And the Horizons Creep Outward

Ahhh, there's nothing like a remapping to push one's boundaries. During the last week and a half, I've felt like someone who's been knocked slightly off balance, or who has found that the ground beneath her feet is shifting and undulating. But as I reorient myself to the changes in my auditory input, I find that my current sound quality is better than before. Sounds that had been driving me bonkers for months, or growing steadily more annoying, are much more manageable. And I've noticed new sounds, or continued to progress with new auditory developments that have emerged only in the past few weeks. Here are a couple:

When riding my bicycle or riding a horse or driving with the car window down or otherwise traveling at speed, I'm no longer distracted by the ROAR WHOOSH GRAWWLL ROAR RUSHHH of air blowing past. That sound is still there, but it's not as harsh or grating, and it doesn't drown out everything else. Thank goodness. I was starting to tilt my head when I rode my bike if only to avoid my ear facing directly into the jetstream!

In the absence of those air-blowing-past noises, I've noticed new sounds when I'm active or on the go. My bicycle chain clicks (okay, I should probably oil it). My brakes squeal. My backpack groans on my back, ice rattles in my water bottle in my bag. The car makes finer and more unique acceleration noises than I ever knew. My saddle creaks so, so loudly, and creaks in different ways and at different tempos depending on what gait my horse is traveling at - how did I never notice that before?

A few of my friends have car GPS navigation systems, and I've been amusing myself to no end listening to the robotic voices speak as we drive. "I recognized that street name!" I'll say, or "Turn left, turn left! It said turn left!" Earlier today I found it funny when the GPS kept crying, "Wrong turn. Wrong turn." Having that disembodied voice suddenly take on meaning was, for me, wondrous.

I've had the chance to visit the ocean twice in the last few weeks. While sitting on the shore, I've realized that this is the first time I've heard waves. I knew from reading books that they were supposed to roar, or crash, and admittedly I associated unpleasant things with those noises (or adjectives). But, in reality, when I looked out at the blue plain of the sea and saw the cresting foam and the receding swells, the accompanying sound was one of the most rhythmic and peaceful that I have heard. I could have listened to it all day, and I suddenly realized why people record the sound of the sea to play in their houses, or to lull themselves to sleep (that always seemed weird and fetish-like to me before). A friend and I jumped up and down, looking at each other and grinning, when we both realized that that sound I had been wondering about was the sea, and that it was completely unexpected and completely new.

People's voices seem louder than ever, even from far away. I keep noticing more often, with my back turned, when people whistle or grunt or exhale or sigh. It's startlingly invasive, startlingly intimate. And pretty awesome to note: I've been picking up, more regularly, greetings called to me when my back is turned. "Have a good day" or "see you later" - when people say these things to me as I'm walking out the door, without thinking that I'm not looking at them, I'm able to understand and reply, without looking over my shoulder. Every time I smother a grin and bask in a private sense of triumph. How much of this was lost on me before? Now, in such situations, how normal I must seem. Whoa. And while my speech comprehension skills continue to progress in quiet controlled situations, these sorts of real-world breakthroughs give me the hope that, someday, I will be able to broaden and apply those skills in a more general way.

Old sounds: these aren't quite unexpected or new, but they're different. When I inhale and exhale, it sounds gentler and smoother than before. Typing is more crisply defined (but not the dice-rolling-Las-Vegas-gambling-casino-annoying noise it was last summer). When I brush my teeth, I can hear the sound change based on which angle I'm directing my toothbrush - it's very dynamic. I can hear when I shift about in my chair, or when fabric slides against fabric, but again more gently and - I don't know - subtly. Plus there have been a few unidentified noises that have jumped out in my apartment in the last few weeks. Clicking and weird popping and such. I've tried to hunt them down, but to no avail. I need a hearing person with me at all times!

Finally, I feel like clarifying something that has been a common misconception among friends and other people who ask me about the CI. At this stage of my listening progress, when I go in for a remapping, I'm not just getting the volume turned up. Not exactly. The volume input I'm receiving right now is right around where we want it to be. It's stabilized. While I would theoretically be able to tolerate more, turning it up would interfere with clarity. So, when I go in for a remapping, it's literally giving my neurons a different "map," or balance, or picture of sound to work with. My brain is adjusting itself all the time, becoming gradually more familiar with noises and frequencies it never heard before. To keep this learning curve stabilized, it's necessary to go in and rebalance the frequencies my brain gets from the CI. That way, sound perception remains more accurate. It's not necessarily louder.

That's a rough layman's description, but it should do. I'm still learning about this entire process myself. Now, on to more noises and more practice!

Piece by Piece

The practice continues. But now, instead of listening to words like “banana” and “corn,” over and over again (or, even more tediously, “shhh” and “mmmm”), I find myself vaulting to giddy new heights. The last few weeks have brought an explosion of words to my auditory memory, skills to my repertoire. Listening exercises, instead of being a frustrating chore, have become a way for me to open the door ever wider into the world of sound. I now practice a wild variety of sentences, and even verge on short open-set conversations. Just think, me having a conversation through listening alone! And understanding! Granted, these conversations are about very familiar topics, with very familiar family members, but this doesn’t stop me from wanting to dance around the room.

