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My favorite sounds this week..... Rain on the roof Trees rustling in the wind Birds and more birds Laughter Hearing my six-year old granddaughter tell me I’m the best Grammy in the whole world!

Squelching along thank-you. Only joking. Small improvements. Speech is really good. Frank Sinatra sounds a little better, but Susan Boyle has not improved (wild horses ). Went to a concert and the cello concerto was bad. Percussion great. Listened to young persons guide to orchestra and enjoyed it, very good to relearn all the instruments. Went for a walk up Chapman's peak drive houtbay where I live and listened in amazement to the waves crashing in, perfect. All in all, going great. It's now 3 months since activation. Peter

Freshly activated, so I started with my expectation super low. All 12 electrodes are in good health and active. Currently, I hear everything super, super high pitched, like everything is beyond helium. I can detect syllables, but can't differentiate speech or distinguish different layered noises yet. Time to learn how to hear all over again

Hearing the various birds at the ocean while on vacation Hearing the roar of the waves of the ocean

Juicy peach at lunch today. Sounded like rain really. Sound effect complimented flavor and texture really well

1. Light drizzle outside my house 2. Birds chirping away while I'm sitting in bumper to bumper traffic 3. Two coworkers carrying on a conversation in separate cubicles in the restroom 4. My coworker talking to me while I'm outside washing my hands and she's still in a cubicle! None of this was possible a year ago! Happy dance! 💃💃💃💃

Hearing and replying to context with store clerks- kind of took me by surprise as a noisy environment. Also hearing better on phone calls

signed up as well

The student I was working with when my processor flew off my head and magnetically dangled from the metal cabinet is a CI user too. Her eyes were huge and then we both cracked up. However we both respected our distance from that cabinet after that!

I have forgotten to attach it a few mornings at school and I feel lost without it. I try to wear it all waking hours. It only comes off right before I go to bed and it is back on after my shower in the morning. It just brings awareness to how much you miss if you are not wearing it.

It's great to hear that others are doing well with Med El. Looking forward to this journey....

Today while I was walking through a courtyard up to a school, I heard a bird chirping. I looked ahead in the direction of the birdsong and saw two trees spaced quite a bit apart. One tree to my right and the other tree to my left. The bird continued to sing. It seemed strange to me that the birdsong sounded like it was coming from a high location between the trees. The bird continued to sing. There was a very tall sculpture located between the two trees. When I looked way up to the very top of that sculpture, I saw the bird singing its heart out. My CIs were right! The birdsong was coming from between the trees! Sound directionality is so much fun!

Thank you Mary. As the Artone is relatively inexpensive as compared to other devices I am going to order a second one. I love it and become annoyed when I have to wait to reboot. I seem to be wearing this when ever I am home. Music never sounded so good. I find it much easier than Rogers and definitely much lighter.

It's weird, though, because in my experience the Rondo2 brings me a little more sound than the Sonnets. @Dave in Pittsburgh, did your audiologist do a separate mapping for the Rondo2 or copy the Sonnet MAP over?

SSD right side, Synchrony PIN. Loud tinnitus but doing fine. Activation scheduled for June 27 with Rondo 2. Very hopeful!

Surgery went well yesterday. Got my bandage off today. Not much pain today just a little ‘full’ feeling. Activation July 1st.

Yes and I feel like a new person thank you very much just one more month until activation

Thanks so much for asking! Since I have good hearing in my right ear and used to ignoring tinnitus in my left ear, I'm finding it's easy for me to ignore the computer type tone and echos that are coming from the left implant. My audiologist said my job for the first week is to wear it as much as I can and get used to the input coming into my left ear. This has not been a problem. I do feel like I'm ready for a bigger challenge, tho and look forward to whatever instructions she gives me next week! I have played around a little with wearing an earplug in my good ear. Will keep you posted.

Things are going well @Mary Beth I can't complain, I'm really happy with my CIs. Communication at work has improved heaps and I'm not scared anymore to interact with students and staff. I don't forget that this is a long process, my Audiologist can't believe how patient and positive am I.

You might recognise one of the surnames in the link which is my very clever daughter who is off to Innsbruck as a prize for inventing this. Unfortunately the development costs will be astronomical and far too much for us but we are in touch with a couple of other clever people who are looking at developing similar things. https://www.ideas4ears.org/meet-the-inventors/ As things stand, I know people have used baseball batting helmets although being UK based I have no idea how good a baseball helmet would be on a bike! Better than nothing though I expect.

