to school then promptly fell asleep for another two hours - all the extra brain activity is wearing me out. Still feeling rather 'winded' after yesterday, even Hubby noticed that I seem to have gone backwards...

Anyway, it was quite a relief to go back to Glan Clywd as it feels kinda safe there; with people who make me feel normal and accepted.

My first appointment was with Elaine the hearing therapist who did some tests on my consonant recognition. Consonant recognition is more difficult than vowel recognition as they often don't have a 'sound' associated with them (practice saying 'a' - ahhh, then saying 'p' - puh).
I pleased to say I did well. Elaine said that I am continuing to make her job easier as I don't really need any rehab from her, just to go about my normal day to day stuff and let the sounds sink in.

After a short break (yes, the sessions include breaks as they are pretty exhausting), I met with Dr. Marie who did some speech recognition tests, to check my progress at week one. The speech tests involve listening to a round of 25 sentences, first with just the implant, then both hearing aid and implant together. This is then followed by individual word discrimination. The sentences are really random, so you can't guess as them, things like: the girl argues with her sister and the strawberry jam is very sweet.

My scores:

Pre-implant, left ear (which is now implanted ear) - 49% on sentence recognition

Post-implant, left side - 77% on sentence recognition

Post implant, using both implant and hearing aid - 85% on sentence recognition

Pre-implant, left ear - 0% on individual word recognition

Post-implant, left side - 27% on individual word recognition

All in all this is really outstanding after just a week! I was so pleased so get such good results as it feels like I'm giving something back to those who have invested their time and energy in me. Dr. Marie was also kind enough to say how everyone has enjoyed working with me as I try so hard and am good at following the rather extensive instructions!

Dr. Marie also did another sound map with me, checking my thresholds and the like - so in effect it's like my brain has been given a new road map to follow, just when it was beginning to find it's way with the old one (well it should make for an interesting bout of tinnitus later).