Due to some problems in the family I am not much in the mood for blogging lately. For the same reasons, I am a bit behind with the training exercises.
What is new?
I have a new programme. As far as I understand, this programming consisted of making the low sounds louder. I don’t have vertigo anymore when I hear them, so there is time to begin the training in low sounds too. I like this programme. The rustling sounds don’t dominate speech so much anymore. I could see this domination on the audiogram made before the reprogramming. In most frequencies, I could hear the sounds of 35–50 dB. Only at the end of the chart, by 6 kHz, I could hear 10 dB. This is how a normal person hears. But I had heard only the very high sounds at this level. No wonder that everything had sounded so strange.
I am sure now that there is at least one person talking to whom is easier. We are speaking Italian and I can hear distinctly some consonants existence of which I have had to guess from lipreading before. It is hard to say if the communication with other people is easier, too. It is better when there is no noise around, then I can concentrate on the sounds of speech. It is easier when one doesn’t talk too loud. In a few weeks I will be trying the ADRO system. It is supposed to extract and reinforce speech in noisy environments. We don’t know how it works. The manufacturer does not give away the technical details easily. But it doesn’t hurt to try the programme.
I hear some of the whisper sounds now. I had no idea how it would sound.
The hearing aid still makes a difference, but I don’t feel especially confused now if its battery dies or I don’t wear it.
A week ago, along with the reprogramming, I had the word recognition test. We all know that not much can be expected at this stage. It was just to give it a try. I had expected, however, that the number recognition would be better. There is a great difference between my mother reading the numbers, and a male voice from a CD, and I didn’t have enough time between the numbers to think about the answer.