Waging War In My Head

Now that my Left CI has been active for 5 days, the triangle that I mentioned in my last post has already faded away. What's still very present in its place takes me back to my college days when I was mixing tracks for a sound design class. One of the effects I used often in post-processing things like explosions and thunder was called "CATHEDRAL". If you can imagine the way sound reverberates and lingers in a ginormous Roman cathedral, that's similar to what I hear all the time...slightly exaggerating there, but it's the closest way to explain the drawn-out sound I'm hearing.

Of course that's only on my Left side. My Right CI, active for nearly 4 months to the day, is hearing sound very much like I remember it before I went completely deaf. These massively opposing signals to my brain have quite frankly been driving me nuts. If I hear a simple "tap, tap, tap" on a desk, it's staccato on my Right and Nuclear Warheads on my left, quietly in the distance of course (is there anything "quietly" about nukes? Heck, is there anything such as "distance" from nukes?).

Ok, back on track. To think I just got done preaching "patience" and "it takes time". I'm quickly realizing the hardest part of doing one side at a time is that the 2nd time around it's very easy to expect quicker progress. I know what it can sound like and I want it to BE THERE, now. And if it's not there, it's equally easy to suspect something must be wrong....while in reality I'm likely moving at a quicker pace this time than last. It's just impossible to see the progress when my brain is getting two completely different explanations of every sound that enters my head. Here's a good one: You know that old game "Telephone", right? Where somebody whispers a story to another person and it passes down the line until you see how JUMBLED it got by the end? I feel like I'm getting the original story and the final story at the same time...ALL THE TIME. MAKE IT STOP :)

In case you're wondering why I did the surgeries separately, it was because after the surgery you have to wait around 4 weeks while the ear structure heals before they hook up the CI. I didn't want to be completely deaf for this whole period so that I could still work and (attempt to) communicate. Since my Left hearing aid still worked, albeit dreadfully at the time, I decided to do my Right 1st and then the Left.

So today I'm working on wearing the new (Left) CI by itself as much as possible. Every time I turn off the Right side it sounds SO quiet at 1st, but the longer I spend with just the Left I gradually perceive more and more sound and volume. I know my new CI will come up to speed in a seemingly short period of time, but for now, it's like "LET'S GO ALREADY".

Finally, I must share with you my favorite New-CI-Crazy-Sound-Coping-Technique. Right now, and for about another month or two, I can produce sounds that, to me, sound JUST like I'm scratching records and dropping mad-skillz beats in a techno-beat-laboratory (yeah, I said it). Beatboxing is sometimes the only thing that helps me cope with these whacked-out sounds and gets me through the day, hopefully not at the expense of my co-workers (I try to keep it down, and hey, I can hear really great with these CI's so I don't have to be loud anymore...unless I just WANT to). I can distinctively ride a hi-hat open and closed, very accurately re-create one of those "inverse" sounding drum pad effect thingys, and then cook up and drop some sandpaper-scratching-snare beats. I would demonstrate for you, but of course you just wouldn't hear it like I do. Alternatively, I leave you with this:

Again, MAD skillz. Just silly sick. There is no debate.

Packing up and heading to San Diego for my first vacation on CI's...I hear it's sunny there this time of year, and, well, every time of year. Look for an update on my adventures to follow.