 After the operation things were absolutely fine. I was a bit kind of unsteady on my feet but just because of the anesthetic I think not because of my ear. By about the third or fourth day I was going out for a short walk with the dog so within a week I was you know showering washing my hair I felt back to normal. The wound which is tiny, it's a tiny tiny little wound was a bit tender but nothing more than that. It was absolutely fine. Before the switch on Nigel and I were incredibly nervous. Neither of us had slept much the night before. I was worrying about it and he was having bad dreams. We were nervous. Who wouldn't be nervous? Today we've got your processor and by the end of this session it'll be on and sound will be going in. Now I need to find out how much current to put through on the different electrodes to get you just listening so how much current just starts to stimulate the nerve. I'll play some sounds and I'll get you to just raise your hand when you hear something. Okay. A sensation, I wouldn't call it a sound. If you get a sensation you can put your hand up. These are so faint. I'll go up a bit then you know what you're listening for. Okay. Possibly. That bit's finished now. Okay. We've done the listening for quiet sounds. Now I'm going to make the sounds a bit louder so it should be a bit easier. I'm going to go louder and louder. You can be looking at me and I just want you to say stop when it gets to a level that's loud. I don't like it much. I wouldn't say it was painfully loud but it's just like. Okay. I'll go back down a little bit again and just tell me to stop when it gets to a level. Okay. I think maybe stop. I don't think I like this. One more. Yeah. It's the high pitched ones that are making me jump but I've not heard them. That bit's finished. I've made all the measurements I need to. Okay. So the next thing to do is to actually turn it on to activate it. You might be able to follow speech but more than likely it's just going to sound very strange. When I switch it on initially it'll probably be a bit quiet. I can turn it up a bit but we prefer to start quiet and turn it up. So if you're both ready. Yeah. Take your hearing aid out we'll switch it on. What do I sound like? I've sounding like you sound like I haven't got yeah like I haven't got hearing aids in incredibly quiet. When I speak there's something squeaky going on in my ear but when you speak it's incredibly quiet. Could you make out, oh you're reading me. Could you make out what I said? I know what you just said. You're too predictable. Just then I was just gradually increasing it. You want me to take the volume up a little bit more? Yeah. Okay so if I say something now can you hear my voice? Is it coming through or do you need a bit more value? I'm not I can hear me well I can hear a sound when I speak it's really weird but I can hear sound but I feel like I can hearing my voice without any hearing aids in and your voice without any hearing aids in and then this weird squeaking in my ear. Yeah so that's your brain probably looking at the lip patterns knowing that something's being said but not connecting it with the sound that you're getting that's fine. I just want to make sure that you can hear something while I'm speaking so obviously you're gonna hear your voice the best. Yeah so if I speak this thing is squeaking away. Okay and you keep speaking. So is it the same for me? Yes. Can you hear me? Am I squeaking? Am I like a Dalek? It's not speech-like but it's a noise. Squeaky I can hear something. I'm gonna give you some programs that I've got you know increased stepping up in volume so if you want to change if you feel by you know two days it's gone down a bit you can step it off. Okay. Is there something? January. Did you get that? There you go. June. So already it's probably settling down even over the session. I'll do a recording of her sneezing that'll frighten you. It's a main thing it's like. Can you take that off? Take this off. Which bit you put on first? It's probably easier to hook it on your ear first. If you can do it that way. Yeah so the wires. Yeah sit a bit closer. Yeah thanks for your help. After that we met with Andy who's a technological person and he talked us through the unbelievable amount of bits of kit that you get given to cope with different situations. I think I had my hearing aid back in at that point to let me try to make some sense of it but I was still getting the squeaking so it was all very disorientating. How's it sounding is it? All right. Very weird. Very weird. Just getting used to my hearing aid and squeaking. You'll get better you'll get used to it. So what I'm going to do is just go through all the equipment with you. Just explain what everything is how it all works. Okay. This bit's called the coil. That's obviously the bit with the magnet that's on the side of your head. Yeah. You've got a coil cable there. The battery pack is at the bottom. Yeah. And then this top part is the actual processor itself. Okay. So that's the main part of the top. Okay. So nice and simple. That bit just comes off the end. To get that cable out you just need to make sure that the cover's down first. Okay. And then that cable will just pull straight out. Okay. When the cover comes down it automatically switches off fire. Okay. And then as soon as you push the cover all the way up it will switch on. Okay. You've got three rechargeable batteries and this is the charger for it. So just get in a bit distracted because your voice is starting to come through. Okay. Right. Okay. Yeah. So that's good. It's doing that already then. Yeah. Yeah. It's just a bit. Yeah. I was pleased I could hear something and I knew it would take time to let my brain get used to that but I