The Quail Trail Part Three -About people and babbleboxes ...

In this part of my story I feel want to talk a little about the people that I met and relate some emotions about my CI.

This remark that I received from someone that I met in the USA and who has been to South Africa before triggered the idea for this part of the story. She wrote:

"I remember when I went to J'burg I came back and thought some very similar thoughts. It's just amazing the differences in the countries and how we take for granted all that we have here. I was amazed at the people in the Squatter camps; I doubt you could get that many Americans living in a 5 foot by 5 foot room with no electricity and no running water. I was just amazed!!! Your country has the most gorgeous countryside and Kruger Park is unlike any place you will find here in America!"

2009: I may add that ten years later millions of houses have been built for people that lived in the Squatter Camps. We still have squatter camps but the situation has improved greatly over the last ten years.

Both our countries have their beauty, their problems and their diversity. It's just that the contrasts were so much more evident for me in 2001. The previous time I visited the USA and Canada I mostly went to the big cities, but this time it was not a normal "tourist" or "work" visit; it was about people that I longed to meet and visit. Little did I know how fortunate I would be to become part of their lives for a short while and how enduring those fond memories would be.



A drive in the country – Illinois seeing a lovely house and beautiful garden with flags proudly displayed
So, first and foremost my trip was about people and secondly about my CI. Or maybe I must not push my babblebox to second place. Through everything, my CI was just "below the surface" and my (new?) hearing was actually part of all the emotions.



The house of friends in Urbana-Champagne
And squirrels playing in the back yard...



The people that I met were so different from each other. To give you an example: I visited amongst millionaires and ordinary working class people, people in the academic world (with which I am more familiar) and people just enjoying the tranquillity of a simple life style in the countryside.



The elegant lounge of a millionaire’s penthouse in Chicago with the owners hardly ever at home…
Their ages were as varied as their occupations and life styles. I shared the wisdom of people older than me and I enjoyed the excitement and joy for life of people less than twice my age The best of all was seeing my young friend with his wonderful recovery from the silent world doing so exceptionally well with his bionic ear. It brought me to tears many times seeing him reach out to a world of sound opening lifetime experiences and opportunities for him.

I also sensed the anxiety of one of his other young friends and her disappointment of not being a candidate for the CI just now. This girl is very involved in the Deaf culture and struggling to let go of a boyfriend who is not interested in her yearning to get a CI, but scared that she may leave the safety of maybe the only "world" she is familiar with. The conflict in this young girl's whole being ripped my heart! Especially when I saw her face lit up in wonder about what our young friend with his bionic ear could hear. It warmed my heart to see how he supported her and encouraged her not to give up without pushing her in any direction about her own conflicting emotions. I spent a day with them gallivanting around London and it was sheer joy and made me feel 20 years old again.!

We went for a ride on the London Eye and had fun in the streets of London exploring the tourist haunts on foot. Those days were filled with laughter and joy!



In 2009: Since that time my young friend has been a world traveller! He is enjoying life to the fullest. He has since been to South Africa to visit me twice and apart from that spent almost a year working and travelling in Australia apart from many other travels in the Scandinavian countries as well as North America – a globe trotter in the true sense of the word defeating the challenges of hearing loss throughout all these years.

The girl that I wrote about have since had a Ci as well. She is now a happy mother with two children and coping well with her bionic ear!

So what I am trying to explain is that I first had to paint some of the less emotional pictures for you because at the time of my arrival I did not think about how the sheer beauty of New Jersey, Canada and England would so to speak "prepare" me for the adventures that lie ahead. One cannot really relate to people and their lives without observing their environment as well...and in the end I just appreciated what I have here a little more.



A thunderstorm chased us home from a drive through the farm lands of Illinois that reminded me a lot of our home farm…

The images of America and Canada and England made me take a better look at the hidden treasures that I have here right on my doorstep! We have a lot of hard work to do - similar to getting used to a babblebox - and I have faith that like with my own hearing, the possibility is that in my own country things can only get better... We have to work at it a lot more but in doing that we also need the understanding and support of the rest of the world. Only then can we have peace and prosperity...

