Today was scheduled to be my dancing day. I’d either hear the music of the spheres or continue to hear the roar of the void. I’m somewhere in between. I hear noise. Noise is good when there has been no sound before. So things are good.

Today I saw the audiologist to “turn on” my new cochlear implant. When the processor was applied to my head and turned on, I did begin to hear noise. And as the level of sound in the room increased, the level of noise I was hearing increased. Since I have not effectively heard anything for decades in the ear implanted, this was a positive accomplishment. Her explanation for only hearing noise, and she was relieved I was hearing something, was that since the brain has not heard sound for such a long time, it does not know how to convert that sound into useful auditory information. It will take time to train my brain which gets into that age old conundrum, can one teach an old dog new tricks? Woof...

The audiologist installed 4 programs in the processor. Each program simply has an increase in volume. My assignment until I see her on the 9^th is to try to work up to the 4th program. The only limitation will be how uncomfortable the louder settings would be for me. Within 4 or 5 hours I was using program 4. So, I’m not sure what that means. Hopefully it means I get an A for today’s session and not the dreaded F.