Adult C.I Users Day (Ear Foundation)

Yesterday, I got a chance to spend a day at the Adults C.I user day at the Ear Founation, Nottingham. Despite being the youngest of them all and alot of them were much older than me, I totally enjoyed it and enjoyed meeting others.

I actually learnt alot in one day, I learnt about all theses new techonology and what you can add to you cochlear implant with Andrew the Audiologist. There were so many things you can add which actually impress me. I even got to try out this Ipod with this loop thing, but unfortunally it didn't work as my implant wasn't programmed for that, never mind hopefully it will next time.

We also talked about radio aids,telephone and any other equipment that will work with the implant. So, here me thinking about trying out this small radio aid system and see if it helps me at university, so, gotta get in touch with my audiogist and give it a try!

There also great speech listening advice from Maria. Maria gave us different website links, which has listening practise of different people with different accents, also about the hearingjourny - Theres a thing that you can download of your ipod and listen to too. It was very useful, already me and Richard has given it a go to see how it helps us.

After a good morning session, we had lunch and I got a chance to talk to other implantees, it was interesting to hear their experinces. Also it was good to share my experinces to those who are thinking about having a Cochlear Implant or who already has them.

After a good hour of talking to others. We had a visitor called Geoff Plant from Boston, US. He was very entertaining and gave us informative session about getting the most out of music with our implants. While he were playing the music, it was great to be able listen to the music that he played. Some I was able to hear and I manage to follow a few words with the lyrics. Most of the group reconised these types of music soome were quite old, for me, I had no knowlodge about these types of music and it was good to learn something new. I actually had some help from sue who works at the ear founation, she told me who were these music are made by. Just because I didn't know who the artist were, it certainly didn't stop me dancing and the others join in with me. It good to liven everyone up. :-)

Since I am new to music, I also got a chance to share one of my music that I first started to listen to. Alot of them never heard it because it now in the charts these days but I was pleased they enjoyed it too.

After a enjoyable session, it was good to catch up with my speech therapy she was please that my voice is getting better - I'm pleased to hear that I am using it. Also, my old audiologist that I did all my assessment. She notice that I've change and how my confidence has grown.

The other good thing was, they had an interpreter during Geoff session. I was able to cut down on using the interpreter by lip-reading and listening to Geoff. He was quite clear and I was able to understand him. The only time I used the interpreter is was when there somthings I didn't understand or when the others spoken where I couldn't see there lips. so, there some acheivement in me. :-) woop!

Just before I left the ear foundation, some implantee from C.I.UG yahoo group have asked me to bring my pumpkins that had a C.I. So, I brought them in to show them to the rest of the group. They all loved it. I was surprised on how many of them them wanted pictures. It's seem like my little pumpkins has become popular and famous. It's was a shame they had no arms to give autographs away, ha ha.

anyway, that's it for me now. It's has been a long and a great week.

keep coming back for more future post ;-)