Strange occurance!

A few minutes ago, something relatively weird happened to me. There is a chat programme going on TV right now about domestic violence. Without going into the merits of the subject, there are some people who are actually forming part of the discussion, and even though they are hidden behind a screen their voices can obviously be heard. Malta being small, everyone knows everyone else, and I remarked to Mandy that I was amazed that these people were going on national tv discussing such a subject - surely someone would recognise them! She commented to me that their voices were 'robotised' so as to disguise them. I was surprised, because they sound perfectly normal to me, i.e. normal voices. Then it dawned on me that probably my mind is so used to hearing 'robotic voices' (through the implant) and translating them into 'normal' ones that my mind must be thinking that what I am hearing is the usual robotic voice and is filtering them out?

Scare

I had a slight scare last week. For some reason, when I was hooking the cables from my TV or from the monitor (which I use for music at work) the speech processor was switching off. Switching it back on again worked immediately but I started getting a bit worried. This happened for a whole day, but it just went away after a day, so I didn't follow it up. But it did raise the spectre of something going wrong with my speech processor - something I expect to happen sooner or later, but is placed at the back of my mind with other uncomfortable stuff like visiting the dentist or income tax returns.

I just wonder how I would handle it - the implant has become such a particular part of my life that I can just imagine living without it like I can imagine living without my feet!

Another trip

I've returned from another trip to the UK, and I happened to go to Nottingham via Manchester. Since the trains weren't operating on the day I travelled we had to catch a bus which took me on a tour of places I've got so much in my memories - the hospital where I was operated (I could even glimpse my window in my room!), the place I went to be switched on, the sandwich bar we visited on our first trip to Manchester, even the grotty hotel we stayed at that time. At the same time I listened out for buses (which were some of my 'improvement indicators') and they sounded like... buses! You might remember (if you've read that far back) that one of the first sounds I heard in the real world was buses whistling by and they sounded nothing like buses.. but now, thankfully, they do!

On the other hand, another indicator, which is airport announcements, doesn't sound particularly better - just slightly. I'm wondering if I've reached a plateau? In any case, even if I have I am so happy with what I have, so grateful, it's so much better than I ever expected!

Ik houd van Nederland!

I got a breakthrough yesterday (just when I thought I wouldn't ever get anymore). I got the guts to actually speak on the phone with someone I didn't know and who didn't know I was deaf. You may remember that I've been involved in phone conferences with strangers before but phone conferences are easier in that there are multiple persons involved - in this case there was just me and another person, so no room for error!

I had a business call on Friday from a customer - and he called me from Holland, on a mobile phone! We had about 20-25 minutes on the phone and I managed very well, if I may say so. I even noticed a curious situation where I had a sort of echo - I was hearing my own voice a couple of seconds after I spoke (so that's what I sound like on the phone!) - it was a bit confusing but I did pretty well, considering everything was against me - a stranger (who doesn't know I'm deaf), a foreigner calling from overseas on a mobile phone! I was pretty pleased with this as it has really important implications for my work. I would never have thought my first call to a stranger, direct, would be to Holland!

Funnily enough, improvements

Just when I thought I wasn't detecting any changes, I got surprised this week! I used to have difficulty in understanding radio transmissions and could only understand snatches here and there, but all of a sudden this week it seems that the fog rose, so to speak.

This was quite distinct yesterday if anything. I'm currently in quite a stressful phase of a project at work and I came out of my office relatively tense and nervous. The music playing on my usual radio station (which just plays music) wasn't to my taste and I flipped the channels until I got to Radio 101. There happened to be Smoke on the Water playing (by Deep Purple) and it perfectly suited my mood.. the hard vocals and harsh guitar cords really soothed me for some reason - you'd expect something like Chopin being what I needed at that point in time but in reality it just worked like a pressure cooker - playing the music full blast and tapping away on the steering wheel. I even found myself speeding slightly in symphathy with the music. Anyway back to the point - when the song finished, the announcer mentioned that a discussion programme was going to start. I wasn't really concentrated but in the humdrum of after work traffic I listened in. Then it dawned on me that I was understanding every word that was being said. It was a very boring programme frankly about unions - a subject that doesn't particularly interest me but I just listened in in amazement.

I would never have dreamed just 5 monhs ago when I was preparing to be admitted that I would get this far!