Second month – December
As in the blog post about the first month, I use the auditory training I regularly go to at this time, as a starting point.

Fifth week
9th auditory training:
The day after re-adjustment in Odense, I was to the auditory training again.
This time we also had the company of Minna, one audiologist who was a trainee at SCR Communications, and therefore listened with along the way.
Volume was 1.6 on the left ear, and 1.4 on the right ear. This, incidentally, volume 1.6 is the initial setting when you get re-adjusted, I was told in Odense day before. You do not start at 1.1 as it would be logical to think because there must be an opportunity to turn down in the beginning too.
Exactly turning down, was what I did that day on the right ear as sound as mentioned in “First re-adjustment at Odense University Hospital” was on the verge of being too violent – I just needed a few days to get used to it.

We talked briefly about the re-adjustment and how I experienced hearing then.
We followed up on it by starting to train ment sounds. Both with both ears, but also with the left and right CI separately. With both ears and left alone, I heard all ment sounds correctly. With the right CI alone, it is not so good yet, but I do hear the “uu”, “ii” and “ss” sounds correct.
Then we did an exercise where I was to hear the number of syllables in a word. We did the exercise with only with the right CI. But this I had no problems with – I made them all correctly.
Also only with the right CI, we trained indoor sounds. Same exercise as before, where I need to designate the sound I hear. I do not remember exactly how it went, but think it went reasonably well.
Also remember that now we have started training right ear alone, and therefore decreased in level again and train facilitate sounds compared to what I can distinguish with the left ear / both ears.
Finally, we listen to piano and guitar sounds with both ears, as follow up from the past where it sounded like a xylophone. It now sounds a little more normal – and certainly not as a xylophone.

Christmas Party
The day after, I attended the annual Christmas party with work which is a major event with among others live music. The result will be a fairly high noise level, where the talk takes place as almost shouting to each other. I had previously thought that it probably was necessary to decrease the CI volume, and maybe even turn off one CI. But because of the CI’s dampening program, it was never a problem with the volume – not even on the right ear.
On the contrary, it went really well to hear and talk because of the CI’s effective noise suppression! I heard actually vastly better than last year, and sometimes even better than my colleagues, which among other things led to the comment to me “I think you speak a little low” – for I did very well hear what I said, and what we talked about.
Our president started the Christmas party by doing a speech, that I did not hear a word of last year. This year, I heard it all – or at least very close to everything.
But it was a little hard to hear the music right, and I felt that I was missing a music program in CI’s for this. It was a sideshow on a day when I could compare and reflect back on the bad hearing that I had before CI surgery. One day when I really noticed a positive difference!

Sixth week
10th auditory training:
Volume was 1.6 on the left ear, and 1.7 on the right ear.
This day we trained the exercise where I need to hear the number of syllables in words – again only with the right CI on. We trained with a difference of up to 3 syllables, and I did the exercise well.
We also trained indoor sounds with the right CI. The sounds were heard without significant problems.

Eventually I got a copy of the magazine “Hørelsen” (The Hearing) that in this issue had an article on CI and music listening.

11th auditory training:
Volume was 1.6 on the left ear, and 1.8 on the right ear.
During training, we turned up the volume till 2.1 on the right CI.
Again we trained the exercise where I need to hear the number of syllables in words, and again only with the right CI on. We also trained the difference of 2 syllables with a known text, as well as we trained number of syllables / phrase length. It went fine, and I got only few error perceiving, even on the most difficult level, which is without lip reading and without seeing the text along the way.
We trained indoor sounds with the right CI. Six out of the 20 sounds teases and are difficult to distinguish.

Home training:
I started training the right ear, by turning left CI off for longer periods during the day. So I only have both turned on when I need to be sure to hear what is being said. However, only periods, so I also remember to use and train left CI.
I have trained right ear with my parents, by reciting from “Hør hvad jeg CI’er 2” (Hear what I say 2) booklet. I find it easiest to hear and distinguish long words, and words as for example weekday and month names because there are more syllables to lean content to. Monosyllables are the hardest to hear with right ear at this time.
One of the days I had some challenges with fatigue. It was difficult after a long day with lots of sound. When I’m tired in the head, it is difficult to hear with my right ear without lip reading. The sound seems a lot more muddy and metallic, so I cannot distinguish the words.
I have also trained with the audio book “Cyklen” (The Cycle) and feel compared to earlier, a trend of gradual improvement of the understanding with the right ear alone. And I have also been listening to environmental sounds with the right ear alone – i.e. the sounds you hear in everyday life.
This week I have not been practicing conversations with the right CI alone, but in turn had another good experience to listen with both ears; I was with my brother in Jutland this weekend, where we talked in the car. Noise reduction in the CI’s works well in situations like this and does so that we can comfortably talk during the ride. It is another thing, which had also been almost impossible before the surgery. So it’s really nice to be able to again.
During the week, I have of course heard some music, both for pleasure but also as sound training. All audio is currently sound training…

Seventh week
This week I again experienced a new sound. It sometimes happens that I come across a new sound – a sound which I cannot remember if I have heard it before. If I have heard it before, then it has been a lower sound, and many years ago!
I had such an experience again a day at work shortly before Christmas. I was about to eat a clementine, and when it is peeled, I a bit randomly remarked: Well hey, how is it that it says? The sound of two pieces of clementine being pulled apart that I now can clearly hear. I become totally focused and slowly pull all clementine pieces apart while I listen to hear this fine sound it emits. Fun…!

