Zoom for SSD and/or Recently Activated people

[Tim]

I've been doing a monthly zoom for SSD and recently activated CI  people.  I wanted to hold off on announcing on Hearpeers to keep it small and avoid confusion with Mary Beth's great monthly meeting.  Given that Mary Beth's meeting is getting to be so large it needs a cap, I wanted to offer an opportunity up our little Zoom.

We usually have anywhere from 4 to 9 people which feels pretty good for a nice conversation. 

(I'm posting in the Rehab channel since we are generally in the rehab stage.)

By recent, we mean people that were implanted/activated in Fall 2022 or more recently.  The idea is that we are all going through similar things. 

The goal of our zoom is a chance to share experiences, support, make connections with others at similar stages of the recovery process.  We don't claim to be experts but it can be nice to have a chance to share.  I've still only met in-person one other cochlear implant recipient and that was 20 years ago!

The next meeting is Wednesday, August 9th at 5 PM Pacific Standard Time (i.e. Los Angeles time). For our Australian friends, it may be Thursday morning depending on your time zone (Ex. AEST 10 AM.)   PST = UTC - 7 and AEST = UTC + 10, therefore 5pm PST = AEST 10am. I know any time will not work for everyone but another motivation for this is to provide an alternative to the Sunday morning times. 

I'm going to emulate some of Mary Beth's organizing practices.  If you are interested in joining this week, please reply to this message and I will send you the Zoom link in a Hearpeers group message a couple of hours before the start.

I'm tagging some of the recent attendees.  Please confirm if you are able to join. 

@Caroline @Mike Austin @Anne N@R.J.@Robbin J@Heather W@Dave in Pittsburgh

I'm also tagging some of the recent implantees in Hearpeers. Apologies in advance if I'm missing anyone, please free to respond in here.  We are a friendly group. 

@briggia @dnagy @Joel @Lauren

 

[Anne N]

I plan to attend

[Lauren]

@Tim thank you for the invite and for hosting. I would love to attend. 

[Joel]

Thank you. I plan to attend. How do you listen when one has a rondo 3?

[Tim]

@Anne N Great to have an original member of our little gang!

@Lauren Welcome aboard!  You've got more rehab experience than most people - none of us hope to repeat 3 CI surgeries in 17 months.

@Joel Welcome to the new CI club!  We have all been where you are.  Not sure exactly what you mean by your question. From your other posts, we are in different positions.  I'm single-sided deaf (SSD) and am lucky to be at a 2 processor clinic.  That means that they gave me the option to get both a Rondo 3 and a Sonnet 2.  Over the last 6 months I've probably been using them about equally but for very different purposes.  On my Rondo 3 I do a lot Audiolink streaming plugging my computer or tablet into the Audiolink then wireless streaming to my Rondo 3. When I need to focus more but still want to do a little rehab work, I'll wear construction muffs to partially handicap my good ear but leave the Rondo 3 exposed.  Mike Austin talked about doing this with a little foam ear plug. Since you have a Widex hearing aid, for focused rehab work you can just leave off the hearing aid on the non-CI side to get the same effect.  I have never even tried telecoil with either the Sonnet 2 or the Rondo 3.  Not sure if this helps at all but something we can talk about on Wednesday.  Takes a while for all of us to get things set up the way we want.

 

 

 

[Anne N]

Joel, just wear your rondo 3 and hearing aid and log into the zoom call with your sound on your computer or laptop and you will be able to hear and be heard on the call. 

[Caroline]

4 hours ago, Anne N said:

I would love to attend thanks Tim   - Caroline

 

[Caroline]

Hi Tim.  Hope I have sent a correct reply but yes please would love to attend 

[Tim]

6 minutes ago, Caroline said:

Hi Tim.  Hope I have sent a correct reply but yes please would love to attend 

Got both messages and looking forward to seeing you in less than 70 hours! 

 

[Dave in Pittsburgh]

I’m planning on it

Dave In Pittsburgh 

[Tim]

Sending out the Zoom link by email.  Less than 7 hours to go. 

Have six people, can add more if people want to join in. 

5 PM Pacific (Los Angeles time)

8 PM Eastern (New York time)

 

 

[Lauren]

Thank you for hosting!

Sorry for my early mic issues.

[R.J.]

Oh man! I thought this was tomorrow! I was looking forward to this 😞 . I'll try to catch y'all next month.

[Tim]

Thanks. No worries. August can be a busy time of travel for lots of people.  We'll do it again in September.

We had a nice chat.  @Caroline , @Lauren , and I were able to dive into some good issues and it seemed like we each learned some good stuff. 

Caroline shared the challenges that she has been facing.  Lauren talked about her experience getting Med-El's Anatomy Based Fitting and I mentioned that I am scheduled to get to the ABF on Friday.  We suggested that might be helpful for her. 

Lauren shared her issues of getting the file transferred to Med-El for ABF was hard for her clinic!  My clinic/lab is having the same problem.  Seems like it should be easy since they had done it for the pre-op CT Otoplan but it seems to be a different file.  I'm keeping fingers crossed that my clinic can get the file to Med-El and processed in time for my Friday appointment.

Caroline has been using the SoundSuccess app instead of the WordSuccess app that seems to be quite popular for rehab.  I had not even heard of SoundSuccess.  I learned the following:

• AB's SoundSuccess and WordSuccess are very different (complimentary?) systems for rehab even though they are both from AB and available seemingly for all CI users. 
• AB confuses people by calling things *Success just like MedEl confuses us by calling so many things Audio*.
• Here is a link for a PDF on the SoundSuccess system.  I can't find it on the US Android App store. Perhaps it is only Apple or not available in the US.  

It was a small but nice group chat!