Category Archives: Music

Cochlear implant, Family, Health, Hearing Loss, Housekeeping, Multiple Sclerosis, Music

Oh, the days

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There are some days that I feel the need to  emotionally crawl back into my safe little cave. I kind of know why this happens ever so often, and I know it always passes eventually, so I’m not worried about it. I am thankful on days like these that I’m not responsible for anything urgent or super-important. Not exactly. My responsibilities involve feeding the people and keeping things clean-ish and supplies stocked. I generally give those responsibilities my 100% effort, but I’m sure we would all survive even if I gave half that.  So on days like these when I can only muster 70%, we’re doing just fine. I’m not sure anyone will even notice. In fact, when it means processed, frozen burritos for dinner instead of my homemade beef stew, the kids are actually thankful for my slacker status. They love those burritos.

My 5k race is coming up in three whole days! I don’t think I’m nervous. It’s my first race ever, so I don’t have many expectations. If I finish on my feet I’ll be happy. I heard a song awhile back come up on my Pandora station and while it’s not the best tempo for running, the lyrics gave me some motivation. Don’t judge; it was a song by Eminem. I’m trying to hit “like” on songs that sound good to my new ears, and my musical tastes have changed quite drastically. Everything just sounds so different to me now. So I guess New Mindy enjoys some Eminem and can tolerate the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Anyhoo, the song that caught my ears is called “Till I Collapse”, and after reading the lyrics online, I can honestly apply a lot of the sentiment to my philosophy on this running thing. Of course Mr. Mathers was surely rapping about something else entirely, but the nice thing about music is you can make it what you want. What it means to you is just that – what it means to you. Here is the chorus to the song:

“‘Cause sometimes you just feel tired, you feel weak
And when you feel weak you feel like you want to just give up
But you gotta search within you, you gotta find that inner strength
And just pull that **** out of you and get that motivation to not give up
And not be a quitter, no matter how bad you want to just fall flat on your face and collapse”

What’s kind of funny to me is that the fear that kept me from running at first was the fear of falling flat on my face. And if I do, I do. Whatever. In the song he talks about inner strength, but my strength does not come from within. My strength comes from God. He gives me the strength I need, when I need it. So when I feel like quitting, that is where I turn.  I will look to my Savior to keep me going. He has never failed me, never left my side, and together we will run this race!

Cochlear implant, Hearing Loss, Music, Writing

Getting back to it

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I’m back! The illness is gone. We have recovered. We all came through unscathed; my husband and the dog both managed to avoid it altogether (I do hope I’m not jinxing my husband by saying this).

I got back to working on the book I’m writing. I gave myself a deadline of 12/31/15, which is quite aggressive I know, but I also know I have to do such things to keep me from giving up altogether. Deadlines motivate, y’all. The book is a memoir of sorts, so it’s not a cut and dried process. I understand this, and know full well that I may not have a rough draft by my deadline, but progress is progress. Phleh.

I had a thought today (while in the shower… all my favorite ideas come to me while I’m washing my hair) that maybe I will start blogging every day. That sounds like another aggressive goal, doesn’t it? Well, I’m not talking about writing good stuff every day. Just every day, I will plan to share my favorite thought or event from that day. I use the term “event” loosely, as it could be as lame as “the dog didn’t piss me off today, and here’s why…” To make this daily occurrence even more exciting for you loyal readers, I would give it a snarky name, like The Daily Snippet. Or to be more true to how it will likely end up, The Sometimes Daily Snippet. What do you think? Wanna play along? Some days you may be totally bored with it, and others I may just get lucky and strike a funny bone. You just never know, you know? Sounds exciting, right? Let’s start here…

Today’s Daily Snippet:
I love Pandora. It plays the old stuff, the stuff I remember, pre-hearing loss. The songs and rhythms that are familiar to me are the only types of music I can enjoy at this point, with my cochlear implants. I’m told it will get better with time, and to just be patient. Listening to familiar songs is supposed to help. Thank you Pandora, for helping my brain re-learn how to hear and enjoy music. And thank you Beck, for being your funky cool self 🙂

Also notable today, I did some rearranging around the house and that always makes me feel happy. Helps me forget all the evil going on the world right now, if only for a moment.

Hug your loved ones today, and every day. Peace out!

Cochlear implant, Deafness, Hearing Loss, Memories, Miracles do happen, Music

Bilateral hearing rocks!