12th auditory training:
The volume is now 1.8 on the left ear, and 2.3 on the right ear. It was also around this time I decided to increase the right CI with 2 volume steps, for every 1 volume step on the left CI. This is in order to eventually get the same volume on both ears.

Again we train the exercise where I need to hear the number of syllables in words, and again only with the right CI on. We also train difference between 2 syllables with a known text, and we train number of syllables / phrase length. Good training on the most difficult level of this exercise that is comfortable in difficulty at the moment.
Again we train indoor sounds with the right CI. I now have only trouble distinguishing between a hair dryer / vacuum cleaner and guitar / piano. Afterwards we train outdoor sounds in the same way. The 5 out of the 10 sounds are perceived correctly. I confuse, however, the sounds of a bee, cow, sheep, dog and rooster. Sometimes it still just sounds a little equal with the right ear. I do not hear things quite clear yet, and the metallic sound makes these exercises difficult.
We practice paragraphing with right CI in which a text is read. Here it is about listening and understanding what the text actually is about, which I am doing fine. The reading is also stopped along the way and I do with ease hear where in the text we are.

Eighth week – Christmas holiday
Here the auditory training held its Christmas holidays, but I slightly trained with the audio books “Cyklen” (The Cycle) and “Den mørke gade” (The Dark Street) with the right CI. Moreover, there are still plenty of training in music and TV listening, although primarily done with both CI.
It was also this week, one day I came down to my parents with just the right CI turned on. We sat a while and talk before I tell that only the right CI is on. The conversation went well, but so could my parents, however, better understand that I needed more repetitions than usual. So even the sound in the right ear is still not particularly good, so it’s actually usable also for conversation – amazing!

Ninth week (Week 1, 2017)
13th auditory training:
I am now on volume 2.3 on the left ear, and 2.10 on the right ear.

We briefly reviewed what I had trained during the Christmas holidays, and so we started to train ment sounds with the right CI. I distinguish finely between a, i, sj and s. We also practice short ment sounds m, u, i, having the half correct.
Then we trained outdoor sounds with the right CI. I distinguish 20 sounds without significant problems, and was only in doubt about a few sounds.
We also made a new “Speech Tracking” test with both CI turned on, which should be done with lip reading, corresponding to a normal conversation situation. The test is done by a text in a specific number of words are spoken while taking time. Underway I am to repeat the text correctly sentence by sentence. When the text is read, time is stopped, and it is now possible to calculate how many words you understand per minute. Speech tracking with both ears resulted this time in 66.4 words / min, besides being much the same as last time, it is up in the category “Very few difficulties (to understand the words)”. Normal hearing persons will in this test be able to score 80-120 words / minute. When we’re up in this end of the scale, small things can make a difference in the outcome. So if I hear correctly just once more, out of the 3-5 places in the text I had to have a repeat, so it can change the outcome quite a bit in the positive direction. So I do not think you have to hang himself too much in, whether it is 60, 70 or 80 words / minute, as long as I am in the upper end now!

Tenth week
Home training
I have listened to the audio book “Den mørke gade” (The Dark Street), first with both ears, where I clearly understood it read out. Then I listened to the book with only the right ear, where I heard about half of it read out.
I’ve also had listened to and used apps with “Rasmus Klump” and from Oticon Medical.

I have listened to music every day, just as I downloaded and tried Spotify. I see by now that many tracks sound relatively normal. But it really depends on what I listen to, as some tracks still sounds very wrong. But it’s good to feel progress, especially when I think back to how bad it sounded in the beginning, just after I got the CI’s.

14th auditory training:
I am now at volume 2.4 on the left ear, and 3.2 on the right ear.
We trained outdoor sounds with the right ear; I could distinguish the 6 out of 10 with virtually no problems, but had trouble distinguishing a swimmer, boy on skateboard, people clapped and man running. It surprised me that it was so hard with these particular sounds. But it also shows that the hearing in my right ear still lags behind what I hear on the left ear. Still, it is a little muddy sound, with a metallic tone I hear.

We trained word recognition with both ears; It also went very well. Among others, there was a place where Mathilde jumped a word, which I immediately caught when I had just seen and heard the words and the order they came in.
We had a new exercise with both ears, where Mathilde read out a text which had some words that started with, or contained “k” such as “kan” (may) and “friskt” (fresh). I should note down when I heard those words. The test tricked us a bit, because the case was that I hit the right number of k-word, but there were more words in the text with “k” than those that were highlighted in Mathilde’s text. So I must have missed a few words, but also heard a few unmarked words with “k” – which is in a sense is positive!
Eventually we made another exercise with both ears, where I had to recognize relatively equal sounding words. Again I hit right on almost every word.
Precisely this, to distinguish words – and especially identical words, was something that had become impossible before I had surgery. So it shows a lot about how much such a CI surgery can alleviate an otherwise dwindling hearing.
The CI-surgery probably had been the right decision…