Well I've been officially turned on for a little over a week now. I went in yesterday to see my audiologist to add in some programing with the roger receiver and roger pen. This neat little do-dad lets me use a microphone that looks like a pen as a personal microphone and also allows me to bluetooth sync with my phone so I can use my implant as a bluetooth phone receiver for phone calls. It is also what allows me to stream music to my processor.
First of all, let me say that apparently I am an unusual case when it comes to being able to distinguish speech so early on with my implant. While the background static is making me somewhat irritable, most people hear ONLY that fuzz for the first couple of weeks. (And for the record, I'm listening to what is apparently my front loading washing machine go through its spin cycle at the moment... it sounds like white static...whee!) My audiologist assures me the static will back off eventually and that she is pretty amazed with my ability to hear with the implant so early. We did an aided hearing test to see what I am getting and how we need to adjust things.
After doing the aided hearing test in the nice little sound proof box, we went in and hooked me up to a computer where my doctor ran some more beeping tests and adjusted how loud or soft various frequency bands are like an electronic equalizer or soundboard. Then, we got into the "other stuff" category of programming.
We added a program called "clear voice" as well as a program that softens sudden loud noises. Another program added is one that helps to dampen background noise in places like the car and restaurants. We talked about a few more, like echo block which I told her I would consider if I needed it regularly and my gratefulness for the wind-block program which helps dampen the sound of wind blowing past my microphones.
Next we put the roger receiver onto my battery (you need a specific type of battery to add the roger receiver shoe to your processor) and turned on the roger pen. With this I can stream calls from my phone via bluetooth. I've tried it once or twice and had utter fail. I cannot yet use this feature to distinguish clear language from an unknown person. I had to give up and have my husband call my doctor back to reschedule my appointment. Grr.
The other thing this neat piece of very smart technology can do is plug into my phone or iPod and stream music to me. This was also a total fail. It worked- but the signal was so fuzzy the music was indistinguishable. My audiologist assures me it WILL get better with practice- but I was so disappointed, I nearly sat there and cried. Why, oh why if I can hear and distinguish music from my car stereo, why can't I hear it directly streamed to me?! I'm still not sure of the answer and I haven't tried since to use it. I'm afraid it will just hurt too much. It may just be a volume issue- It may be that there are additional programs available we can layer in to help with this. I don't know. My audiologist and I will just have to do more research and practice.
At some point, I promise I will get into all the neatness that is the cool technology of the Roger pen... For now though- I continue on my learning journey.
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