Last Saturday I went with some friends to a local vineyard for some wine tasting and good music. This was the first time I had been to a "live" music performance post-cochlear implant involving two professional musical artists. We brought picnic food and had ourselves a good time! All work and no play had made me cranky and I just absolutely had to get out of the house and have some fun!
I set my cochlear sound processor on "quiet." The music was definitely loud by my definition because I could feel the music of the electric guitar on the floor, through the speakers, and up my back. "Loudness" with a cochlear implant and a sound processor isn't painfully loud, just noisy. Still, I could tell when the music got cranked up a bit. When one musician invited a woman from the audience to sing a song along with him, she did, and both did a great job of it. For the first time post-cochlear implant, I heard most of the lyrics and their voices did NOT sound scratchy!!! I also had my picture taken with this musician and told him about my cochlear implant and that it was the first time I had heard his music with it. He was delighted.
What a breakthrough! I have had no difficulty picking out sounds of musical instruments from the beginning of activation day, but hearing and understanding lyrics has been a challenge without being prompted by captioning or reading the lyric sheet of a CD.
I now see what my online cochlear implanted veterans are talking about when suggesting turning UP the music or the volume control on the sound processor. It does make a difference in processing and understanding speech.
As for the wine? All of the wines were delicious. I was delighted. I also thought it was terrific to offer wine tastings with live entertainment. The vineyard hasn't been in business long, but I don't know of any other vineyard that offers live entertainment venues along with wine tasting. What a novel idea!
I am not yet completely deaf in my non-implanted ear, but I did notice the residual hearing is going fast. Both of my BTE hearing aids have died (they were nine years old). My one year
"earversary" (anniversary) will be October 12th. I will have my one year "tweaking" session in November at the Cochlear Implant Clinic. I am also going to have an audiogram of my right ear done and begin planning for cochlear implantation of my right ear sometime next year. A good friend told me that when I have my right ear implanted and activated, she will take me to a symphony. I think I'd like that.
I can't wait for what I call "surround sound"! It really will be like having a miniature BOSE stereo receiver in both of my ears!!!
I still like heavy metal music. I love feeling the thrumming of the bass guitars, the rhythm, the beat. I like a good guitar riff and a great drum solo anytime. I'm still a rock n' roll girl at heart...!
That doesn't mean I'm closed minded to listening to a live symphony or an opera. Not at all. I have already been to one live musical, which was "Wicked"! I would go see it again.
What an amazing 11 months it has been. It indeed has been sound flavorings anew, as well as hearing some new sounds. I'm still hungry for more.
Hearing with a cochlear implant is such a gift.
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