Exam's Are Over!

Yahoooo! Finally It's the start of summer! No more University, waking up early and of course NO more homework!

Over the past few weeks I've been so busy and not been able to post up a blog because I was to busy making sure all my assignments are up-to-date and I spent alot of my time revising ready for my exams.

Well, exam's are finally over! This year was the first time I ever done an exam with my implant. Every year, the lecture always tell everyone to sit quietly at their desk, no talking and to fill in all the question sheet. For a deaf person, who couldn't hear a thing have no idea how noisey they are. I remenbered last year, I sat down and when I finished my question sheet I left my desk with a big loud screeching noise which was coming from my chair, everyone did turned and looked at me! How embarrasing

This year has been totoally different! Thanks to my implant, I was able to hear myself and was able to BE quiet. In the exam room, everything was ment to be so quiet, everyone WAS quiet but just one thing that wasn't and it did distracted me right through the exam. I wanted to shoot it! It was sooooooo ANNOYING! Eventually I did had to take my implant so I could get some peace and concentrate! Can anyone guess what it is?

Yep, it was a clock, how noise can they be? can't they be any quieter? Big Ben in London is so loud, but it on chime when the big hand gets to 12'0clock but this small clock in the exam room TICKs loud every second! Ah, right now, I'm just trying to learn to IGNORE the sounds! Any tips on how to avoid listening to sounds that I don't want to hear?

Wow, take a look at this!

Kirsty, a friend who lives about 45 minutes away had has her cochlear implant for nearly 6 months now.

She was born deaf and had wore hearing aids until April 2007 when she had lost all her hearing in both ears. She is very musical and after losing her hearing, she felt so sad to not able to hear her favourtire band, ABBA.


After Kirsty contacted me online, she had ask me loads of quesiton about my experince and how the implant has helped me. We met once before her op and I could see how hard it is for her. Kirsty, then decided to go for an Advanced Bionic cochlear implant in Novemenber 2008 and after visiting her on the day she had the op, she was so brave she went ahead with it despites being very nervous and nearly turn it down. 3 months after the operation, I visited her again - Kirsty has changed and improved alot after the operation, she even listening to her favourites songs on the Ipod and I can't believe how quickly she has learn to hear .... she is even now playing on her piano, check this out. playing 'Abba - Mama Mia' When I watched her playing that, I was like, wow - she really is good!



Kirsty playing mamma mia and myself watching her.

Who is right?

Last weekend, Richard (freedom user) and I were sitting in the conservatory relaxing and talking about anything that stops us from getting bored. All the sudden Richard heard an Aeroplane and asked me I I could hear that. I heard it, but it sounded like a Helicopter.

We were both were disagreeing with each other about what we heard. I was telling him, "no its a helicopter" and he was "no its a plane" which went on and on, in the end we both decided to go outside to find out what it really was and see who was right. And guess what - we were both shocked - we saw both a helicopter and an aeroplane and we were just shocked that neither of us were wrong. It’s weird how we both could hear something but a different thing. So, that was our weirdest moment.

Playing sports with your C.I

Over the past few weeks, I have seen people asking about how do I wear my C.I while playing any sports and also how do I know about the refereee and team situation when playing in matches even if I didn't hear the whistle!

Lets start with the C.I - I do have small ears, and everyday I wear a small huggie that attachs to my C.I which looks like this:
Wearing a huggie with my C.I has made a big different to me. Even though I had a smaller T-mic, the implant would still fly off - so, adding a huggie with your implant to wrap round your ears should help you
Not only I wear a huggie while playing sports. With my huggie I tend to wear a small sports lastic band instead of those big headband. I tend to place the band over my head by but putting the coil wire underneath. Thats stops also stops the implant from fallin off and of course the coil doesn't come off as much as it used to. Placing the handband on top the coil wire doesn't affect the sounds comin through to your ears. I found that big material head bands tend to make alot of rustling noise and it still made the implant falls off.

I wear the band in all the sports I play such as football, tennis, running, gym etc. I've never had any problems after wearing that band. I would recommend it to other C.I users that are playing
sports



Sometimes while playing sports, you don't always hear the whistle even if your wearing your implant, as you too busy focusing on the game. The has been times where I was playing football and I had the ball and continued to run, the referee would blow his whistle and I am still running with it.

So, what should I do to prevent this?

To help me from know when to stop, or when its a foul. I ask my referee to hold up a flag which he hold throughout the match. Every time he blows the whistle he would raise the flag up in the air too. That helps me alot, there are sometimes when the are behind you and you don't hear the whistle or hear the flag. To solve this problem I taught my team some deaf awarness and ask them, if I had the ball, all my team mates would stop and stand still when the whistle has been blown. That way, I can see why the game has been stopped becuase no-one moving around.

playing as a team, you get players shouting my out my name when they want the ball, then when I don't hear it, it goes someone where esle. After I had problems with this situation. I taught my team mates to wave at me as they are shouting my name which made the teamwork much better.

so, thats it from my experinces. I do have more. There are loads of issue out there that can be dealt with. if you have any question about this post. e-mail me, hopefully i'll get back to you

katie-louise x.

