There was no...

...dawn chorus this morning.

I was up early and had processor in and went in garden, but there literally no bird sounds coming in, only the wind on the leaves, at least not on Program 1 (you will have to read last couple days blips if you don't understand). No birdsong. And I could see aeroplanes in the sky, but no plane sound coming in. I tried Program 2 but the same there.

I felt so tired and weary. Every part of my body hurt. I went back to bed and didn't want to get up again today. It was only the sun that came out a few hours later that I got out of bed and put my processor back in, made a coffee and went and sat in the garden on my swing.

Still no bird song, and the blackbirds and collared doves and crows were all flying past me. The aeroplanes were flying high up. But no sound there. Everything in my body hurt. I didn't even dare feel any emotion.

I made another coffee and just sat there. All three cats sat by feet and looked at me.

I finished that coffee and went to make another when I thought I heard the faint sound of a collared dove. I sat on the edge of my bed and looked into the garden. Gradually I heard some more sounds. Wasn't sure what they were. I realised at this point Brain was trying hard to make connections which was I felt so ill and weary.

I made another coffee and sat in the garden on the swing again. Popeye got on my lap and Lynx came and sat beside me. Suki stayed on the ground by my feet.

Over the next couple of hours or so, bits of sounds came and went, faded bits of sounds. Then suddenly it was like Brain had turned the on switch, and I was able to hear birds faintly, and the aeroplanes in the sky started making their sounds again. But they were different. They were a bit the same as before but had something different in the sound.

Birdsong is not anything like it was before. Before, with the incorrect program it was like every bird in the land was singing in my garden. There was no distance perception in the bird sounds before. If I am assessing this right, it seems there is distance between the near bird sounds and the far away bird sounds. But it is early days yet.

Now, if I had not been given that wrong incorrect program this last month, I would not have had that magnificent experience with the birdsong and ID. It was like I was hypersensitive to every sound the birds made and it was amazing. I wrote enough about it on blip this last month as many of you know.

I am guessing what I am picking up now with the birdsong is the more normal, although it could get better. I simply have no idea.

I did a lot thinking and reflecting this morning about a lot of stuff, especially my expectations from the cochlear implant I had 7 odd years ago. I thought the mapping I had been given was correct because after all they are the experts, not me.

But I didn't feel I was doing well with it. Which is why I was pushing for something more. Then I find out I was never mapped properly in the first place. It got a bit complicated after that. No point in going over it all. But the upshot now is I have a vastly different mapping which has overturned my concept of expectations from this cochlear experience.

There is no way I can write down every avenue my mind explored today.

I did go out this afternoon for a carvery meal, roast spuds and veg, the lot. It was my treat. But Brain couldn't cope with the cacophony of noise in the place. I had gone to a quieter pub but it was closed. So it was either go back home or to the noisy place. So noisy place it was. Once I ordered my meal, I took out the processor so Brain got a rest and peace from crying babies and fractious toddlers and the discordant noise of cutlery.

When I came back home I went to bed. A deep sleep for a couple of hours. Then back in the garden just listening, not even trying to listen, but just think about all the stuff I had been thinking of all day about my expectations of all this.

Brain started bringing in more sounds. Most of the time it did pretty good. Still a long way to go yet.

There was one point when the programs 1 & 2 were doing my head in. I had put You Tube on my phone to look up something. I was on program 1 which is SCAN. It is supposed to do some adjustments on what it determines you should be listening to in the environment. So I was getting sound (I had captions on as well) through this You Tube video when I didn't understand what was happening to the sound. It was doing something very weird. It scared me.

So I put the remote on to find what was happening. Apparently on SCAN it goes through a series of programs to take out noises it thinks are no good to you etc. Well the SCAN was going through each of those programs in turn one after the other in quick succession creating extremely weird sound effects. I was connected directly to my phone, so there was no external background noise coming in to create that effect. I had to shut SCAN program down, and went on to program 2.

I don't know if the SCAN function was malfunctioning because it shouldn't have done that for the sounds in a You Tube video. The SCAN function has never gone out of feather (quiet) mode these last couple of days whether I was sitting in my windy garden this morning or sitting in the noisy pub for lunch, which makes me wonder if it is working properly. Yet with a You Tube Video which was mainly a voice talking and I think some background music, it went through the whole gamut of 8 different modes moving quickly from one to the other. It scared me and Brain before I worked it out.

Then I realised I had not got round to doing my painting for today. It was now 8pm!

So done this. It is an accumulation of my feelings of my day is best I can describe it. This is my painting for today for my challenge to myself of a pic every day in 2017.


[Sounds were drastically changed after the drastic remapping of my cochlear processor over a month ago. I am readjusting to the different sounds, which are actually vastly different, as it is now suggested I was never mapped properly in the first place which is why I have struggled the last few years.]