My Life in Six Words

I've been tagged by Jim for a "My Life in Six Words" meme.

What is a meme? A meme is basically in two ways:
1. Meme--pronounced 'mem', a memory
2. Meme--rhymes with 'theme', a theme where I am tagged to answer questions about 'me' or myself...

Here's my 6 words:

Everyday of my life is precious.

I tag the following people to do the "meme". :)

Valarie
Jennifer
Alex
David

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Proverbial Needle in a Haystack

As usual, the weatherman was right on target with predicting the weather – completely wrong. The northeast corridor of the United States was expecting a torrential downpour starting Saturday night, which didn’t happen. I thought that I would put the day to good use since I have procrastinated far too long with cleaning up the yard. I have way too many trees surrounding my house that I wish to acknowledge and every year they shower my front yard with useless foliage. Each year I bag up damn near sixty bags of leaves that clutter my sidewalk for weeks waiting for the township waste management experts to come and scoop them up. I came up with an idea of loading my friend’s truck up with rotting leaves and relocating them to the dump ourselves. Brilliant, I know.

And that is exactly what I did! The entire operation couldn’t have gone any smoother. We raked the leaves into a huge pile and chucked them into the bed of the truck. We attached a tarp to the top of the bed and off we went to the dump. We just made it there with ten minutes to spare. However, I completely forgot to bring the rake to pull the leaves out of the truck so I used my legs. In just under ten minutes, we had a clean truck, a neatly folded tarp and growling tummies. We decided to go out for lunch but I wanted to grab a quick shower to avoid walking into any respectable dining establishment smelling like leaf mold and garbage.

About an hour later, I climbed back into my friend’s truck smelling nice and a passing thought of where were my keys came in my head.. I checked my purse with no luck. I jump out of the truck to go hunt down my sweatshirt to find that there was nothing there. I ripped my house apart from end to end. It seemed as that they have mysteriously disappeared.

I began to retrace my steps. Vivid images of memories that were created no less then an hour ago flashed before my very eyes. I watched myself put my keys in my New York Yankee sweatshirt before I started raking. I remember hearing them clank together as I was putting the tarp on. I watched myself move my arm across my stomach that brushed up against the keys on–the–way–to–the–dump. Oh dear god!

I don’t know what came first, the sinking feeling in my stomach or the sheer wave of stupidity. We decided to go back to the dump and with some slight glimmer of hope that they were still open. They close at three and it was now four o’clock but you think that stopped me, absolutely not! All of my keys are on this key ring; car keys, house keys, mailbox keys, work keys – every single key I own is laying somewhere at the township dump – a massive wasteland the size of a small smelly island. I remind my friend not to forget the rake – says the-girl-that-lost-her-keys-in-a-mountain-of leaves-at-the-township-dump.

Ten minutes later, we pull up to the dump that conveniently was closed and gated. I’m staring at the complexity of the metal that was barring us from executing a much needed search and seizure. I thought aloud, “What the hell, I’ll jump the fence.” My friend obviously thought my magnet was on just a touch too tight. Just when I thought my fence hopping days were over, here I go hopping another one. Once I came down from the adrenaline rush, I glanced over just in time to see my friend walk through the fence. I started walking over with a puzzled look on how she just did that. She shouts, “There an opening here!” As I neared, I saw a gap in the gate wide enough to fit a couple people through. “How clever is that.” I said under my breath. “Is this trespassing?” my friend asked. I nodded affirmatively. As we walked over to the designated area, we occasionally glanced up to smile for the security cameras.

As we approached the mountain of leaves, I was hoping that the bulldozer didn’t come and tidy up the area but no such luck. My friend and I stood elbow to elbow scanning over the sheer size of the pile of leaves.

I whimpered.

Notice the height of the Garbage trucks to the leaves.

She sighed.

We sure as hell weren’t there for the ambiance so we got started raking the leaves. We scraped thin layers of leaves off with the hope that my keys will miraculously appear. This got old quickly because I started raking like a mad woman and it had started to rain. We discovered some sticks that we raked up but it was a long shot since I live in a town where the population is 86,000, it could have been any ones sticks in that pile. Fifteen minutes later, a crazy thought of using the magnet on my cochlear implant to draw the keys out popped in my head. I quickly dismissed that idea just as another one popped in my head, a metal detector! We mutually agreed that we were better off getting a metal detector; it would have paid for itself if it found the keys. We packed it up and went back to the truck where I was half expecting the entire police force outside with guns drawn at two women brandishing rakes. Much to our relief, no one was there.