This is real, this is sound!

Hey all,

Hasn't it been a while since i have last posted? I did get lost, but here I am now - I just had a busy month - and a busy week!

Next thurs, I'll be going for my one year C.I review. Can you believe how quick this year has gone! It makes me feel old already!

Anyway, I thought i'll share this. Have you all ever heard of camp rock? well, its a film I watch a few weeks ago. I know its for teens but still I am a big kid and would watch anything that is good.

There Camp rock has a song called "this is real, this is me" and I really liked the song. So, one day I got that bored after spending a week off uni being ill . I decided to see if could change the song that is CI related.

Here it is: tell me what you think?

Living in a silent world
Didn’tunderstand
Do you know what is like
Not to hear a sound
I have this thing
right inside of me
I’m gonna let it show, it’s time
To let you know
To let you know...

This is real, this is sound
That is how I’m supposed to hear now
that the device, is how I hear
Now I’ve found, how I hear
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding what I wear
This is me

To dream about a life
with all the sound you got
Even though it seems,
like it's too far away
without that device
I don’t know what you hear
It’s the only way.....

This is real, this is sound
That is how I’m supposed to hear now
that the device, is how I hear
Now I’ve found, how I hear
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding what I wear
This is me

You're the voice I hear inside my head
The reason how I’m hear
I need to wear it
I gotta wear it
You're the missing piece i need
to put sound inside of me
I need to wear it
I gotta wear it


This is real, this is sound
That is how I’m supposed to hear now
that the device, is how I hear
Now I’ve found, how I hear
There's no way to hold it in
No more hiding what I wear
This is me

This is me
(You're the missing piece i need to put sound inside me)
This is me, Yeah
(You're the voice i hear inside my head, the reason how I hear)

Now I’ve found, how I hear
There’s no way to hold it in
No more hiding what I wear
This is me

anyway, let me know what you all think. After doing this. This makes me thing there should be a music video out there that should increase cochlear implant awareness, there are still lot of people out there that doesn't know what a cochlear implant is.

that is it for me, watch out for next weeks post with the BIG 1 year results!

katie -louise x

2nd implant?

10 months and I am doing so well, I still can't get over of what I have learnt over the past 10 months -Everyday there always a new sound and always more to look forward to

There is only one thing now I really would like , which I have been thinking about in the last few weeks, now that I have done so well listening through one implant, will I do the same if I had a second implant?

A second implant would be nice. I mean, I hear so well in my left but the only thing is I can only hear most of the things on the left and my right side just feels SO deaf and doesn't hear anything, it feels so blank; I don't see the point in wearing a hearing aid I know a 2nd implant won't make you hear any better, but it be nice to hear from both direction and maybe it give me a better sense of where sounds comin from.

So, now I am hoping to have a 2nd implant to become 'Bilateral' becuase of the N.I.C.E guidance, I think here in the UK, it would be hard for us to fight for the second one. So, right now I am unsure which direction I should take, wheather I should wait a while untill the N.I.C.E has changed gardians or should I appeal for the funding right now?

I thought, If I was to have a 2nd implant while I am still at early stages, I think it might be better as my brains will continue to learn , I am not saying it will stop (I hope not) but getting another implant at this stage might be easier for me and gives me time to learn before I finish university and go out in the real world and teach.

thats it for me, fingers cross, I get the 2nd one some day!

x

Music - Sounds Inspiring

Yesterday I had an interesting evening. I went to the sound inspiring event which was organised by Ear Foundation and Advanced Bionic. (the implant brand I have)



The event went so well, and it was concert by musicians who have sensory and it inspired me so much. I have never seen a deaf blind man who is able to play his piano and guitar and also group of deaf teenager having there own band called the Deafness. which totally amazed me, it really does show a good example to others the deaf people can do anything except hear like hearing people do.

I have learnt so much while I were watching the panio, flute, drums guitar and xlepone. It was all new to me. I never to identify instrument and the different in them. . After tonight. I have able to indentify the low and high pitch and also to tell which instrument was playing.

I did find some hard to listen to and when they were all playing at the same time. when the flute were playing I was unable to hear the piano untill the flute has paused.

I weren't too keen on the flute. I mean, the flute was played at a high pitch and each note gets higher and higer which felt like my implant is about to blew off.

It was nice to take part when we all got these free Advanced Bionic drumsticks. That taught us to listen and to try and follow the patten

Not only there were music, there were dancers aswell, one of the dancers had a good sense of humour while dancing which made us laughed

So, now I decided I do want to take some keyboard lesson - I won't be as good as the people I have seen, but it be nice to be able to play a song - maybe get to learn how to play Gareth Gates, :-)

so, what an evening, hopefully there will be some more like that!