I apologize for being a little tardy in making this post but I have been busy. My “retirement” has turned out to be a retirement from tech executive / entrepreneur to peach farming and peach farming, it turns out, has a couple of intense months here in middle Tennessee, February being the most intense with pruning. The pruning is finished as of yesterday, as are the replacement trees which I planted yesterday and began the process of cleanup (picking up the pieces).
This week has been another steady week of improvement. I can understand talking heads / actors on the TV better than last week, the dog bark sounds more natural, and I can recognize birds although their specific tweets are unrecognizable still.
I have spent more time without my hearing aid this week, relying mostly on the Acclaim® implant, that’s how I can tell that my comprehension is improving as I can now understand more direct conversation without my hearing aid. Small steps to be sure.
I have started charging my implant in the evening when it is a little over 20%. For me that is every 3rd day and it seems to be working out fine. I sent a few suggestions to Envoy about the charger and battery and, a week later, for me the best option would be a removable cable with a locking connector between the battery and the charger coil, and a clip on the charger coil that will hold the battery. That may make it a little heavy for the harness, so the harness probably needs some improvement.
I was asked this past week if I had any residual natural hearing in my right, implanted, ear and the answer is no, none. We tested it my last appointment at MUSC and there is no residual hearing at all. I’m not bothered by this, so long as the speech normalizes.
I have worn bluetooth headphones to listen to music and that has worked really well, but I do still need to wear my hearing aid when doing that as my left ear is too deaf without it. That creates some feedback which is a pain so I have to turn the hearing aid down. Still a lot better off than I was pre-implant.
One of “measurements”, self-assessments, is whether or not I can understand ATC. For those who don’t know, that’s air traffic control. As a pilot, I want to be able to hear well enough to communicate with ATC so I can fly into ATC controlled airspace. It’s not essential outside of ATC airspace as you can legally fly without communications capability, although I do not, and I can hear well enough to manage with traffic announcements around non-towered airports, but I do not want to fly in ATC controlled air space where communications are far more critical.
To self-assess, I listen occasionally to Live ATC on the internet. Typically this is better sound quality than on an old comm radio in an aircraft where one has to also contend with airplane noises like engines, propellors and wind etc. While the communications, I listen to Nashville mostly, are much more intelligible, they are not at the level I would like before flying into that airspace. I do not want to be annoying air traffic controllers with repeated “say again” messages.
Music appreciation continues to improve little by little.
This next week I am going to crank up the volume in my implant a little. I’m an experimenter. What can I say ?
Have a blessed week. See you next week.