Meningitis Angels, hearing aids

Last Thursday, I flew to Houston, TX for a Meningitis Angels conference. Overall, it was an interesting experience. I've read of what meningitis can do to people, of the damage meningitis causes. But I've only met very few individuals locally that were deafened as a result of meningitis, that's it. But meeting people who lost limbs, suffered from traumatic brain injury, etc., wow. That really opened my eyes. But I'm glad I went. It was nice to meet others who had meningitis and to see how they are doing these days after having had meningitis recently or years ago. I am definitely going to do better at keeping in touch with the Meningitis Angels folks, just communicating with them and such.


Got my new earmold made today (ok yesterday, since it's after midnight and it's now actually Thursday). I requested for the earmold to be made of non-allergenic material, in hopes that'll reduce the ear irritation problems I've been having. While the earmold was setting in my ear, he got another hearing aid and proceeded to hook it up to the computer, then put it on my ear. Oh, he wants to keep my Supero hearing aid so he could try to get the feedbacking problems fixed. So for now I've got a loaner hearing aid, a Unitron. Eh, everything sounds too weird with the Unitron, so I found my Phonak Claro hearing aid and am currently wearing that one until I get the Supero hearing aid back. With the Claro, things sound a bit more normal to me (more similar to the Supero). Quieter, but more normal. I tried to turn up the volume on the Claro and that just resulted in feedbacking, ahh!

He also tried to encourage me to consider getting a new hearing aid, since he knows I've had issues with the Supero since I first got it in May 2004. I told him I wasn't too worried about getting a new hearing aid at this time, that I'm more focused on getting my left ear implanted first. He's pretty happy to hear I'm still proceeding with the implant process. Now if only Medicaid would approve of it.


Still waiting to hear on the status of the cochlear implant appeal process. While at work yesterday (ok, Monday), I made a relay call to Advanced Bionic's insurance reimbursement department to find out the status, and I was told she'd leave a message with the person handling my case to get back to me. No emails yet, but hopefully soon I'll hear something. Otherwise, I'll just try relay-calling back.