wasn't anxious. I was just pleased that it was all working and I could start the process of moving on to learning to hear again. You have got the option to also use disposable batteries. You've got this as a backup fire. What we've got here is a Bluetooth neck loop. So basically what you would do with that is you would wear that around your neck. Yeah. That then links up to anything that's got Bluetooth. So again like a tablet or something that you wanted to listen to phone or sat nav and that sound will go straight through to your processor then. Okay. But without any cables. So then we went to see Jill who's the speech and language therapist reassuring me that the odd noises I was hearing were perfectly normal but more importantly giving me material with which to come home and to practice with Nadal to try to move on. It sounds like a disembodied something up here but it's already sounding a bit more like speech. So when Andy was talking after a while this year he was sounding like very high pitched words whereas immediately it was switched on. It was just you know. The more you listen the better that sound is going to get but you're going to have to be patient with it and with yourself because it is going to take time. You might feel quite tired. You might find you're tempted to just take it off for a while but try not to. So what I'm going to start with it's not speech at all. I thought I'd just play you some different background sounds. Oh, I talk about those to start with. Gosh, yeah. What's it like? It was like a very loud... Right, next one. Yeah, that sounds like a telephone. Like a loud hands-free telephone. Oh, it doesn't sound like our doorbell but you can tell it's going bing-bing, bing-bing. Now you're going to hear a lot of different sounds at home outside everywhere you go. Nigel, you might want to just let Vera know if there's a sound happening in the room and perhaps you might want to ask if you're not sure. Sure, sure. Because when you know what you're listening to, you know about these sounds, you've heard them before. Yeah. It helps you make sense of them. Yeah. I'm going to try one or two things that are more about speech. With these exercises, you'll just be using your listening and you might be using the words in front of you to support what you're hearing but you won't be lip-reading. I'm going to start with some different sentences and they're all about the same topic. So they're all about time. So I want you to look down at the sentence but don't look at me. Okay. What time is it? My appointment is at 10.30. Did he leave on time? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to mix them up now. Okay. I'm going to say one of them randomly. Okay. I want you to just work out which one I said. Okay. Yep. See you soon. See you soon. Good. No looking at lips. No looking at lips. That didn't look at her lips. How long will it take to get to Florida? I didn't even finish it. I know. I know. That was good, wasn't it? How can we replicate this at home and do a bit of it at home? I'm going to give you these to take home. It's your homework. Okay. Done again. Do you want to try one? Yeah, sure. Did he leave on time? Did he leave on time? Yeah. My appointment is at 10.30. Excellent. Okay. So I'll give you a pack of these to take home. Yeah. And you can just work through them. Now this is something called text tracking and you're just going to track my voice as I read the words. Okay. Every so often I'm going to stop talking so I might go boiled, baked, roasted and I'll stop and you'll tell me where you've got to because roasted was the last word. Okay. Okay. Boiled, baked, roasted or fried, the potato. After potato. Is a versatile vegetable. It also produces nutritious food. Food. Quicker and on less land than any other major crop. Crop. The potato could just prove prove to be a buried treasure. Buried treasure. That's good. So try these with different people if you can. Yeah. It's just a really nice way again to focus on people's voices without lip reading but you've got that text there to support what you're listening to. Yeah. You want to try one more thing? Yeah, yeah. Okay. It's called sentence building. Sentence building. The sentence begins, I bought some. Okay. I bought some. Yeah. And then I'm going to add a word. I bought some shoes. No idea. I bought some shoes. Shoes. I bought some shoes from the shop. From the shop? Yeah, very good. No, it's not volunteers in a primary school. He's probably used to this. It's a hard one to try. You've only been switched on for a short while so you did really well. You're very reassuring, Gail. So I'm going to give you all these to take home. Do these every day if you can, maybe just for a few minutes at a time and just really focus on listening without looking at the other person. These exercises are just part of it. It's really the people you're with, the conversations you're going to be having this week that are going to be giving you lots of sound, different things to work with. The more people you're having face-to-face conversations with, I think, the better. Okay. I think that was a really good start though. Yeah, I know. I'm feeling, I think just to begin with is just people tell you that it's a weird squeaky voice but until it actually starts doing weird squeakiness in your head, you don't really appreciate. Well, we came out into the reception area and Anne, the receptionist, who's a lovely woman said, how does it sound fairer? And I said, weird. And she said, they all say that. That was nice. That was nice. So as soon as we were out of the hospital environment, I became much more aware of how different everything sounded. We came home with a whole folder of these things and ready to start, really.