It is now 2 weeks since I had the Envoy Acclaim investigative device implanted in my right side.
Woohoo – I will be playing my first gig since having the implant inserted in December. Should be interesting !
I have had to charge the battery 3 times so far. It’s pretty easy but either they need to provide instructions on how to use the strap that holds the induction coil in place, or redesign the strap. I’ve made it work OK, but it could be a lot better.
Initial battery charging, say from 20% to 70%, goes pretty quickly, but the closer you get to 100% the longer it takes. Maybe this has to do with keeping the battery cool, or maybe it’s just a function of the chemistry. I’m not a battery guy so don’t really know. I don’t get any sense of heat when charging so I figure it’s probably temperature control of the system.
From a sound perspective, nothing much seems to have changed over the past week. The dogs barking still sounds more like a clap than a bark, but it is a little more recognizable with some additional bass in it.
Other sounds continue to become more recognizable, like running water, rain, pumps, compressors, fans, all becoming more “normal” sounding.
I think my speech recognition in my right ear has improved a little, but it still sounds very Donald Duck / Tweety Birdy but the definition seems to be clearer. Sometimes, it seems like someone said something and it sounded almost entirely normal, even if I did not quite hear it well enough to know what they said, just the tone sounded correct. That makes me very hopeful my brain is making the necessary adjustments.
I still practice the piano an hour in the morning with just my implant and no hearing aid, and the guitar in the evening with both hearing aid and implant. I have no difficulty with pitch and the tone continues to improve. The only down side is that there is still some distortion in the note / chord, a bit like a blown speaker, but I am able to ignore that. It is really nice, despite being distorted, to actually pick out the pitch in the last 6 or 7 notes on my Yamaha U1.
I have been working on relative pitch training, Rick Beato’s course, just practicing so far, and I can tell that is helping and I am getting more accurate with each session. Back when I was in my late teens and 20’s, playing for a living, my ear was much better so I bought Beato’s course about 3 years ago to try and improve my ear despite the hearing loss and distortion. It helped a little but I had lost so much of the mid – high frequencies that it was very difficult. I see that he now has tinnitus, as do a lot of musicians. It’s a sad state of affairs.
I try to not overdo the relative pitch so limit it to about 15 – 20 minutes per session because after that, recognition seems to get worse.
That’s about my update for this week. Still very comfortable and happy with my decision and with the Acclaim device.
Check back next week for another regular update and any other time for an epiphany.
God is good. God bless.