Tea kettle, BEGONE!

Seriously, is there a tea kettle in my ear now?  That's all I seem to hear lately out of the right ear, a tea kettle whistling.  It's just tinnitus, but it's quite annoying!  24/7, it's random ringing or whistling.


Recovery still going ok.  Mostly just taking ibuprofen for pain, and have use an ice pack a few times to try to help with the pain too.  Still camping out on my recliner at home.


Did my first post-op sneezes a couple nights ago, and that was no fun.  3 sneezes at first, followed by 2 more.  Auugghh!  Allergies are horrible, seriously.  Still haven't blown my nose yet though, so that's good.  I remember when I first tried blowing my nose after the first CI surgery, and feeling a pop sensation.  Yeah, don't want to experience that again.


Got the iPod with me at work, in hopes that the music will keep my mind occupied and I won't focus so much on the tinnitus whistling sounds.  Right now it's a combination of music from the iPod and ringing/whistling.  Weird.   One more week, and the new CI will be activated and I will have the Naida CI processors!  And the stitches will be gone!

Trying FM on Neptune again

After a few more attempts of trying to get the Phonak FM system to work with my Neptune with no results, and after a few emails back and forth with an AB regional specialist, he called AB and asked them to send me a new Neptune Connect, in hopes that would solve my FM problem.  Yesterday when I got home, there was a FedEx package waiting for me under my welcome mat.  Yay new Neptune Connect is here!  I dropped everything else I had with me onto my chair, then got the Neptune from the book case where I keep all my CI stuff on and got to work.  Took the original Connect off, put the new one on, plugged the MLxi FM receiver into the FM port on the Neptune connect, turned everything on and voila!  FM was working great.  Something must have gotten loose or something like that in the original Connect.  Hopefully I don't encounter this problem again.  I remember the first time I tried using the FM set up on my Neptune, months before I even got the new transmitter, and had no problems with getting the FM to work.  Worked great right off the bat but then a few months later (after getting the new Phonak transmitter), lots of trouble.  Hmmm...  The original Neptune Connect is being mailed back to AB today.

Was going to play with the FM today with my iPod... This morning, the iPod still had enough battery power that it should have lasted while I worked.  Tried turning the iPod on a few minutes ago, and nada.  Oh great.  It's charging now, but I can't play with it while it's charging, since it's an older iPod.  Wish my iPod Touch's audio port wasn't broken, it didn't matter if it was charging or not, it would still be playable.  Ah maybe I should just load some music to my iPhone instead... but alas, my desktop tower seems to be dead (and my iTunes is on that computer with all the music loaded on it).  I'll have to spend some time updating the iTunes on my laptop and resyncing the music over (good thing I have an external hard drive that has all of my music and photos!).  There's no school tomorrow, due to it being Good Friday, so perhaps I'll have some time to get my iTunes all set up on my laptop and get some music synced to the iPhone.

Technology.... most of the time it's fantastic, but there are moments when it's just a pain to deal with.

Oohh technology...

Been 2 weeks of school so far... for the most part it's going well enough, although I do get a bit frustrated here and there. Frustrated with some of the math, trying to make sense of it. Seriously, fractions are NOT my friend! Also, the captioning set up for English is weird. Seems like I encounter some sort of issue with the set up during each English class. Last Monday, it was working fine for a few minutes, then boom nada.  Turns out I didn't have the microphone charged. Ok.  Last Wednesday and Friday, everything seemed to run smoothly enough, with hiccup here and there (the transcriber would disconnect the call on Skype, call me back and then it's running smoothly again).  This past Wednesday, it seems like there was some trouble with the internet connection?  The disabilities coordinator at the college had the IT department put in a blue network cable into the classroom so I could use it to connect my laptop to the internet instead of relying on wireless (the wireless signals in the room is very weak).  Set up worked fine at first, then we ran into issues, but got everything working again.  But today, nada.  No luck right from the start. We tried everything, reconnecting, restarting the laptop, no such luck. I sent an email to the disabilities coordinator about the troubles, and told him if we keep encountering problems that I just may not want to keep using the captioning service.  It's just not worth my time or the trouble, to have an issue arise and then having to spend time troubleshooting and trying to figure out what's going on, distracting me from the discussions going on in the classroom.  I may be able to get by in that class with the FM only.  The transcriber isn't able to hear the other students in the class when they have something to say, so either way I still miss out on what the students are saying. If I continue to encounter problems next week in English class with the captioning, I'm calling it quits with the service.  It's a great service when it works well, but if I'm just going to be encountering issues every so often, forget it.


Now, as for the FM set up... I went back to the audiologist the 14th... The ML10i came in, and we got that attached to my hearing aid. Tested it with the Smartlink+, and it worked great!  We tried fussing with the old MLx receiver for my Neptune yet again, and got no results. So we were quite stumped. The audiologist even spent some time on the phone with Phonak for some help as well.  Oh well, I was sent on my way with the Smartlink+ and the new receiver attached to my hearing aid.  We were starting to think perhaps the old receiver just isn't compatible with the Smartlink+.  But during the week, I played around with the FM system some more at home, and boom I got it working! Excellent, now I didn't have to worry about needing to get a new receiver afterall!

Today, I'm usig the FM set up with my ipod, and it's fantastic.  I connected the ipod to the Smartlink+, and music is playing in my ears without my needing to wear wires. Oh how nice it is to be wire-free!  I love it!  I don't need a separate set up for each ear device anymore. Sweet!

 

 

 

 

Update: The College's IT person checked the connection in the classroom, and even moved the network cable to a different desk. It seems my laptop was sharing the connection with the teacher/classroom computer, but now I should have my own network connection separate from the classroom computer. Will try it out on Monday and see how that goes, and hope the set up works better.

Still no price.

Just called my audiologist's office, still no price info for the Naida hearing aid. But, I was told to call again tomorrow afternoon as he should have everything by then. So, will hit up the i711 relay online again tomorrow, and get the information. I'm going to assume that I won't be getting the Naida before we leave April 13/14 for Denver to fly out to North Carolina. But that's ok. So hopefully I'll have the pricing info tomorrow, and I'll share it with my dad. My grandparents are giving me $500 to help pay for the new hearing aid, and I have over $500 in my savings. As to how to much my dad will help, I'm not sure yet. We'll get this figured out though.

Yesterday, I went to our local public library after work. The Friends of the Library booksale is going on this week, and yesterday was half price day! It was so nice to just roam around, looking at books, and just listening to music on my iPod with the Hatis epic ear hook device. I didn't listen to people chattering, kids chattering or yelling or stomping around, etc. It was just so nice to just be able to tune everyone out and be in my own little world while browsing for books. Hey, 13 books for only $3.25, now that's a really good deal! Last time I went to the library book sale, I was still in high school! I'm glad I went yesterday.