Sara

Mechanical Piano that “Speaks”

I haven’t gotten to watch this video with sound yet, but I can imagine what it sounds like.  There are captions of a sort that explain what’s going on.  It’s very similar to how our brain learns to hear cochlear implant stimulus as speech…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muCPjK4nGY4

NPR interview about CIs

Sometimes I forget that the things I post to the CI mailing lists I’m on might be good to put here too:
The transcript of this NPR show looks interesting. I haven’t gotten to listen to this yet (forgot to bring headphones to work, forgot to bring spare battery for CI #1 too! 3 weeks away sure [...]

More deaf with CIs

One thing I’ve noticed since getting CIs is that I’ve never been as deaf in my life as when I don’t have them on. It isn’t so much the change in my hearing but more the fact that I was never without my hearing aids and never without spare batteries. I even slept with my [...]

Dinner party

We were invited to dinner at a friend’s house last night.  There were seven of us all together and I had met all but one of them at least once before.  Last time we played a game called Loaded Questions.  I remember having to make people repeat things again and again when it was my [...]

The phone, video phones, multi-tasking and “the future”

Ever since I started ‘chatting’ on the internet back in 1995 or 96 I’ve been a multi-tasker.  My mom and I chatted, my friends at college and I chatted, I even IMed with my roommates when we were in the same room.  The reason this works so well is that it allows us to have [...]

Second (lett) Activation – December 29, 2009

Last night one of the local news weather people was asking on Twitter for favorite memories of 2009. I didn’t write in, but my favorite memory of 2009 was only a few hours old.
My new CI was activated yesterday afternoon and after going through and setting the comfortable volume level on 11 electrodes three or [...]

A really useless transcription

Barely enough to get the gist of what he’s saying…. could have done better just focusing on trying to hear.
I prefer using text relay versus captel. The relay operator is a better advocate than I am for myself.
Outcome: no CI activation until the 4th even though I had an appt scheduled for tomorrow with the audiologists. [...]

So far, so good

Had my second CI surgery today and am now bilateral.
I missed my pre-op appointment due to being snowed in from the storm Friday and Saturday with no plows in sight on my street. I was pretty worried but when I called to tell them they said just come for surgery, they could do everything then [...]

Waiting and snow storms

Today is the day. I’m not first this time so have to wait more I think. Not terribly hungry due to stomach butterflies.
I had to reschedule/cancel my pre-op appointment that was supposed to be two days ago because Charlottesville got over two feet of snow. The snow stopped Saturday night but my street didn’t see [...]

Hearing a lot: videos, the phone, movies

Another short update just to say that I’m now able to hear the following things a whole lot better than I could without the implant:

High-quality recorded voices.  I’m not understanding movies at the theater, but I am understanding movies at ted.com (without the amazing subtitles that site has!) and many other videos that have professional, high-quality [...]

Welcome

Photo of Sara Looking out a Window
I'm a 30 year old girl originally from upstate NY. I work full time as an engineer and try to pack as many hobbies into the other 14 hours of my day as I can. I lost my hearing at age 14 and have been using hearing aids since then. In April 2009 I received my first cochlear implant. That went really well so in December 2009 I got the second. The CIs are what prompted me to start writing publicly - but I try to cover other things as well.

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