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This is exciting news. I didn’t know what to expect with the second cochlear implant, but I was told it’s different for everyone, and that quite a lot is possible. I had zero hope of ever hearing pitches normally again.
But guess what happened tonight? I was talking with my husband, telling him good night, and when I got to the bathroom to brush my teeth I looked at my reflection in the mirror and it occurred to me that I had just been hearing my own voice. MY VOICE. Which I hadn’t heard in almost two years. And you know what? I think I’ve been hearing real voices all day! It’s as if some thing in my brain just clicked. I’m so excited to hear more tomorrow, when I will actually be paying attention. To my son’s voice. To my daughter’s voice. And I’ll be hearing what they hear. Right?
I’m just in shock, I can’t find the words. I’m listening to my old ipod, with my favorite songs from before when I was a hearing person. Tool, Cibo Matto, Rusted Root, Over the Rhine, while still quite tinny, the notes are all there. The notes I remember. In my ears. And I’m not sleeping. This isn’t just in my dreams. It’s as good as real.
No words here. Just tears of joy. Indescribable joy.

Cochlear implant, Music

CIs and pitch differences

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My son has been humming a song by Fall Out Boy for the last week or so (called ‘Centuries’ I believe), and to my ears it sounds just like a song I used to hear on the radio when I was in high school. I couldn’t remember what it was called, but I kept humming it for Luke to ask him if it was the same as his song. Well, he couldn’t really tell me one way or the other, so we decided to look it up online. A quick internet search of “do do do do dododo 90’s” brought us to Tom’s Diner by Suzanne Vega, and I knew as soon as saw the title that it was the one. I let Luke listen to it (as I sat nearby, reminiscing), and he confirmed that the beat was the same, but the melody was not. So it’s mainly the pitches that are entirely different. Luke and I both agreed it was rather interesting, somewhat amusing, that to my CI ears, his song sounded just like my song. Interesting, indeed.

Cochlear implant, Music

Songs that sound good to my cochlear implant…

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I’m really trying to stay positive here with this music business. I miss it a great deal, and I realize it will never be the same, but I am going to do whatever I can to make the best of this amazing device implanted into my ear. So I’ve emailed my audiologist and she is going to consult the manufacturer, Advanced Bionics, to see what else she might be able to do to help music sound a bit better. But for now, I just need to keep “practicing” by listening to songs I remember well. And having my old ipod returned to me, I am doing just that.

I’ll tell you what I can’t bear to listen to, and that’s Over the Rhine. They have been one of my all-time favorite bands for well over a decade. I have been to concerts, I own many many albums, and have so many great memories. But while Linford’s piano tinkling sounds are nice, Karin’s voice just sounds way too distorted, butchered even, and that hurts my heart. It is painful right down to my core. I don’t even have the words. It just hurts, that’s all. So… moving on.

Here is a list of songs that are currently mostly enjoyable:

“The Distance” – Cake
“I Feel the Earth Move” – Carole King
“Can’t Go Back Now” – The Weepies (this surprised me, but I think it’s just that I hadn’t heard it in a super long time)
“Bones” – The Killers (good beat at beginning, then torture)
“She Lost Feeling in the Ends of Her Fingers” – Linford Detweiler (see, piano tinkly music good)
“E-Pro” – Beck (it’s all about the drum beat)
“These Arms of Mine” – Otis Redding (“This is Otis. I love Otis.” – Ducky from Pretty In Pink)
“Lifelong Fling” – Over the Rhine (Yay! I found a good one!)

And the list goes on… While it’s still not what it was, it’s nice to find several among the 300+ on my ipod that are tolerable and sometimes even enjoyable to listen to. Party on.

Cochlear implant, Music

Oldie, but goodie

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Did I mention that I found my ipod awhile ago? And then lost it? I was very distressed over this, because I had finally learned how to use a cord to plug my ComPilot into the ipod or phone, so the sound is transmitted wirelessly to my cochlear implant (translation: learned how to listen to music). I have so much of my favorite music on that ipod that it would be great to listen to and “practice” listening with my ci. I sometimes get a little over zealous with de-cluttering, so I had started to think maybe I had disposed of it.

But then, last night my dear daughter walked up to me with a big smirk on her face and my ipod in her hand. She had hidden the damn thing from me. I’m a huge fan of her sense of humor (she loves Mr. Bean) but this went a little too far. I gave her a pass this time though, since it was the first time she’d done anything like this (I think), and it was her birthday, after all.

