I'm a greedy little audiophile.

My fourth mapping was yesterday and I have "Advanced." I dig this snazzy music program over my base program. I love the wider dynamic range and voices sound pretty. Voices jump out at me in noise, in the car, in quiet, you get the idea. Oh, music sounds pretty good too. :) I’m very greedy as far as sounds go. I like it and want it all and I want it now! In the beginning, my audi stuck me in the booth did a tone, sentence and word test. I scored 44% on my sentences compared to 0% pre-activation. The word tests, lets just say I need some work LOL, 8% :) but compare that 0% pre activation, it is a leaps and bounds. She said that they don't normally run tests until 3 months after activation. Regardless, I'm ecstatic with the results! From just two weeks ago, there is already an improvement!

Pink represents the tone test I just had done yesterday.
Red represents my left ear prior to being implanted.
Blue represents my right ear without my hearing aid.
Green represent normal hearing

Since I liked the IDR of 80 and the music program, she tweaked the music program and added higher frequencies to it to become my base program. Now paper and plastic are back to being loud again :) She went through some sentences covering her mouth and I got every single one with the high frequency emphasis. She lowered the volume to 306 to eliminate the twitch. At my last mapping, she went through each electrode raising the volume to see if it was one electrode, not the case. The conclusion is that it might be a combination of electrodes that are giving me the 'oh so sexy spastic eye look'. I did the math the combinations are endless. She programmed the CI along with my hearing aid in to see if I need the volume in my left ear and so far, it is working out well. If I take either the CI or the HA off, everything sounds soft. Perhaps my brain is getting use to having two ears again. Next time I go and see her is when an Advanced Bionic audiologist will be present which is going to be within the next two-three weeks. Once I find out when the audiologist is available, I will let you all know.

Overall, this nifty little gadget impresses me every single day. This weekend I was cleaning out the shed and then I heard two DISTINCT MALE voices or two baritone females, you never know. Lo and behold, there were two men hanging out on the roof of my neighbor's house that is a good 80 feet away. Before I couldn't hear anything that was 8 feet away much less 80 feet.

On the way home armed with a new map, I wanted to stop by a mall that is close to the hospital. Since someone neglected to grab the GPS at home and I had no idea how to get there from Philadelphia. Hell I didn't even know how to get there from Jersey. Thanks to the trusty GPS technology installed on my phone, it guided me right to the front entrance of the mall. From there I entered the golden palace of make-up otherwise known as Sephora. I am walking around practically convulsing with excitement at all the different products, I hear behind me, "May I help you look for something?" I felt like I had an Elvis moment because my eyebrow must have went up in a permanent state of perpetual surprise. I turned around and there was a very happy Sephora employee smiling waiting to assist me. It is so much easier to shop without purposely avoiding communication with anyone.

Signing off as the greedy audiophile.