With my friend behind the wheel, we were now en route to the local Radio Shack! On the way there, we were shooting the breeze but all of the sudden she tensed up and closed her eyes as if she was about to get hit by another car. I braced up as I quickly looked over to see a flock of pigeons about to broadside us. They narrowly and when I mean narrowly missed us, I mean narrowly missed us. We laughed like giddy little girls at the irony of being broadsided by pigeons on the way to Radio Shack to get a metal detector to find my keys in a mountain of leaves at the township dump. This type of thing happens all the time.

I’m no stranger to Radio Shack since I worked there at one point of my life. I walked in and proceeded to walk right to the metal detector section. There was nothing there and I started acting like a mad woman who just got her period running through the store looking for tampons. A store associate finally came around to ask if he could help me. I tell him I am looking for a metal detector and his response was, “We don’t have any in stock.” My inner voice shrieks, “are you kidding me?!” I clamped my jaw together and asked if he could find a store that does have one in stock. He tried selling me this idea that he could have one by Monday. I shook my head no and told him I needed it by tomorrow, no later. The dump was closed tomorrow and it was my only chance to find my keys before they meet their untimely demise Monday morning. He found a couple of stores within a 45-minute drive that had one in stock. We left with the list in hand and the unfortunate news that the closest store was closing in five minutes.

I wasn’t too keen on driving forty five minutes so I decided to call all the local stores; Circuit City, Best Buy, Sears, Target, Costco, Wal-Mart, Modell’s, Sports Authority and none of them carried metal detectors. I don’t get it, metal detectors were all the rave one time and now, no one carries them! We decided to head home for the night until I get a phone call from my mom telling me that Bob Kislin’s store has metal detectors in stock. We turned around and zoomed right there.

I aimlessly walked around the Bob Kislin’s store until I found the aisle harboring the metal detectors. I eagerly approached the boxes when the bright orange price sticker caught my eye– $999. I gulped and walked towards a guy behind the counter that was feverishly cleaning a Smith & Wesson. I put on my best face and giggled nervously as I said, “Is there a more affordable metal detector in stock because I am not trying to find pieces of the Titanic here? Heh-heh.” He pointed towards the floor. I thanked him as I jogged to the aisle and looked at the price sticker on the next box – $499. I walked out, went right home and sulked.

The next morning, I become an educated consumer of metal detectors while I was waiting for Radio Shack to open. I researched the brand that was sitting in store just waiting to come home to momma! Everything looked good until I got to the section that read: Maximum Detection Depth: 6”. I forecasted that it was going to be a long day if that all it could do, six measly inches.

My friend brought the metal detector since she always wanted one and we headed back to the scene. We trespassed once again. I reminded her it was only a misdemeanor. We didn’t have time to smile for the security cameras, we just went right to the mountain of leaves. We conducted some tests involving a soda can with leaves on top of it to get an idea of what the depth was. To my surprise, it was much more then six inches. :)

So here we are, on a beautiful Sunday afternoon, raking and sweeping the leaves at the local dump. At one point, I thought I needed grappling hooks but we uncovered a section where the sticks looked oddly familiar. We swept over the entire area until we hit this one spot up against the concrete wall. It emitted a beep. My heart jumped. I swept again and it emitted another beep. I held my breath because there was something righteous fermenting in the garbage truck right behind us. I took the rake and gently scraped the area where it was beeping. I saw one of my white grocery store tags peek out from behind a leaf. I scrambled ten feet up this mountain and grabbed what was my keys!



I can’t believe I found the proverbial needle in a haystack.

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Auditory High of Activation

Reminiscing over the past seven and half months, I realized how wet I was behind the ears as I was learning how to hear with a cochlear implant. Now still in reminiscent mode, I find it hysterical but I did not then. When this super uber technology was turned on into my dormant yet primitive ear, I realized that six trillion months of researching wouldn’t have helped in preparing me for activation.

Sure, I read all the technical details of a cochlear implant!

Sure, I read the software manual that maps my implant!

Sure, I talked to hundreds of people that went through the same thing!

I thought I had an idea of what was to come but – woo-wee my brain had other plans. I was downright disappointed when the audiologist flipped the switch. I had an archive of every single email, forum message, conversation, IM messages that was relative to activation stored in my noggin and none of it made sense. Right off the bat, I couldn’t believe how loud I sounded but realistically I was talking as soft as a mouse. Everything that I wanted to hear – I couldn’t, like cars or a helicopter so close that I could count the rivets. On the other end of the frequency spectrum, what I never heard was coming through in monumental volumes, blinkers, forks against the plate and paper! I quickly found how paper, a material made from pulp dictated my life for the next month. It was interesting that I was super sensitive to the silliest sounds. I could not understand the distinction between a twang and a pop or a hiss and a tick but I was hearing – something. Something was better then hearing nothing at all but I was enjoying the magic carpet ride of digitalized auditory stimulation.

