So my Bilateral CI journey has been pretty amazing. It feels like things get better everyday. Friday was my three month Mapping (programming for Cochlear Implants) for my left ear, and close enough to one year (11months) to look at is as well. I knew the past couple weeks that things weren’t sounding as well as they were, so was excited for seeing my Favorite Audiologists 😁 (I love the other ones too, but this one is special-she activated both my ears❤️) The appointment started out great, getting new programs and generally feeling like it was going great. Then, THE BOOTH. For those of us with hearing loss, THE BOOTH is a place where we have to come face to face with the demon that is hearing loss. There are no excuses in there. No distractions, just you and the sound the Audiologists pump in. Testing with a CI is different, you sit in a chair and face a speaker-headphones don’t really work😜. First up is the right ear, repeat the words in quiet. Cool, I can do this. 98%😁 pretty amazing. Next, repeat the sentences with background noise. This one is hard, and I only got 86%. Okay, thought I was doing better than that🤷♂️ but, that’s a good score so we move on. Let’s do the left ear. Let’s just go for all the marbles and start with sentences in noise. First sentence “busrk dee burk da dur “. What the hey? Second one “blah da bah de do”. At this point, I am beside myself. To tell you how awesome my Audi is, she stopped the test and pulled me out. Told me that it was okay, and I needed to practice more with just my left ear and come back in four weeks and try again. She didn’t want me to get discouraged, she knows I might be a little Type A😜 it was bad enough, she emailed me later to cheer me on and give me some more resources. My wife saw that one-I hadn’t told her (kinda like telling you parents you failed a test).
Let’s back up to Thursday night. We had a fire run to assist the Ambulance- a subject had fallen down stairs and blocking the door. We had to gain entry from the second floor and remove the hinge pins-this was royal pain and took forever-we didn’t have the ability to get the proper tools in play because of the limited space-we got it, but it wasn’t easy.
So, both of these things could have been road blocks or speed bumps-what they were dependent on how I reacted. Fortunately, I have an awesome family and Saturday we all four spent the day together-at my Oldest Munchkin’s request! ( I think it is sinking in that she is leaving soon😞) the support I needed. So Sunday, we finished up getting some things and while working on a fire box for the smoker, inspiration hit.
Let me introduce the EPRT MK1 (Emergency Pin Removal Tool Mark 1)
Believe it or not, It works!!😂😂 A friend told me I needed to make something when we talked about the problem, and well 20 minutes and a little spray paint and there we go.
Basically, this week was a speed bump. I know the road won’t always be smooth, and we all will have set backs. I just decided that I was going to just pull it back together and charge on. Because even though it’s not fun and it’s hard work, everyday my hearing will get better-because I have and amazing support team❤️
CI-Borg Fabricating 