Thank you for the kind words everyone.........I guess we never know how we will handle things until we are forced to deal with them. Personally, I am driven by my preference to eat on a regular basis and to maintain a place to live where my family and I are protected from the elements.
As to what I hear; that's difficult to describe. The sounds that I hear are all very electronic. I hear few pitches - Imagine playing each key on a piano starting from the lowest and going to the highest. They all sound the same to me. I can hear syllables and rhythm of speech, but I cannot understand it without lip reading too. Everyone's voice sounds the same, even my own. I tell people that we all sound like robots. And, for those Charlie Brown fans, remember his teacher Mrs. Othmar on the TV shows. People sound similar to that.
I do best in face-to-face one-on-one conversations, where people talk slowly and enunciate. Group situations are not good. Many times, in normal conversations, topics change quickly, and speaking bounces from person to person quickly. I still cannot keep up with that. I get bits and pieces, but not enough to know what is going on. In my classroom, I can hear when someone is talking out of turn, and I can usually locate them. And I can hear that the daily announcemnts are being made over the intercom, even though I can't understand them. So the ABI definitely helps.
When I was reading about the ABI years ago, I ran into this cochlear implant simulation. I remember the demonstration with a Johnny Cash song. Although not exactly the same, I seem to remember in my mind the one channel demonstration. I hear sounds that are similar to the way I remember hear the dem. Here is a link to the demonstrations:
http://www.hei.org/research/aip/audiodemos.htmHave a great weekend!
Jeff
I forgot to mention tinnitus. I have what I would describe as rip roaring tinnitus. It is fairly high pitched on one side. But after my surgery last year, When I finally woke up, I have something that sounds like the engine room of a ship on the other side. Neither goes away - ever. I decided years ago not to pay attention to it. However, since I had nothing else to listen to, I did tune in and analyze it some. I have found that nothing, including sounds from my ABI, affect it. It does not change in terms of volume or pitch, no matter what the external input.