Day 2 bandache off no pain around the ear throat still sore but I feel great

Well I've just come back from a hiking/camping trip... I walked partly along the West Highland Way in Scotland. With tent up and me inside, sounds that I heard were interesting as I wanted to know who or what was outside.... Sheep! and I'm sure that if you listen long enough you can get to recognise the different 'Baa's' from the different animals, the lambs especially.... and yes, I did 'Baa' back to them, they answer too! Hahahahah Another particular sound that was noticeable to me this week. I have a homebrew beer on the go, it's fermenting away nicely and bubbling away through the air lock, sometimes just one bubble then two or three... you get listening for the next, will it be two? three? One? Four?? so on. My favourite listening thing is my old vintage valve radio.... just so nice and mellow to listen to. I have a small extension speaker added to it, also vintage, but it is a much higher frequency. The set up is positioned so that my ci hears the higher frequency small extension speaker and the conventional hearing aid hears the main radio. Sounds complex but it works for me.

Me too @Mary Beth. Glad I took a leap of faith and got the CI.

@lizjlong At my initial appointments the surgeon said he would do my worst ear. At the preop appointment I told him that I am self pay and I cannot afford to do both ears. So he decided I would have a better chance of success if I did my better ear. Note that I had been wearing a HA in my better ear since 2009 but I never wore it for say 100 hours in a month. I didn't get much benefit from HAs. In fact in 7 years I went through 4 HAs! I never wore a HA in my worst ear. I hear very well with just the one implanted ear. Rarely do I wish I was bilateral. If I lived in a country where insurance would fund the CI and upgrades then maybe I would do the second ear. But I'm happy with my one implanted side.

The birds on the trees, They listen with a low-tone sings, but yes, I discovered them. 🙂

Surgery went without issues. I'm at home now and resting up comfortably. 👍 Hitting up the ibuprofen and tylenol (per discharge instructions) and trying to avoid the prescribed strong stuff.

Which week? Last week while we were on vacation we heard a cuckoo outside our cottage window. Lots of birds everywhere. The sound of the ocean. A choir practicing in the cathedral in Coutances. And in the spirit of Jewel's restroom story, I went into one in the airport in Paris and had to wait for a free stall. The woman who came out said something to me in French, and I was able to hear - and actually understood - not the whole sentence but recognized a couple of words and understood that the stall was out of paper.

The squeak and creak of my new apartment 😆 HAHA The hustle and bustle and honking taxis of NYC to remind me how far I’ve come since Parsons! And being able to carry a full blown conversations with my coworkers without having to see their faces!!

I signed up - And thanks, Mary Beth, for reaching out to me via Messenger. Where do we log in to see it?

Thank you so much, Thursday is the big day for me....

Thanks, @Mary Beth - I already have that. 🙂 Just need to work on speech in sound.

Will do! Thanks!

@thomseabrook Thanks for the last email Thom. That is very clever. By looping at the hinge of rubber port there's little tension on the port cover. Thanks a whole bunch. C T Lex cc: @Mary Beth

They came up with a clever idea! Thanks for sharing! @tomseabrook

Hi everyone. I attended my first concert since getting my CI last year. It was a couple of local musicians as well as Air Supply. I decided to wear my Sonnet to this outdoor event. There were over 1500 people in attendance. Some of the performers I was hearing for the first time ever, so I wasn't acquainted with their music. The first one I could hardly make out the actual lyrics but I was able to make out the music. Maybe I couldn't make out the lyrics cos the performer had the mic so close to her mouth. Things got better with the male performers, and I recognised some tunes. When Air Supply came on they had some strong electric bass guitars that kinda drowned out the lyrics sometimes. And sometimes it took a while for me to figure out which song was being sung. I had to keep my Fine Tuner out and keep adjusting to see which setting I heard best in. I think Natural and Omni were best. When the MC and others on the platform spoke I heard them loud and clear. Note I was sitting maybe in row 30! I was pretty pleased how things went as this wouldn't have possible had I not had my CI. I just hope my audi can tweak things so next time the experience is even better! What mic setting do you use for concerts? And what has been your experience?

Thank you very much have a great weekend ! ,

I went in the hospital at 5 30 this morning and got home at 2 in the afternoon it went very well they had a med-el rep in the surgery room i asked why no one knew why this is the first time ant rep from any ci company ever went in his surgerial room same pain but nothing like last year so I am very happy activation is July 6 that the news for today best new since last year thank you very much for asking

@Mary Featherston sorry for the delay but we just returned from France. Yes, we did Omaha beach and the American cemetery. Breathtaking! i couldn’t understand a word the guide was saying but just seeing what our brave troops faced was mind boggling.

Awesome! I'll wait and see how to acquire this then. 🙂

I managed to catch a cold (figures, as I have a four-day weekend) so I'm sitting in a chair at the far end of my bedroom. The window is open and I can hear the birds in the trees outside. The wow part is that I'm at least sixteen feet from the window.