In everything I experienced there was the undertone that this would never have happened with me if I had not become deaf in the first place and recovered some of my precious hearing with my babblebox however imperfect it still may be. It made me accept it with a heart full of gratitude and it spurred me on once again to work harder to make it better. I've also seen people doing worse than me hearing-wise and it made me more determined to reach out to my fellow CI/HOH friends to give back some of the wonderful support, love and caring that I received.



Wherever I went friends and strangers tried to make what I have better for ME. They shared whatever they could and added so much fun and laughter too. I had opportunities to enrich my life and get to terms with what really matters to make me happy. I left a lot of unnecessary baggage behind and now I am at another fork in the road and I am better prepared to face the challenges ahead. And I came back to similarly wonderful friends.

Like with my travels in the past the people that I met brought me more fun and happiness than the sights I observed and after a while one tends to remember the people more than the scenery. When I now look at the hundreds of photos that I took, I remember the people and how they made me appreciate the beauty from their own perspective . They opened my eyes not only to see the beauty but to experience what it meant to them in their daily lives.

Quail Trail part 2: Images of America and contrasts

Colours!! Shades of the softest green Everything was just almost a little too green!!

Coming from South Africa where the leaves were just starting to drop and nature was preparing for a winter sleep it was as if I looked through a piece of green Cathedral glass in the stained glass panel next to my front door. I simply could not get enough of the soft green of the woods that we drove through to Merle's (My friends Ruth's daughter in New Jersey) house and so many shades of green too. The colours were beautiful even that first evening when we drove to Randolph from the airport in the twilight but it was even better the next morning when the sun was out.


The deck and the woods on the doorstep.

On the very first morning I walked out on the deck and simply could not get enough of the lush green of the woods bordering the houses ¬ later on I loved going for a walk on a nature trail through the woods accompanying the children on their bikes and just drinking in the beauty of this particular soft green shades of sunlight.



Beautiful homes with Star Spangled Banners on their front porches and wreaths at the front doors and NO fences, barbed wire or high walls around the houses. Of course I was privileged to visit friends in what must be one of the most beautiful areas of New Jersey.

Water lakes and streams on their doorstep and even a private beach where the children could play and enjoy the long hot summer in safety. So much water was really something to behold coming from a country where water is a scarce commodity in many regions and water restrictions are often part of our lives. Especially where some people don't even have the luxury of water on tap in their homes.



The contrast to what we got used to in South Africa over the past few years was almost too much to behold. Again houses without high walls, barbed wire and Spanish bars in front of all the windows and no security gates and intercoms to announce visitors open doors and cars parked in the driveway without fear of not finding them there tomorrow. I was sad to realise that we had become so used to locking ourselves in in our own homes in South Africa that we did not even notice it anymore.

And everything was clean and tidy and no Squatter towns as one approached the cities. Such a difference to be transported from a Third World country to a highly sophisticated affluent First World environment. Of course I realised this may not be true about all parts of America but the sheer beauty of the area that I first came to filled me with a feeling of freedom and tranquillity.



These first images accompanied me wherever I went on this trip throughout America, Canada and Britain. Everywhere I went I was surrounded with so much beauty! Sitting on the porch in the evening watching the deer come right into the garden was a lovely experience too – not as many animals and birds that as what we are used to in South Africa but still delightful and different again..

Then we went shopping!! I remembered being impressed by American supermarkets and the overwhelming variety of goods in the stores during my first trip years ago but walking into the first supermarket was almost too much to take in. I got lost between the shelves and could simply not stop believing my eyes!! My curiosity ran rampant and being a dietitian I could forever scrutinize the various products that are not available in South Africa. It was fun to look out for certain items that we have in South Africa to see if they were included in the huge variety and funnily enough when we started shopping to do some traditional home cooking for Ruth's children some basic items that we wanted were nowhere to be found!


