Hey all,

My right hearing aid started turning itself off today. I am ready to through these stupid things out a window. They are fine for two weeks or so then BAM! They start turning off, or turning on and off, or having what I would describe as a hearing aid seizure. I emailed my audiologist today. Hopefully I will either get yet another replacement aid or an answer soon!

Some good news is that my ear infection seems to be nice and cleared up. I hope I can keep them to a minimum this summer. It will be hard to work if I can only use my aids sometimes. I really need whatever sound I can get at work since I work with kids. I need to hear crying and stuff.

Anyway, it is very late and I really need to try to get back to sleep. I crashed when I got home at 5:00 and then woke up at 11:45. Now it is 3:00am and I really need to get back to bed. I actually need to get up in the morning tomorrow!

-Jenny

And then the left aid...

Hey all,

I have been kind of bad about blogging lately. Life has been crazy!

My left aid started the on and off game. I am not sure if I mentioned that or not already. I got a new left aid last week, and now for the first time in months have to functioning aids. I am so relieved to have that problem solved. I can now get down to perfecting the sound. I still can't understand speech, but I don't know if I am capable of understanding speech anymore. I don't think I have ever posted my audiogram on here. Here it is:

Freq. R L
250Hz 90 100
500Hz 95 105
1000Hz 85 110
1500Hz 90 110
2000Hz 95 NR
3000Hz 100 NR
4000Hz NR NR
6000Hz NR NR
8000Hz NR NR

Speech Discrimination-Could Not Test at 110dB

I am pretty sure it has changed since then. I know my left ear is worse. I am going to assume my right one is too. We haven't bothered to re-test though.


In other news, last week I was leaving my apartment (I live in a basement apartment) and I was walking around the side of the house. As I got to the gate I tripped and hit my head off of the fence. The fence post hit my earmold on a perfect angle to jam it into my ear and yet not hurt the aid or earmold at all. It hurt a lot! I took out my aids and didn't use them for a day so my ear could recover from the trauma LOL. On Friday when I put my aids back on I couldn't hear anything out of my left ear and it was still incredibly tender. I let it go for the day to see if it was just my allergies. At 3:00pm I still couldn't hear with my left ear so I went to see a doctor. I couldn't see my own family doctor, but I saw another one in the practice. I was pretty sure I had ruptured my eardrum and that was why I couldn't hear. Turns out I had a completely un-related ear infection.

The doctor was very alarmed that the ear infection would cause me to have no hearing in my left ear. It wasn't a bad infection and he was very concerned. He tried to refer me to see an audiologist but I refused. He said that the little extra conductive loss that I would get from an ear infection shouldn't cause my hearing to reduce that dramatically. He knew I am deaf, and he even saw my audiogram. I was getting very frustrated with him. He tried tirelessly to convince me that I needed to see an audiologist for further hearing assesment. I refused. In the end I signed a paper saying that I was denying further testing and care, and promised him I would talk to my own audiologist. I wouldn't have seen whatever audiologist he had refered me to until next week anyway, by then I can just deal with mine. I sent her an email telling her the situation. Hopefully she will agree that the doctor was crazy and not make me do anything. I hate hearing tests and she knows it.

OOH! Also, school problems are resolved! We have a new teacher for the last month and she is GREAT! She was so easy to 'train', it only took one reminder to not talk to the board. She is awesome! The desks are also in a circle now, so much easier! YAY! My audiologist wrote a letter to the school. It wasn't a mean letter or anything but it bluntly explained my hearing difficulties. It helped a lot! Anyway I have a million things to do so I probably shouldn't be writing.

-Jenny

And then there were allergies...

Hey all,

Well, I think everything is squared away with the aids! Yay! I got my new right aid yesterday and it doesn't turn on and off every five seconds! I am happy happy happy!

