near-deaf experience

A play on words, but not emotions...
When you are on the other side of a tragic event, the side where you can see the light at the end of the tunnel and you feel "okay," you can make a choice, to have grown and changed from the experience or still be the thick-headed light-weight you were before it. I can tell you I hope I am the first.
How can you go from being what you were before when everything in your whole life looks and feels different? Easy, it is comfortable... it is normal... it is the easier choice.
I have a constant reminder of my blessings. I take off my implants and settle into that uncomfortable silence every night. In the morning, I add vibrancy to my muted world when I put them back on again. My near-deaf experience is something I live everyday. When I feel frustrated and lazy, I can usually rally myself pretty quickly by slipping off an implant. Or the magnet will slip off as I brush my hair, and I feel like... who turned the lights off?.... So when someone asks me how I am, I should respond..amazing, blessed... but I often what I do say is...it is great...but it will never be like normal hearing.
Not that it isn't true, it is definitely true. I just wonder why I need to tag that on? Do I feel some kind of need to remind them of their blessings? It definitely is not a conscience thing... maybe it is some kind of weird repressed anger I don't even understand or feel? As ordinary as I look and feel, I realize that my life has been anything but...
So, where am I today? In a really good place. Two is much better than one. The question in the back of my mind is ... why one? Why do people get one? Isn't the research conclusive that people can function much more independently with two? I can slip off one now and say... Oh my! The difference is pretty dramatic. I am taking strides everyday to improve my newly implanted side... I can speak on the phone on both sides now, though I still favor and may always favor my right side. I can hear so much that if I wrote a list of all of the things I hear now, that couldn't hear before you would be amazed. My husband's favorite is the awful light jazz they play on the weather channel during the eight day. I definitely couldn't hear anything background like that before, but now I can once again do a little dance of mockery my husband and I used to do/do again when we hear it.
I have some pretty cool things on the horizon. I know that the amount of musicians that are implanted bilaterally like myself are probably a small handful. I am excited that I will be traveling to Seattle in June to participate in a music perception study at the University of Washington. I will also be doing some similar testing through the Cleveland Clinic.
Probably the biggest change is what I am hearing and responding to at school. I have found myself getting pretty wound up and critical of my choir. What a gift! I can tear up every time I do something in all essence I shouldn't be able to do. In what universe does a instrumentalist end up teaching choir, thrive, lose their hearing, still thrive, get implanted and continue to do something that most people with normal hearing couldn't do? Like seriously, who am I?

the start of 1 vs. 2

The trip to NYC was great! What a neat city. Our trip was even better this time around, and my experience as a CI user as opposed to using hearing aids, was 100% different. The last time we went on the trip, I was very, very dependent on my f.m. system. There is so much noise in the city and on a bus, walking the city streets, in noisy restaurants... I was deafened by the noise last time with hearing aids. I remember loving the city, but not following much and the only way I could participate was through the f.m. system. I followed the shows and enjoyed the music as much as was possible the first time, but so much of the words (especially sung) were hard to follow and little jokes in the show the first time were often over my head. I would laugh when others laughed, but not even know what was funny!
This time... I would say... I felt independent. I conversed easily with our tour guide on the bus and even in noisy restaurants, I could talk on the bus... without an f.m. system. I got probably 95% of the shows, Phantom of the Opera would be a little nutty when 3 singers are all singing their own song at the same time (which happens several times in that show), and honestly a hearing person wouldn't catch it all... What was thrilling for me, is I could even pick out the violin and the flute in the pit of that show. Our second show was hairspray. What a show! I missed very, very little... since I had only been activated less than a week in NYC with my second implant, if I would have taken out the new one for the shows, I probably would have gotten it all, because the new one hadn't been tweaked and it was pretty muddy then.
The day after we returned from NYC, I had a very productive session with my audiologist. I knew what things I needed improved and testing confirmed that. By the end of the session, I was hearing so, so much better.
I have my work cut out for me.. and even have homework to do! But, this week is my Jr. high production of Annie and I had parent teacher conferences, so I was not able to just work on my left (newly implanted) side.
In the coming week, I am going to wear only my new implant at home and Adam and I are going to do some work with pitch with each side and both.
It is hard to describe now the experience of one versus two. Is it better? Yes! Remember it has been just 2 weeks since my activation and 5 weeks since surgery! My dad asked me yesterday if the left is caught up with the right. NO!!!!! I have a lot of work to do! My speech perception will hopefully keep increasing and I pray I can get the left caught up with work and TIME.... What makes it so hard to describe it all is that I don't know how much I am genuinely hearing and how much I make up in my head from my auditory memory. It sounds crazy, but here is a prime example... In the mornings, I wake up early to have some time to myself. I watch the news... Sometimes I hear their voices even though I am only reading the closed captioning. I will forget I am just reading it, and my mind creates those blanks.... I think a lot of my experience as a CI user is so rich because of that strong auditory memory. For example... I know which pitches I can match or come close to matching while singing and if I play the G above middle C and try to sing that pitch, I just cannot get my inner voice around that... I know before I do it, I can't match it... Regardless of some frustrations for me musically, I have noted a huge change with the second, but I will save that for another post!
I also want to describe teaching with one versus two, but that will certainly be its own lengthy entry too! For now, I am just trying to be patient and also trying to enjoy the experience too. I want to be able to keep an accurate account of the changes for myself and for you! All of that initial overwhelmed feeling is gone, I feel blessed.