triple 7's

Today is supposed to be an extremely lucky day as it is 7-7-07...Today is also Mimi's first birthday party and I am in the mood to CELEBRATE!!!

1) I was with the kids the day after I received the implant. Mimi has a little musical piano toy that was Addison's. I remember that you could set it to each key getting its own note, or each key getting a snippet of a song. As I was sitting Mimi came over and tapped on it, and I immediately knew what the snippet of the song was... part of fur elise by Beethoven (ironic huh w/ his deafness and all?) The thing is, I never would have heard that before... I would have known it was playing music but never been able to make it out.

2) I decided a good test for me was to go to a movie with Addison. Movies are extremely difficult. Obviously I could hear the sound before, but not make out the words... when you lose your hearing, in most cases, word recognition goes too and that has been a huge problem for me. We went to see Ratatoullie... which is a computer animated film (lip reading not so easy there) and a lot of the characters had French accents... not helpful either. Anyhow, in the past I would have maybe gotten 30-40% (not an exaggeration, tests have proven that on me). I probably got 80-85% of the movie. It was the most I have understood a movie in three years regardless of it being animated or not!

3) I picked up my friend Julie's girl Austa to take to driver's ed class this week. Julie decided to ride along to see how the implant was going. We were able to converse as I drove (not able to lip read while driving..ha-ha) and I did just fine. No f.m., no lip reading... conversing as I drove!!!!

4) I ran out to the music room yesterday to get something for Mimi's party and I couldn't figure out what I was hearing... I walked outside and the sound was gone, went back in and realized how loud the blower was to me... a fan!!! I came in the house and realized I could hear the air conditioning and even the ceiling fan in the kitchen.

5) I ran into a friend of mine from SHHH (now HLAA) Hearing Loss Association of America... and her sister in law has two implants. She couldn't believe how well I was doing and that I haven't even really had adjustments yet.

Today will be another good test with lots of people and the party. I am sure I will have much to say later.