Just how loud can our little boy cry?

* Loud enough for two different nurses in neighbouring ICU units to come rushing in to his room at the Children’s Hospital one night to see what was going on. (His nappy was being changed.)

* Loud enough for Jase to hear him from outside when he pulls up in the driveway each night. (Arsenic hour.)

* And yes … (sometimes) loud enough for me to hear him crying without my processors on. Oh boy was I surprised to hear him hark up in the 20 seconds it took me to brush my hair this morning. I confess I stared at him in surprise for a few seconds while I matched the faint, cute little cry in my head with the bright red, wide-mouthed, writhing little baby in his cot before I hurriedly put my processors back on and picked him up to soothe him. (He was hungry.)

NICU babies and hearing

A visit to a different audiology clinic this week – the one at the Royal Children’s Hospital.

Our son passed his newborn hearing screening test with flying colours, but he is still going to need his hearing monitored pretty closely over the next few years. Makes sense, you’re probably thinking, given his mother is deaf and wears two cochlear implants. But, oddly enough, my hearing loss has nothing to do with his situation. Rather, it’s his stay in the NICU that doubles his chances for hearing problems – not the noise exposure, like I initially thought, but his dependence on antibiotics and on oxygen for a prolonged period of time.

Out of (brain) practice

So … it’s wonderful to be able to play the piano again but I have to confess something. I did not have a grand “oh-wow-this-sounds-amazing-again” moment the first time I played it, after my piano tuner left. Rather, I had a “woah-has-this-piano-been-tuned-at-all” moment. Before I could question the work of my very talented tuner much further though, I remembered that my brain is out of practice.

Clearly it’s what happens after a five-month break from playing. The piano sounded somewhat … er … terrible. Not as bad as after my CIs were switched on, thank goodness, but definitely muddled. Pachelbel’s Canon made me shudder, as did Mozart’s Turkish March. Debussy’s Clair de Lune, my favourite, sounded a little sweeter to the ears. Perhaps more familiar to the brain.

After 30 minutes or so, the piano sounded much better. But I am going to have to find the time to sit at it regularly to stop that from happening again!

Hypnosis with cochlear implants?

I was watching a documentary on SBS the other night about the way brain research has evolved over time. There was a segment on hypnosis and it got me wondering …

Does hypnosis actually work on somebody with cochlear implants?

Now … I’m in no way volunteering myself! I was just curious! If hypnosis works by shutting down various parts of the brain, would somebody with cochlear implants, who receives sound directly to the brain and not the ear, even be able to “hear” the hypnotiser’s words?

Just one of those little things that I wonder about sometimes!