25th entry ~ November 27, 2023

One week from tomorrow, I’ll be at Hearts for Hearing in Oklahoma City for my activation day! In the last couple of days, I have been creating a list of music-related words for part of my aural rehabilitation work. I also downloaded the rehabilitation resources from the Cochlear Americas web page. I was correct in my assumption that the typical word recognition lists do not focus much on music; in fact, I’d say they don’t provide any musical terms whatsoever.

The list I have created includes about 375 words, categorized into seven groups: one syllable; two syllables; and so on, up to six syllables (I’ve only thought of one six-syllable word for that category: recapitulation). The seventh category is names of favorite composers. Last evening, I took time to add some ‘comparison’ exercises, asking the reader to say two words, then repeat just one of them, so I can say which one I think was repeated. I tried to find words that may sound alike, for example, gong and song, or lento and tempo.

Surgery was three weeks ago, or nearly so. By now, the incision is no longer sensitive and has healed completely. The tinnitus continues as previously described, mildly intense most of the time and centered in the implanted ear.

A member of one of the Facebook CI support groups I belong to responded to one of my posts, and included a link to a web page he’s created of his own CI experiences. As I read through some of his posts, I learned that the ‘hissing’ sound we sometimes hear from certain voices when they say words that include the letter S is called ‘sibalance.’ He also indicated that he listened to Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra as part of his musical rehabilitation. I plan to do the same! He is a bilateral CI user from Hout Bay, West Cape, South Africa; his web site is Get an Earful (https://pdkknight.editorx.io/getanearful). He’s created a couple of ear-training apps and offered to add my list of musical terms to one of them. His web site includes links to some useful resources.

P.S. I added a 7-syllable word: pianissinissimo. ppp

24th entry ~ November 21, 2023

There isn’t much to report since the last entry. The main thing is that this morning, for the first time, I have had some sensation of hearing in my implanted ear. I don’t feel like I hear environmental sounds (speech, music, ‘house’ and other sounds), but when I showered this morning, and tapped the side of my ear, I heard the sound that resulted from that. It’s a sound nobody else would hear, of course, just the sound of my finger flicking my ear. But it’s sound, which suggests to me that there may be some residual hearing remaining in that ear.

Sunday at church, I experimented with using both hearing aids during the service. I’d learned that Bluetooth won’t connect to my hearing aids if I use only one, so I wore both of them in order to use the ‘Music’ setting during church, a setting that generally improves my ability to hear anyone in that particular setting. I found that my implanted ear got weary of it and, for a brief period, I had a bit of an ear ache. I won’t make a habit of wearing that hearing aid.

Today marks two weeks after surgery, with another two weeks until Activation Day. I’m like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning to arrive – I can hardly wait!

23rd entry ~ November 16, 2023

I shared this post to the ‘Association of Adult Musicians With Hearing Loss’ support group on Facebook.

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I had CI surgery on my left side Nov. 7th. Had NONE of the common unpleasant symptoms (except that coffee doesn’t taste quite right now). Incision has healed nicely and I have felt great for the past few days - but moved pretty slow the first couple days after surgery.

I took time after a few days and sat down at the piano for some practice - and just to see what the piano sounds like now. My left ear has zero hearing and my right side, always my ‘good’ ear, seems to be at about half the hearing level as it was before surgery. I assume that has to do with the connection with the left hearing aid now being broken - it misses its mate, I think!

Anyway, sitting at the piano and playing some new Christmas music I am learning, the piano sounds like it’s in a distant room - and it sounds like it needs to be tuned. Some of the higher pitches, especially, sound out of tune to me - and I've not heard the upper octave for a long time.

My wife and I attended church choir practice last night - this is one week and one day after surgery. I sit in the middle of the row of men (third row back, three rows total, about 25 singers). The piano is to the choir’s left (my ‘bad’ side).

I could *barely* hear the piano most of the time - and occasionally could not hear it at all. I could hear the singer to my right, barely enough to help me know if I was singing on pitch (I was, except in some of the high notes, and I realized when I was going off the tracks!). Occasionally, I could hear the tenor next to him. I heard no other singers when we were all singing. I was unable to make any sense of anything our director said.

I will continue to attend rehearsals - my wife sings soprano and I sing bass - but I will not sing the anthems during the worship services for a while. At times during rehearsal, it sounded to me like I was singing ‘solo’ - and a cappella - and nobody else was singing.

I know all of this will change again after my activation, which happens on Dec. 5th - so I have another almost three weeks of this most awkward sense of ‘musical imbalance.’ I expect the imbalance to worsen after activation. I’m eager for that day to arrive, so I will finally know where my starting point is for aural rehabilitation.

My wife and I will continue attending things and I’ll do my best at socializing (I’ve long-since learned when to ‘tune out’ or when to wander off and sit by myself).

Tonight is a performance of our local symphony; tomorrow night is a concert featuring Mahler’s ‘Resurrection’ Symphony, arranged for organ (and played) by British organist David Briggs, with several local choirs participating in the performance.

Our church’s annual Christmas concert is Dec. 10th and I will certainly miss being on the program. My ‘secret plan’ is to play the piece I’ve selected* sometime next summer, perhaps as an offertory or as the ‘special music’ one Sunday.

*It’s a toss-up right now, but will be one of four arrangements by Dan Forrest in his ‘Christmas Illuminations’ collection - either The First Noel, O Little Town of Bethlehem**, Huron Carol, or Silent Night. Forrest is a ‘new to me’ composer and I very much like his style of writing.

**Added 11-21-23: I plan to play O Little Town of Bethlehem at the Dec. 10^th Christmas concert. As of about a week ago, I can hear well enough with my right hearing aid that I believe I’ll be able to play well enough on the concert, even if my CI processor provides ‘less than stellar’ hearing at that point. I can remove the processor, after all. On the day of the concert, I will have been activated only five days.