That being said, my allergies are killer right now and I am all stuffed up. I hate spring! To top it all off I am going to be house/cat sitting for a friend for the next three days starting tomorrow, and I am allergic to cats. As a result of all my stuffyness my ears are all plugged up. I have been jacking up the volume on my aids so I can still hear. When I am no longer stuffy, hopefully Thursday when I get new allergy meds, I am going to have some very loud aids because of the stupid self learning thing that they do. I wonder if that can be turned off....I should look into that. If I am going to have allergy problems all season, regardless of what meds I am on. Maybe it wouldbe a good idea to turn off the self learning thing for the summer season, but then in winter I get ear infections and colds. Maybe I should see if it can just be turned off all together. I will check next time I see my audiologist.

Anyway, I have some seriouse researching to do for a new hearing related things. I am going to get on that and I will explain later!

-Jenny

And then there was the CI debate...

Hey All,

I am note sure if I mentioned this is yesterdays post or not but I told my audiologist that I would go meet with the cochlear implant audiologist. I do not want a CI. I am sticking with that, but there isn't a harm in looking into it is there? I have read a whole bunch of stuff from Cochlear Americas, Advanced Bionics, and Med-el. I have watched all of their videos, and read all the stories from recipiants of their implants. All of them have the same story, 'My life was over and ruined by my deafness. Now I can hear and I am forever greatful. My life will once again have meaning and purpose." I have watched videos and read stories about people who hated their implants. I have looked into the medical complications, and the risks involved. I have spoken to people face to face about their implants. I have talked with people who love their implant and use it every waking hour, people who only use it when around hearing people, and people who used it for a few months and haven't touched it since. I think I have given myself a glimps of CI's from every side of the argument. I still stand firm, I don't want to do it.

Yesterday, for the first time, my audiologist told me she wanted me to go and look into it. She had never said she wanted me to go before. When I asked what she wanted me to do, or how she felt about it, she would always say it didn't matter to her. It was completely up to me and if I wanted to do it then she would arrange the appointment for me in a heartbeat. Yesterday, she actually said she wanted me to go. Knowing that she wants me to go, I told her yesterday that I would. I think my main motivation behind agreeing is making those around me happy. All of my hearing friends want me to get a CI. None of them can really understand why I wouldn't want it.

My circumstances are a bit different from most peoples. Yes I have a progressive loss, and yes I participated in the mainstreamed hearing world my whole life, but I have also been signing my whole life, and I have had Deaf friends my whole life. I truly feel as though I am stuck between two worlds right now. I think that going and meeting with a CI audiologist will give my hearing friends, parents, and my audioloigst some peace of mind knowing that I really did explore all of my options and I am making an informed decision. I do understand where my audiologist is coming from, wanting me to go, she just wants to ensure that I am making an informed choice and that she have given me every opportunity to do so. I get that.

I guess the previous paragraphs were me convincing myself that I actually wanted to go to this CI meeting. It was unsuccesful. I will do it anyway though.

In other news, my audiologist ordered me a new Naida for my right ear. I think it is a problem with the battery contacts. I have noticed that it mostly dies when I tuck my hair behind my ear, or adjust my glasses. I think that the little jostle it gives the hearing aid is causing the battery to lose contact with the...um...contacts. I should have the new aid next week. Hopefully this is it too. I need this all to be solved by summer when I start working full time. That leaves two months as of today. I know that seems like plenty of time, but me of all people, knows what can change in two months. A lot can change in two months. At least my thresholds have stabalized. My sensorineural ones anyway. My conductive thresholds are always going to fluctuate. My sensorineural thresholds are about 10-15dB better than my conductive ones. For my that 10-15dB is huge! I also don't want to be loosing more of my hearing to a conductive loss. My audiologist wants me to talk to an ENT about preventing it further. I am going to talk to my family doctor about it on Monday. See what she has to say about it. I know that for various reasons I wasn't a candidate for tubes when I was younger. Maybe that has changed now. We shall see.

Anyway, I have school soon so I should be heading out.

-Jenny