"Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood."
~ Helen Keller ~
This week was the second tweak and another chance to see what improvements can be had. My new audiogram with the processor in place was revealed to be "near normal for conversation" at a hearing level not seen in me for about thirty years. There will probably not be any more improvement on that but it is still good to see. The changes will likely be in my improved perception and understanding. Likewise my word recognition test shows an 86% success rate with assisted lip reading in controlled quiet conditions. That's an improvement of 50% in two weeks. It sounds good and I am very pleased but the real world outside the quiet room is a very different place. To help, I now have two channels to use. One is to eliminate as much background noise as possible for close speakers in noisy places and the other has been boosted for some more volume in quieter places.
It is a bonus to be in Norfolk and in a very wordy, variable and conversational place. I am getting much more practise than I normally would. I do try to be patient, I really do! The problem is in me and too much variety to be able to concentrate on one aspect at a time. It is seeing the good results that keep me steady and on course, with just a few stumbles in the dark sometimes. Speaking of which .....
I was returning to the campsite late in the evening. I did not take the field path in the dark in case I slipped in the mud (or worse!) and dislodged my processor. Searching for it in the gloom would have been on hands and knees. If it had landed in the horse ... manure, and then I trod on it by mistake the audiologist would probably be upset and possibly refuse to handle it on my next visit! So I walked along the road instead.
It was a very quiet moonlit night with a clear sky and I only had my own footsteps for company. I heard the distinct sound of a car but could see nothing in front of me. I genuinely thought the sound came from behind me. Was it because I could see nothing and my brain was making the decision for me on the evidence it had? I stood still in the road in complete silence and waited. Around the corner behind me I now saw the lights of a car approaching but if it had been daytime it would not have been visible. Was it luck or hearing ability? It safely passed me by. After passing some houses and hearing the sound of a tv program (not in detail) in someone's living room I heard another car from behind. I moved out of the road and a little later it appeared. Did I really hear the direction or did my brain just deduce the location by some subconscious calculation? I should not have been able to do it with only one ear. It was helped by the beautiful quietness of the night. Daytime has not been so successful. There are too many distracting noises going on. Still it is good to see that given the right conditions my hearing can be near to normal, what ever that is! What made the walk so pleasant was the fact that I had accepted the silence as just that. No sound heard meant no sound was happening. I had no need to strain to hear because I might be missing something. Just acceptance of what I had. Allowing the sounds to come and go as they were rather than go looking for them. A very relaxed and restful state of mind for a change.
Just when I thought peace was now my good companion I found myself with more trouble than a passing motorcar!
During lunch I switched over to channel two and enjoyed a conversation with my companions at the table without the general chatter all around me. After the meal I forgot I was still on that setting. Walking back through the woods, now in the sunshine, I came to a group of tree surgeons cutting down trees and trimming some high branches. I noticed they were using a chipping machine on the cut branches collected on the ground by the path. They were wearing ear protection and I realised the reason I could not hear the machine clearly was the background noise suppression I had. So here were two colliding entities coming together with no ability to hear each other properly or full awareness of all around them. As I walked by, leaves came falling down onto my head and when I looked up there was a man high in the tree using a chainsaw (with ear protection) to cut through the branches overhead and some had already fallen onto the path in front of me. If they had shouted, "Oi, it's not safe there!" or "LOOK OUT!" I would have carried on in my own quiet little world until I was flattened by an unseen and unheard branch about six inches thick. Then they would have got my attention. As this was on private land they probably thought no signs were needed to warn of "men at work overhead". They knew where each other were and what they were doing in order to work safely together in a hazardous occupation but they did not hear me coming unexpectedly into their territory.
That is my world all the time. Those little signs and signals that are all a part of aiding my brain to notice unrecognisable things and support the learning process.
I may ignore a few people sometimes but not a falling leaf in the summer time. My hearing still needs all the help it can get!
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