So this afternoon I am listening to MY music, music that I am familiar with and love. Mostly they all sound very strange and distorted but occasionally a glimpse of a note or a beat comes through sounding very real, and that makes me happy. That happened just now with Carole King. I remember listening to my mom’s Tapestry record when I was little and dancing around  the living room. Today that soulful, raspy voice came through for just a split second and my heart skipped a beat. Or, I suppose you could say I felt the earth move 🙂

Decluttering, Memories, Music

Hippy Days

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I’ve been de-cluttering lately. Feels good to get rid of things. It’s good preparation for if we ever move to a new house. Which I hope we do, eventually. I finally went through the box of stuff that my former co-workers packed up for me when I lost my hearing and left work. That sounds like they were anxious for me to be gone, but really they were getting ready to move to a new building, so it had to be done. I found a lot of good stuff in there, pictures from when the kids were younger, my ipod and speakers, my notary stamp, even some herbal tea bags.

I’m enjoying a cup of tea right now, of a flavor I had not tried before. I’m sure it was one a coworker gave me to try. Orange spice black tea. It’s actually quite yummy. As soon as the scent hit my nose it brought me back to my hippy days. And not the ones I spent stoned. It was after that, when I first moved to Lansing. I did hippy things (I suppose, not having lived during the true hippy era) like walking around the campus of MSU wearing sandals with fuzzy socks and long skirts, or drinking coffee at Bilbo’s until the wee hours, playing crazy silly songs on the jukebox (Cibo Matto, do you know your chicken?). I used to shop for tapes and CDs at the campus music store (two of which I found recently, but have no way to play, or listen to, really). I had a roommate who introduced me to house plants and egg noodles (the egg noodle craze lasting much longer than the plants, as I have a hard time keeping green things alive). I went to local concerts, camped out on lawns, and danced crazy dances. It was truly a carefree time for me, which I suppose is where the hippy reference fits best.

I also did some pretty stupid things in those days, even after giving up smoking pot and drinking. I used to take off driving and get myself lost, just so I could find my way home again. When I lived downtown I very often walked around alone. On Independence Day I walked half a dozen blocks to sit on a hill to watch the fireworks. Alone. And this was 1997, so I had no cell phone. Then there was the time I considered buying a VW bus from a guy I met at the laundromat, so I took the bus for a test drive, with the stranger dude riding along. Not smart.

Hmm. That train of thought took an unexpected turn. It’s good to remember happy times from the past, but I guess it’s also just as good to recognize some of the stupid things we’ve done, and be thankful we lived through them. God often keeps us safe despite ourselves, doesn’t he?

Cochlear implant, Music

Finding music

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I cleaned out three purses today. Yes, three. And that is just scratching the surface. I won’t even tell you how many purses I have hanging in the closet.

Anyhoo, It felt good to clean them out, and even better to have found my old ipod. The one with all of my favorite music on it that I somehow lost two computers ago. Maybe. Well, I was able to pull up all the songs on my laptop so I can listen to it through my CI remote (The Phonak Compilot) IF it successfully connects. Which most of the time it does not. But maybe I just need to restart. The additional good thing about this is that I was able to upload many of the songs from my laptop to my Amazon cloud drive thingamajigger, and from there I can listen from (and possibly download to) my Kindle. Which almost always connects to the ComPilot. Yee. F-in. Ha.

And now I can start to listen to the songs I know and “practice” hearing music again. And hopefully enjoying it too. I know it’s possible because other CI users say it is, and I have had blips of musical enjoyment here and there. Like yesterday in the truck when Beastie Boys’ “Pass the mic” came on the radio. That was super fun and brought back lots of great awful memories of my young adulthood. I listened to Beck’s “Loser” just now and that was pretty fun. Crazy stupid lyrics that I will probably never forget. So here’s to future CI joy and music enjoyment.

Get crazy with the Cheez Whiz!

Cochlear implant, Deafness, Music

Morning soundtracks

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You know how some alarms can be set to wake you up with music? Yeah, I kind of have that going on in my head now. It doesn’t necessarily wake me up, but I do have music playing in my head very soon after I wake in the morning. Last week I think I mentioned one day it was Pearl Jam. It’s such a strange variety, I really should have been keeping track all along. For example, yesterday morning it was an old children’s song we used to sing. “On top of spaghetti, all covered with cheese, I lost my poor meatball, when somebody sneezed!”. This morning it was one of my favorites, “Some Nights” by Fun.

Music is a big deal to me. Clearly. So it was a huge loss when I lost my hearing. You lose so much more than just your hearing. But, by George, tomorrow I’ll be heading down the road to hearing again, when my cochlear implant is turned on. Activation Day. TOMORROW! I don’t know how it will go, or how soon I’ll be understanding speech or enjoying music, but I am praying that it comes sooner rather than later. Later sucks. We vote for Sooner.

I wonder what tomorrow’s morning song will be? Perhaps a little “Eye of the Tiger”?