I was so...

...tired today.

I was fine when I got up. Was up early. Sat in the sun for a few hours before I went out.

Went to a cafe where I talked with people I knew. But the noise became overwhelming for Brain, and because there a few conversations going on as well kitchen noises, and this new cochlear mapping with my processor just made everything confused discordant noises. It interfered badly with my lip reading skills.

Taking the processor out and listening to silence wasn't an option because Brain isn't a switch. And in any case my tinnitus was having drunken party. Brain was trying to cope with the cafe noises and voices, and it got worse and worse.

I stayed because I was having lunch. I did feel ill at this point because I/Brain could make no sense of any noises by this time.

It was noticed I did not look good. So I must have looked bad. Someone even said, you are not coping with this are you? At that moment I was feeling totally lost and drowning with this.

I came home after lunch, and went into a deep sleep for the next few hours. By the time I came to it was 5 pm. I went into the potting shed with iPad and watched You Tube...stuff with just human speech on and captions/subtitles.

Even though Brain cannot make sense of those sounds of speech, the subtitle/captions are there to help it along. So by the time 10:30 pm arrived my device battery ran down and I came in. But watching&listening to You Tube was not stressful like the cafe experience was this morning/lunchtime. Brain was quite relaxed listening to You Tube in the comfort of my potting shed, and Popeye slept on my lap. I was feeling quite relaxed by this time.

So the top drawing is the noise of the discordant confusing fog of voices in the cafe.

And the bottom drawing is noise from voices on You Tube, which for the most part was relaxing.

I think I am very scared if people's voices in the environment haven't settled with this new mapping that the audiologist is going to say she will tweak them....I couldn't take another change in the mapping, but equally I cannot take continuing to listen the confusion of jarring discordant sharp yet foggy sound of real life human voices.

It's between the devil and the deep blue sea....

I did these drawings in the potting shed, and I have just taken a photo of it. But while I am doing this post I have a cd playing directly to my processor. I am doing this each night before I go to bed.

I cannot hear music in any way a hearing person would receive it, nor the words of the songs. Brain is now recognising there are words in these songs, as well as the separate thing of music combined with it. Before with the old mapping it was more of vibration, but now there is a lot more within this music with this new mapping.

Both Brain and I enjoy listening to this CD music before I go to bed. It reaches into my soul somewhere. A few days it was Bridge Over Troubled Water. Then Brain got fed up (I didn't by the way!), so I tried R.E.M. Brain finds this soothing, and so do I. The Man in The Moon and Everybody Hurts are our favourites at the moment.

Listening to these songs on repeat seems to enable Brain to work out more of the music and more of the words, though the words themselves still remain out of reach.

I did download some words to the songs, but Brain didn't want that...it was making it into hard work. So we are back just to listening...

Thank you for yours stars, hearts, and comments. I won't be able to look at blogs or answer comments tonight because I have to be out early to get my hand dressed at the hospital, but will do as soon as I can...