These triumphs, though, don’t come without a good deal of drill and repetition. Our exercises have encompassed a range of categories, words, and ideas – and the exciting part is that I cast my net out farther with each day. Animals. Food. Flowers. Pieces of furniture. Sports and hobbies. Names of family members, friends, and pets. Numbers, months, days of the week. Social occasions. American states. Foreign countries. Random adjectives and verbs. All of these – framed in short sentences such as “I am traveling to ____ in ____,” or “Bob likes to eat ____” – are working their way into my auditory vocabulary. Some of them I now get easily, even lazily. Others, particularly new words I have not practiced before, I find flabbergasting at first. But the common pattern, ever astonishing to me, is that once I’ve heard a word once or twice, thereafter I can understand it almost without effort. The other night, I faltered when my mother said “flower arranging” in one of our practice sentences. But, several minutes later, when it came up again – snap. I knew. My brain had latched onto those words, formed some kind of neural connection already, without my conscious input. Isn’t it amazing?

Eventually, the hope is, I’ll be familiar enough with these words that they’ll flow in and I’ll grasp them without thought. But, I’ve discovered, this will not be the whole story. Another unexpected challenge is retaining what I’ve heard – not only recognizing the pieces of the puzzle, but holding on to those pieces long enough to assemble the entire picture. Now, I’ve always had a good memory, but I find that it sometimes fails me as far as hearing goes. Case in point: practicing random phone numbers. If I see a phone number written down, I remember it easily. But hearing it – that’s a different pathway, one that my brain has never had to use before. The numbers streak by, but as soon as I’ve grasped one, another is on its way. At the end of the string, I’ll stammer and say, “Wait – I understood that when I heard it, but now it’s not there!” It’s amusing how hard this is, and I often resort to spluttering, “Eight-something-seven-something-twotwothree!”

Even funnier, to me, are my auditory faux-pases. I’ve long been used to misunderstanding what people say, through lipreading, but I’ve rarely been able to find it amusing rather than embarrassing. Now, though, I’ve been blessed with the ability to laugh (sometimes uncontrollably) at what my brain thinks I hear, before it’s learned a word properly. Take these gems from a conversation with my sister Leigh:

L: I eat mangoes. Wait, why are you laughing?

R: It’s… never mind. Say it again.

L: What? Tell me!

R: It – it sounds like you said, ‘I eat my legs!’

[Later, after we’ve calmed down again]

L: I eat watermelon.

R: You eat Ronald Reagan!

L [laughing]: They don’t even sound the same!

R: Yes, they do – say it fast, watermelonRonaldReaganwatermelon!

[Later, approaching the edge]

L: I eat apples. Okay, what is it? Tell me!

R [laughing]: You eat bottles!

Other gems abound. Sometimes the sounds are somewhat close, other times they’re way off. Where does my brain dig up these things? Once it has fastened onto a supposed ‘meaning’ for a word, it stubbornly casts that nonsensical meaning onto that word every time. Even as I protest that that can’t possibly be right, that it doesn’t make sense. I’m at odds with myself. And yes, there are lasting consequences – even though I can now recognize “watermelon” for its true meaning, I still can’t hear it without thinking “Ronald Reagan!”

At the end of the listening road (wherever that is), along with an impressive arsenal of words in my auditory dictionary, I could have some very interesting mental connotations…

The Brain That Changes Itself

I know I’ve written about neuroplasticity on this blog before, but it continues to be a subject that fascinates me – partly because of my interest in biology and psychology, partly because I’m experiencing its repercussions every day. In that vein, I recently finished a book on the subject that I really, really recommend: The Brain that Changes Itself, by Norman Doidge.

This book is more than nerd reading. Sure, it delves into the complexity of brain systems and neural anatomy, which was enough to make the biology student in me leap in glee. But it does something more: it lends scientific credibility to the idea that our thoughts do make a difference, that we can change ourselves in unprecedented and positive ways, if we put in enough effort. To an extent, we have a stronger hand in shaping our own minds and our own fates than we sometimes think. This happens not only on an abstract level, but also in terms of concrete physiological change. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I admit I found Doidge’s assessments and anecdotes genuinely inspirational.

The book is a nice blend of scientific insight and personal stories, some of them verging on the bizarre. We meet a woman who functions astonishingly well with only half of her brain, stroke patients and children with cerebral palsy who have been able to overcome many of their obstacles, plus people who have been able to correct learning disabilities and self-destructive behaviors through concentrated therapy and practice. Although cochlear implants are only mentioned briefly, this book’s exploration of neuroplasticity is closely related to what I am going through. And, dare I say, learning to hear is nothing compared to what some of these people have experienced!

To reiterate, learning to hear (or to do anything else) is not about the ear, it’s about the brain. That my brain can radically change its architecture so late in my life, that it can accept new input and form increasingly complex neural connections, in order to gain and fine-tune a sense that I’ve never had before: amazing. (The book talked about colorblind people who can learn to “see” color through hearing specific tones, about visual cortex prostheses to assist with blindness, about a device that uses the tongue to restore the vestibular system, about triggering specific sensations through electromagnetic stimulation. Mind-boggling. I love biomedical engineering.)

In a nutshell – I am not static, I am dynamic and receptive to change. That’s an empowering thought. When I first started reading this book, it was during the difficult early days with the CI, a time when everything seemed to have been turned on its head. Look, the pages said to me, just because change starts slowly does not mean things won’t get better. It’s like picking a trail up a hill, step by step. Each step seems to accomplish little more than the one before it. But within a surprisingly short amount of time, you raise your eyes from your feet and find yourself atop a bluff, marveling at how far you’ve climbed. On to the next peak!

Some days, I needed that encouragement badly. I think everyone does. Isn't change motivational?