When I went back for my second mapping, I decided that I wanted to pump up the volume! After many warning, my audiologist reluctantly obliged to my wishes. She wanted me to take it easy in the beginning. I had this whole philosophy laid out to justify why I wanted that volume cranked up, I had some hearing time to make up for since I just spent the past six months and 26 days deaf as a doorknob. It was pointless trying to talk some sense into me. If you remember the teacher from Charlie Brown with her incessant droning of, “Wah wah wah”, this is what my audiologist sounded like to me, literally and figuratively. Now I love her but it was just the fact that it was my ear. She pumped up the volume, fiddled with some settings and shipped me off on my merry little way to experience a wider range of sounds. Once again, I became super sensitive to sounds I didn’t hear the week before but everything was loud. It tickled me immensely that everything was amplified with depth and richness. Nothing sounded like my hearing aid used to but I was hanging sixteen on the super galactic auditory wave in an ocean of noise!

By the time I got back to my third mapping, I was really hungry for sound. I am sure my audiologist thought my magnet was on a little tight but I wanted her to crank it up. I wanted to hear everything and I wanted it amplified in amazing volumes! Since I read the manual that maps my processor, I read this little definition of what an IDR:

Input Dynamic Range (IDR) defines the amount of acoustic input that is mapped into the patient’s electrical dynamic range. IDR determines the intensity range (width) captured by the processor for input signals. The HiResolution Bionic Ear System has the capability to capture a very wide IDR of up to 80 dB. The default setting is 60 dB.

In laymen terms, it means that if you have a low IDR the window of sound around you is smaller and it compresses loud sounds more. If you have a higher IDR, the window of sound is a little big bigger and it won’t compress loud sounds as much as a lower IDR will. Anyway, all I saw was the word wide and the fact that it didn’t have anything to do with the width of my rear end, I wanted it. My audiologist warned me again but obliged to my incredibly inexperienced suggestion. As long as I knew that I had all the auditory input available downloaded into my processor, I was happy as a clam. The super hearing wave started to lose its gusto this mapping. Noises that were once so prominent started to fade into the background similar to how a hearing person tunes out sounds. This time, it wasn’t that booming loud sound that I loved so much before. As time went on, it was almost as though the collaboration of sounds started to equalize in my head. My brain was catching up with the new way of hearing. It reorganized the neural pathways to make sense that a click of the keyboard had an extra frequency, women have an extra resonance of high frequencies to their voice and that leaves tinker as they rustle in the wind. This was about the time I was coming down off the auditory high and start teaching my brain how to recognize speech and sounds.

My overly hasty goal of hearing everything that the world was capable of culminating led me to experience foreign sounds and sensations. I am a long-term hearing aid user and I have become accustomed having 80dB of sound being pumped into my ear for twenty some odd years. It is safe to say that I associate my hearing with amplification and nothing else. My wise wisdom for today: throw out that theory out the window when it comes to hearing with a CI – raising the volume on a cochlear implant is not the same thing as hearing aid. It is like comparing apples to oranges, Nordstrom’s to Wal-Mart and a BMW to a Ford Taurus. Some people that are conservative with how loud the volume is but not me, I was a greedy little audiophile and I paid for it.

Well, the auditory high turned into an auditory nightmare and I have no one to blame but I. I developed a multitude of minor issues such as eye twitching, sensitivity to high frequency sounds, white noise, static, and distortion. I’m usually the last to admit my shortcomings but I should have listened to my audiologist right from the start. I walked into my last mapping with my tail between my legs and I let her do whatever she wanted. I was desperate for some clarity. She changed the IDR from 80 back down to 60, which erased the white noise and allowed clarity to come through. The lesson I learned, more is not always better. In comparison between the two IDR’s, I am not missing anything but I am gaining clarity and comprehension. The eye twitching was eliminated by changing speech strategies from HiRes-P to HiRe-S and widen the pulse width significantly. Twitch free for me! Men’s voices were resolved with some gains in the lower spectrum. Finally yet most importantly, she lowered the volume. :)

So after all that I have experienced, I would think it is safe to say I have learned my lesson. After months of auditory rehab, some fine-tuning and finally giving in and letting my audiologist take control – I am very happy with the outcome. This map has been the best map so far. My hearing has gotten better then last month and last month, it was better then the previous month. Just think, if I listened to her in the first place I would not be sitting here sharing this with you. :)

My advice to all you newly activated implantee’s – Throw away what you think you know and listen to what you haven’t heard.

