Last night we went to a holiday party for members of two chapters of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA). There were about 25 or 30 people there, many of them wearing CIs.
I was surprised by how much of the conversation I could hear without difficulty. This morning I realized that the house was decorated with a eye toward that goal: the carpeting throughout was very plush; all the windows were draped in soft fabric; the furniture was soft and had lots of pillows; and the walls were full of interesting stuff, all of which minimized the echo. Even the front door had some fabric art hanging down from below the small window. All that really did make a difference! The opposite--a sleek design with hardwood floors surrounded with windows enclosing large open spaces--makes hearing more difficult.
I did find, however, that toward the end of the evening, I was asking for more repeats. Listening hard is tiring and after a while I tend to lose some of my acuity. I imagine I will find this even more true once I am trying to understand through my CI.
I was especially struck by two of the guests who were wearing CIs. One still had great difficulty understanding language. That was obvious. The other one told me that the audiologist at HUP had told him five years ago that he had the highest scores on word recognition immediately after being activated of all the patients she had ever worked with. Now that's something to aim for! Wouldn't it be wonderful to get into competition with him? (I'm not expecting it, but it would be nice.)
The thing I must remember, however, is that we are all like snowflakes, each one unique (as my friend Maurice likes to say). So I'll have to wait and see what transpires.
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