My 5-year old was implanted in November. I cannot speak about different processors as ours has the Medel Sonnet. We are unsure if she was deaf soon after birth or progressive loss. Our experience after activation was she heard "beeps" for 5 weeks. Then in AVT one day she was repeating what the therapist was saying in a different room through her Roger Select to implant ear only. She is hearing now but does get lost with story comprehension with "just" her implant ear isolated. She does just fine with her good ear / implant ear mixed. I asked her how the sound was compared to her hearing ear and she said it sounds exactly the same! I asked her if it ever sounds like a robot and she said no. However, on our windy days in Texas, she will say the wind irritates her because it sounds like "tappety tap tap". Also, she went from biweekly AVT from activation now down to once a month. She wears her Roger to school. Good luck!

Thank you MaryBeth, that was very enlightening!!

@lizjlong I had my worse ear implanted first (it was a long standing completely deaf ear that had not processed any sound for 24 years, but had heard prior to that). My bimodal (1 CI and 1 HA) journey went like dancing partners.... early weeks my HA side led and my CI side was happy to follow before long there was a tug of war in my brain between my HA and my CI, both wanting to lead the dance then my CI won out and became the dance leader with my HA happy to follow by 5 months my HA was a distraction, like carrying around my own noise maker and I stopped wearing it at 8 months I received my second CI Life is wonderful with bilateral CIs!

@Mary Featherston Yes, it's great, I recognized them, but for the moment with low tone sound

Hi Watersail, You're welcome. I will do my best to keep up to date on here. It's a whirlwind for sure. Thank you for reaching out and let us know about YOUR activation as well!!

Last Friday my wife and I went out to eat dinner with her parents Nothing out of the normal, I brought spare rechargeable batteries, a Roger Select, and my FineTuner, just like I always do. I use the FineTuner to adjust DOWN the Sensitivity settings 5 clicks, and the Volume Down 2 clicks. This always helps me hear better at the restaurant table. I bring the Roger Select to use in case I need additional listing help. As I leave the restaurant I use the Reset 🔄 on my FineTuner to UNDO the setting I made at the table. Now we made it home with all my goodies after stopping to get my new suit tailored in the Dressing room All was peachy keen at this point - however as I went to bed, I had a horrible night interrupted sleep several time throughout the wee hours, stomach upset, feverish, many toilet trips. Next morning continued and was quite lethargic 😟. Netflix therapy. Somewhere along the past several hours, I lost my FineTuner. Now it has a label on the back to call me if found. Next morning Im on the mend, I must've ate something bad at the restaurant. As Im getting dressed my FineTuner is AWOL - I searched every where. My wife helped out too searching other everywheres. So I am extremely stressed out at this point wondering if this loss is covered by Warranty? Luckily I have a spare backup FineTuner. Today I went back to the store where I was Friday evening to check the dressing room and uptown Lost and found - Alas no record of it. So Im thinking if someone did find it, SURELY they would have called me, Surely. So I go back home to look any where I might have missed, After all I did look everywhere. So I decided I needed to look under the recliner and sure enough The FineTuner was there!!! I did check every nook and cranny, moved seat cushions etc..... but not underneath the damn chair! A lot of stress for nothing The moral of my story is that we use a lot of technology in our hearing journey with CIs, and rely on it working and being there ALL THE TIME. And as such need to make certain we follow routines. Do not set your wallet and keys down to go get your sunglasses before walking out the door, You'll end up searching everywhere for you wallet and keys!

Thinking of you @Watersail and wishing you the best tomorrow!

I saw this in twitter and wanted to share https://twitter.com/i/redirect?url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Fi%2Ftopics%2Ftweet%2F1103966108585996288%3Fcn%3DZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y%26refsrc%3Demail&t=1+1552051579104&cn=ZmxleGlibGVfcmVjc18y&sig=227e0eff262608b3ca6fb0ba556465edef2175be&iid=2b439b0e337f454cbaa8f901196aa8a2&uid=36647297&nid=244+272699392 I have never shared a twitter link before and wonder if those without a twitter account and read it.

Hi @Julie72 - let me start by wishing you and especially your daughter all the best for her haring journey! 😊 Like @Mary Beth said I am ssd and use a concerto/opus 2 by Medel for my deaf ear!my opus 2 came with a connection cable that lets you directly connect the processor with things like an iPod/smartphone/laptop and found that helpful for training, as otherwise, when training, you always hear with your hearing ear as well (note: I was told not to use that cable when devices are being charged).so I would listen to music/audio books I like with that cable to train just the hearing through the processor!However I am sorry - I don't know of any specific child-friendly training apps and, as I don't use a Roger pen I can't say anything about the specifics of how that gets along with ssd!if there's anything you'd like to know about ssd and things like going to school, tips for noisy environments, etc. just let me know and I am happy to help! 😊

Incredible https://www.wqxr.org/story/all-trombone-cover-bohemian-rhapsody-balm-your-weary-soul/