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Download my HLAA Magazine Article.

As I mentioned here, I have written an article for the May/June issue of the Hearing Loss Magazine which is now available to download! You can click on the picture to go to Cindy Dyer's blog to download the PDF file. This is my first published article and I am so excited to share this with you all! I can't wait to hear your thoughts!

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New Website Layout!

Do you ever get the sudden urge to revamp a room? I have painted my living room at least five times since I have been living here. It is sad, but I lost count. With the way the economy is going right now, I decided to hold on to my piggy bank and revamp my blog instead. A much cheaper alternative. :)

Besides, it was brought to my attention that several of my readers had a hard time reading with the black background and I want absolutely no one left out of my rants and ravings. Since I am a little mini web-mistress, I decided to reap the benefits of my skills and cook up something that was a little more user-friendly. While I was doing this, I did some research to see what I can do to make my blog blind accessible. From what I learned, the main content should be on the left because the screen readers are on the right. I tried finding suggestions for color schemes and the answers I got were vague. I would appreciate any suggestions on what I can do to make this more accessible..

I don't bite. Really, I don't!

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Calling all my bionic buddies!

Rally around the table, everyone!

If you all would go over to Brianna's Journey, Brianna's mom created this blog because Brianna is having bilateral cochlear implant surgery this coming Tuesday and she needs support, especially from moms that have been there. Would you mind popping over there and dropping a few words of wisdom? I would really totally appreciate it!

Christian over at Live*Laugh*Love just had his first cochlear implant surgery this past Monday and the lil cutie patootie come through with flying colors! He has that kind of face that just melts your heart. He is going to be breaking hearts when he gets older, I can see it already! His activation is slated for May 27th!

David over at Life in a Cone Of Silence had his surgery on April 8th and he set for activation on May 1st! The resilience of this man, unbelievable. Whatever cards he is dealt he shuffles them right out.

*Inhales*

I love the smell of activations in the air, it brings back memories. :)

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My Hearing History

This post is going to right back to the beginning of time – my time at least. I am going to answer the ever-popular question about my hearing history. It has come to my attention that I have been vague about my hearing loss history and that is going to be cleared up... right now!

*slaps hand on desk* :)

My little hearing biography starts in the womb.

• My mother was hospitalized with pneumonia during her first trimester and was given antibiotics. I have no clue what kind of antibiotics they were.
• When I was a year old, I contracted E Coli, which brought on 106-degree fever. I was hospitalized for three weeks. My mom does not remember me babbling much the first year.
• When I was two years old, I became sick with a high fever. I was hospitalized, yet again, and diagnosed with Anemia. I required two blood transfusions and a three week stay at the lovely Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. This is the year that I started talking and have not shut up since.
• When I was three years old, somebody gave me the year off because nothing major happened. :)
• When I was four years old, my grandfather had a hearing loss caused by old age and everyone would talk loud, but when he passed away my parents started talking normally. I kept turning the TV up louder and louder. I kept coming down with reoccurring tonsillitis and ear infections but that is not all, my hearing loss was finally detected and I was fitted with a pair of Widex analog hearing aids. In addition to my parents being told I had a hearing loss, they were also told I was mentally retarded. Nice, right? My parents sought a second opinion and it was confirmed that a hearing loss was my only problem. At this age, I was able to equate my hearing loss with my grandfather passing away by saying “my ears died a little like pop-pop.” After that, hospitals and dying was one and the same for me.

No one had any idea what caused my loss because it could have been half a dozen things and one of the other. A psychic did tell me that she felt I was born with a loss (and I didn't utter a word nor did I ask anything about my hearing loss.)

• When I was five years old, I was hospitalized and had my tonsils removed. I was surprised when I woke up that I still had that hangy ball thing in the back of the throat.

Audiogram: 5 yrs old showing moderate sloping to severe hearing loss.

• I managed to stay relatively healthy for the next couple of years; it must have been all those green vegetables. When I was ten or eleven years old, I stopped wearing a hearing aid in my left ear because it sounded like I was under water and Darth Vader was talking to me.This is the year that tinnitus started but it lessened as the years went on.
• When I was 16 or 17, I went through DVR and managed to squeeze a Siemens digital hearing aid out of them. It was an improvement but it broke down a lot. There was no significant change to my hearing but to my know it all attitude was a different story. :)
• Around 21-22 years old, I started to experience these episodes of tinnitus or whatever the heck it was. It would sound like everything was underwater. At first, I would go to sleep with an episode and wake up fine. As the years went on, the tinnitus episodes started increasing in frequency and lasting longer.

