New sounds, auditory rehab

There was a deaf ice cream social at the Dairy Queen today that I went to. It was fun, just hanging out, socializing a bit and just watching everyone socialize.

I picked up on a couple of new sounds. I heard the 1 year old girl smacking her lips as she ate her ice cream cone. I was a few chairs away from her and her mom, but I could hear her little lips smacking. And I only had the implant on, the hearing aid was off. I also teased a deaf friend a bit for being noisy.. He was just playing with the empty aluminum can he had. I kept hearing this sound, and it took me a few minutes of looking around until I realized it was just him crinkling the can.



Seems like I've been using the hearing aid much less than usual these days. Just focusing on listening with the implant and trying to make sense of what I'm hearing. I spent about half an hour using the Able rehab app on my iPad last night, just listening and doing my best to tap on the word I think is being said. As I get further along on the first level, it gets more trickier. Tike and dike, took and cook, key and tea.... the words that sound extremely similar are still tricky for me to get. But I'm still working at it. I also played around a bit with a piano app I have on the iPad, just to see if I could hear the difference between the keys right next to each other. I can't hear the difference between 2 keys right next to each other, but if I play 1 key, then aother that's further away from the first I can hear that difference. I think I can hear the slight difference with the implant though, but it's hard to tell.

I haven't done much with any auditory rehab tools lately. With school in the mornings, and work in the afternoons, by the time I get home I have dinner, do some homework, and then I'm just tired and want to take it easy. But I do try to watch TV with just the implant alone (unless a new episode is on, then I'm more likely to have the hearing aid on too).




Just got a statement from Medicare today, for the Prevnar 13 vaccine that I got in March.... $300?! Whew. Glad Medicare covered it.