3rd Monthly Assessment (February 2008)

Returned to YCIS today after 2 months because I could not attend my 2nd monthly assessment due to flu!

Anyway, saw Salim the audiologist and we had several tests:

Lipreading with Listening scored 99%
Without Lipreading but listening scored 40% (it was hard - think Salim gave me some hard sentences this time!)

New tests that I hadn't done before:

Environmental Sounds scored 93%
Background noise and listening scored 23% - it was difficult with the whooshing sounds in the background and I was concentrating so hard to listen to the sentences
One word only - scored 0% again it was hard as it took a while to listen what that person was saying - very hard (even my mum said so!)

Hearing test levels are now between 25 and 40dB.

Then my frequencies in the electrode were turned up a little bit as I knew it was getting quiet so I'm now hearing better since I was turned up more.

Went to see Lynne the speech/language therapist - outdone her work again - it's easy for me and I could tell the difference between words that are almost sounded as the same.

My speech has really improved a lot in the last few weeks, I now have "dialect accent" which is superb as friends and families have noticed that my speech has improved even my own doctor!

So I don't have to go back to YCIS till end of May - wow! But still have lots of "homework" to practise listening without lipreading if possible and use the phone more. I am now using the phone twice a day to have a really good conversation with Howard who is really pleased with it as previously the conversation didn't really last long and now I'm forever chattering away on the phone. Just need to talk to a stranger on the phone now to try and understand what the person is saying rather than a person I know!

Please continue to support me to raise £2,000 for the Ear Trust - either email me or go to www.justgiving.com/rachelfishwick and sponsor me through that. I'm going to start my training soon when the weather is better and find somewhere that is flat!

Thank you for all your support and I'm so happy that I can hear better and wished I had it done years ago!