Audiogram: 17 yrs old showing severe to profound hearing loss.

• By the time I was 26, I was up to having an episode once a month for sometimes as long as two weeks.The strangest things brought them on, a strange movement on my jaw, landing hard on my feet and the cold.I stopped chewing on hard candy, attempted to walk softly (which was difficult because I am like a cow in a china shop wearing heels) and wrap myself up in dozens of scarves.Nothing worked.I abstained from coffee, tea, salt, sugar and my favorite, RED WINE. Do you have any idea how hard it was for me to abstain from drinking crushed grapes?!

Audiogram 26 yrs old with severe to profound hearing loss.

• In February 2007, I decided to have surgery to repair a deviated septum and upon waking up in the recovery room, I had tinnitus so loud that I could not hear anything. I was completely deaf. My hearing stayed that way for the next seven months. You can read about that day here.

“My ears died like pop-pop.”

Audiogram after the deviated septum Surgery

Note: This isn't the most neatest audiogram ever because it was a sloppy Audi.

• In August 27, 2007, I had surgery to receive a cochlear implant. When I woke up, the tinnitus was gone. Hallelujah! I was able to hear subtle little sensations of sound through my hearing aid like my dog barking but it was something!
• On September 17, 2007, they flipped the switch and it has been amazing ever since.

Audiogram: Pink line is five weeks post activation with the CI.

I currently wear the cochlear implant on the left side with a Siemens Triano SP hearing aid on my right. My hearing aid is programmed to the max. I cannot have the volume all the way up because I experience sharp shooting pains in my ear. I don't hear anything substantial from my HA except for noise. Why do I wear it then? It brings a sense of hearing in stereo. I can understand much more with the cochlear implant without the HA on.

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Flirting with Electricity

You might not know this but I am one of those tool belt divas. As a child, I preferred to play with my Roy Toy log cabin building set over my cabbage patch dolls any day. The process of creating or building always took precedent to whether or not Barbie was pissed off at Ken that day for not stopping and getting gas for the pink convertible.

To fuel my constructive fire was none other then my father who was once a master carpenter. He took me under his wing and taught me a few tricks of the trade that has been stored in my noggin amongst other stuff. :) Besides that, being a single woman with the power of Google at her fingertips, access to all the how-to tutorials is just a click of a button away, I have managed to stock up on some crafty knowledge over the years.

For the past couple of years my mother has complained that the fluorescent light in my bathroom emits this highly annoying buzzing sound. I never heard it so I contributed it to my mother hearing things instead of my inability to hear. :) Amazingly, when I got my cochlear implant I realized she wasn’t suffering from auditory hallucinations, the light really does buzz like a bitch.

Well, buzzy stopped working about three weeks ago. I’m not a princess by any means but I have a hard time functioning in the morning without some source of illumination. Since I am handy around the house my first thought was bulb blew. I took the old one to Home Depot and matched it up with a new one. I came home popped in it – Viola, it worked!

Three days later, it stopped working.

I kick start the process of deductive reasoning which led me to the possibility of a bad ballast (this thing that makes fluorescent light start, kind of resembles a big old bug). As it turns out, it takes just 20 minutes of your time and a quick trip to Home Depot to fix it. I was hesitant at first to replace the ballast – because it means messing with electrical wires.

Electricity + Cochlear Implant = The outcome can't be good.

The possibility of frying my mapping off the implant didn't sit well with me, actually the idea of being fried period didn't sit so well with me either . Therefore, I exercised extreme caution – I turned off the electricity off to whole house. Of course I had to do it when my mother was watching a movie that she has been waiting thirty some odd years to see. Whoops. I got down to business and dilly-dallied with the wires, a little cutting and stripping here and there. It was very simple: white-to-white, black-to-black, blue-to-blue and red to red. In the end, when I flipped the switch, it worked!

A week later, it stopped working.

I am getting tired of playing this game. I strapped my tool belt back on and waddled to Home Depot to pick up some switches and wire nuts. I decided to replace all three switches for esthetic purposes. I shut off power to the entire house again and started to rip the switches out of the wall and replace them – one by one. I screwed everything back together, turned the power back on and flipped the switch and my goodness gracious, great balls of fire I got light!!!

Now my outlet in my living room does not work :)

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