Wednesday, February 8th, 2017 it was time to get my CI’s re-adjusted again. I therefore drove to the hearing clinic at Odense University Hospital in Odense. This day there were only re-adjustment programmed, but also I had a practical question and would like to talk to a doctor. More on that further down.

After a short wait, I was shown into the same sound adjustment room as with previous visits. This time, the audiologist who should set my CI processors, however, was a new person also named Gitte.

As this Gitte and I had not met before, we started with a talk on the progress so far, so she was updated on my situation. This conversation had natural focus on my experiences with my CI’s – that is, lot of it which is also described in my previous blog posts. The conversation also continued continuously during the re-alignment of CI’s, where we among other things, also touched on a comparison with the time before CI – that is, with the hearing aid.

With this done, we started the re-adjustment of CI processors.
As with the last adjustments, we started with my right CI. Left CI was turned off meanwhile.
The procedure was slightly different from the last time, when we jumped over first step, which was about to find out how much strength the individual electrodes may have.

We therefore went directly to re-adjust the different tones to the same level. It was what last time was done by that I heard five different tones in a row. I figured it also this time, so I was a bit surprised while listening and counting, and that notes continued after the fifth tone. Gitte explained afterwards that it was because she played all 22 notes at once. That is to say that it is the 22 contact points on the implanted electrode to set – that is equivalent to 22 audio channels.
The explanation made me suddenly understood better what we actually adjust. And that the other times the 22 tones simply were divided into groups of 5 notes.

With the explanation we continued alignment with a combination of this. To hear all 22 notes at once gives a good overview of how the notes volume changes in the spectrum from low to high notes. Then I was able to tell which of the tones we should focus on. They were then aligned relative to each other, in groups of 5-10 tones.

For example, I started to hear the tones on the right ear, first clear and then gradually weaker for each note until around 10-11 tone, after which they gradually became more evident again up to 22 and last note – you can say they lay like a V -curve.
We adjusted as described, until I experienced that all the notes had the same level.

We conducted later the same adjustment on the left ear. Here, however, it went fast since I only have to get adjusted some notes once. Then all 22 tones sat in the closet, at the same volume.
That this is, is probably because that it’s right ear that has evolved the most since last re-adjustment. This evidently makes that the different tones eventually perceived slightly differently in volume – and so we must regularly re-adjust the levels. It also explains that the difference from last re-adjustment was not big on the left ear, which of course is used to sound.

Over the past 2 months, I have as previously described, gradually turned more up to the right than the left ear, so that they would be more similar in volume. So when the right CI was re-adjusted, I tried to turn on the left CI before it was re-adjusted. I saw now that volume was very close to the same. The difference else by now is not so great, came back again when we had re-adjusted left CI.

But I still experience clear difference in sound quality between the two ears. On the right ear sound tones while adjusting were still a little beep-like. But I can, however, clearly distinguish the tones – that the tones were lighter for each tone played. That is what I daily experience as a slightly metallic sound that still makes it a little harder to understand speech with this ear. In comparison, the sounds I hear in the left ear are much more natural, like the sound I hear on a daily basis is.

Then I got four new progressive programs exactly like the last time. In fact we simply “reset” the difference in volume I had built up between the two ears, so I start over again at the same volume step. They also act as before with 4 levels having 10 volume steps each, and with the right and left CI split, so that can turn up / down each side separately.
I will of course continue to use this until the next re-adjustment in Odense in 3 months, to faster increase volume on the right CI. I hope that the right ear, hopefully, will soon catch up with the left in the volume, so I can focus on training the sound quality in the future. That is, train the audio and speech intelligibility in both ears. However, this applies especially to right ear which still has the longest way to go. But I still believe in it to succeed in getting it as well as with the left ear.

Along the way I had, as written in the introduction, asked if I could talk to a doctor. So when we were finished here, I could sit in the hallway while Gitte found a doctor. It took only a moment until Gitte talked to a doctor who had time for me.

Talk to the doctor
The reason I wanted to talk to a doctor, was that I by two individual occasions had experienced a little blood at the scar on the right side. It was not much, nor anything that gave rise to unrest. But I just wanted to have a doctor to ascertain that there is nothing wrong.
But I’ve also had found that there has been a funny recess in the head, just above the ear – the same place in both ears, which were not there before the surgery. This I would also ask the doctor about.
The doctor who was a lady which I have not met before, looked at my scars and said that it is because the skin is still quite thin there. So I’m probably just come to scratch me a little too vigorously behind the ear, the two occasions where there came blood.
The recess behind both ears, she said, is because it is where they have been inside and rummaging around in my head. So it is just an unevenness may occur, but that does not mean anything. Now it’s not something that bothers me so that I can live with.

The last thing I needed to clarify was a question of CI-identification card, which I did not receive filled in with content. I found at some point this card nestled into a page in the manual to my CI’s, but all without being completed.
The fact is that CI-users have a special identification card, which one can have on your self – that is, in the purse, in the event of accident but also, for example, at airports. This card shows that you have CI implanted, and thus a magnet, and therefore must not be exposed to MRI in hospitals. At airports, the card can be used to show why the alarm reacts at the security check, and therefore they can control the body with their hand scanner instead.
Since the card was not completed, I asked the secretaries if it was something they could do. The message from them and a doctor, who randomly came into the room at the same time, was that I should go over to the department where I had the surgery. Across this area, I spoke with a secretary who first looked a little bemused at my card but then said they had their own version – and if I did not receive it? When I had to say no to this, she promised me that I would have it sent to me.

Thus, I was ready for this time, and could drive home.
The result of this re-adjustment was not nearly as significant as the last time. Last time I got really turned up the volume on the right ear. But this time it had more the character of refinement, but with a slight increase in volume. But I’m still on the right track and hearing training can continue…