3 Reasons why one should be careful with what they say Online..............

[Brent Dowell]

Count me in too

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk

[Bob Gibson]

Where can we send the donation?

[larry merlau]

i will match vaughns 20... just give me a address after he does the deed

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Well,

Today is the day.

I am finishing a stair rail for my oldest son's wife.

My wife has to go to a function with her former coworkers about 0730 before school starts. Once she gets home, she'll get the camera and we will go down town. First photos at the Nez Perce County Court House. I hope I don't run into my oldest son (a deputy sheriff) there as I wouldn't want to embarrass him. Then we will travel to the mall. I will walk inside it to J. C. Penny's. This will be after 0900 so the store is open and shoppers will be shopping 1 week before Christmas.

[larry merlau]

well i knew you were the man for the job ken and it didnt take much prodding either how are the new ears doing?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Larry,If you were sitting here, I could remove and shutoff my hearing aid and hold a conversation with you using just the cochlear implant on the other ear.

I am one of the very small percentage of implantees who heard human voices at activation. Most implantees hear Minnie Mouse, beeps or Darth Vader at activation. The audiologist took a pair of scissors, trimmed the hair over the implant, placed the sound processor (looks like a hearing aid) over my left ear, placed the antenna/coil over the area she had trimmed. It's held on by an implanted rare earth magnet and a magnet in the antenna. Then she connected a cable from her computer to the sound processor. She had me remove my hearing aid from my right ear. She said "You won't hear anything but I am running diagnostics and checking the impedance of the electrodes in the implant." Then she said " I have the volume turned down so you aren't startled, I am turning it on. What do you hear?" I replied "I hear you talking." My wife said "Can he hear us?" and I responded "Yes Dear. I can hear you."

The tears began to flow and the audiologist left the room to get some tissues.

I can hear better in the mornings than evenings. I can't do well at all on the telephone or do well with television audio.

I hear music but it's crude. I do better with music that I was extremely familiar with as my brain has a memory of what that sounded like. All this is normal and I am months ahead of the average cochlear implant patient.The brain has to learn to recognize and handle this new electrical stimulation as sound and it takes a while. I talked with the audiologist last week when I went to get my 2nd "mapping" and she agrees. (Mapping is similar to adjusting the equalizer on a stereo system.) My extremely good performance is primarily fueled by two things. 1. The implanted ear was only deaf for 16 month. So the nerve and the brain are used to having excitation there. 2. I wear a hearing aid on the other ear.....and the good news.....it's only going to get better!

I am blessed!

[larry merlau]

well good for yo but i would never have admitted that i could her my wife this way you can play dumb better

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Uh.....Larry....the audiologist is a female too. It would have been a little difficult to admit hearing the audiologist and not my wife. After 16 months of having to shout or get into my face so I could read her lips, she had already threatened to kill me if I got any hearing back and then intentionally ignored her. I would have hated to be killed at activation for displaying selective hearing. LOL.

[larry merlau]

well there is stil a good side to this story ken,,, you dont have to get such a close look at her face anymore

[Rennie Heuer]

Here is the link to the CNN video