One of our first outings was to a craft market and some craft shops in Chester…

Then there was captioned TV!! "Lekkerrrrrrr!!" Something that we don't have in South Africa!! I was looking forward to this because at home I did not even bother to watch TV anymore unless it was a very visual programme where I could understand something by merely looking at visual images. At first I could not read fast enough and yes the spelling and typing errors were annoying!! LOL I concentrated so hard on reading the captions that I missed the visual images but I was getting better with it every day!! I also watched some old movies and was amazed that I had some of the stories all wrong!

These first impressions made me realise I was in for some very nice surprises and that every day would be filled with more discoveries. It was a going to be a journey where each day would be filled with contrasts and comparisons of the familiar visions and emotions that are part of living in a vastly different country across the ocean. This was a new world indeed and it was enfolding before my very eyes with each new dawn an adventure of a lifetime was in store for me. A pilgrimage that would take me into the hearts an homes of strangers who would become the dearest friends in a mere two months but THAT I did not know on that first morning when a squirrel came to greet this strange creature from Africa.

The Quail Trail Part 1

During the past ten years I travelled far and wide and dwas lucky an dhappy to meet so many wonderful people.Some re my travels and others aduring the visits or even afterwards. The single most important travel experience probably was my visit to the USA Canada and Britain in 2001. I wrote a number of stories after my return that was posted in “Online Voices the offical online magazine of Saywhatclub. I was rather surprised to see that they are still in the archives. However I want to repeat some here with photos added as a nice reminder of that wonderful journey. Enjoy and think back on the memoires that we share…

I wrote as follows…

I call my story the "Quail Trail". For those of you who don't know the story of the Quails... I call my CI buddies the Quails or Kwartels (Afrikaans for Quail) because we have an Afrikaans saying that goes (literally translated) "As deaf as a quail"...

I think it's time to start telling you a little about my experiences. It will for sure also help me to keep the lovely memories fresh and alive.

Before my departure everything went wrong and I had such a lot of problems to attend to that there was hardly time to get excited. But from the moment I started packing the excitement began. I arrived at Jan Smuts Airport in Johannesburg completely exhausted and just a little concerned about the connecting flight in Zurich the next day. I met my friend Ruth at the airport and although we were departing at the same time she was flying first class via London with BA and I was booked on a flight with Swissair via Zurich to Newark.

Upon arriving at the Swissair desk I asked for assistance and the next moment a young lady arrived with a wheel chair!! I told her that although I was dead tired I could still manage to walk to the departure gate... In the meantime Ruth had taken matters in hand and with a little encouragement convinced the guy who was waiting to take her to the VIP departure lounge that she could not possibly wait for her flight to depart without me at her side LOL. He whisked us past the customs desk and we walked past the metal detectors to be wanded because neither of us was prepared to take off our CI's and scared to mess up our maps walking through the detectors.

Shortly after that we settled into comfy chairs in the VIP lounge, poured a Scotch to drink a toast on the problems we were leaving behind... Our adventure had begun and we were ready to have fun.

About an hour before departure time I said goodbye to Ruth and walked to the Swissair departure gate. On my way the friendly lady that offered the wheel chair walked past me and I then joined the long queue at the gate. The next moment the little lady came back and gestured to me to come with her and whisked me past all the other waiting passengers. She made me really feel like a VIP and made sure that the airhostesses knew that I wanted assistance in Zurich the next day.



The flight was not too bad but uncomfortable although I sat almost at the back on the aisle side to have room for my legs (those of you who've met me know I am tall). The bad part of this particular arrangement was that everyone wanting to use the plane toilet lined up in the passage next to my seat and that carried on for most of the night because the only toilets on the plane were at the back! I hardly slept at all but the food was GOOD!! The Swiss are known for the best hotel/chef's schools in the world. The lady next to me seemed to be more interested in the booze than in the food and drank about four beers before I managed to finish my meal and she again ordered some more during the night and at breakfast the next morning. Truly amazing because SHE never visited the toilet HAHAHA



Upon arrival in Zurich all I wanted was to get to a bathroom to freshen up and to sleep!! It was just after 8 in the morning and my connecting flight was due at 16:00 in the afternoon which meant I had a few hours to kill. After getting off the plane I was told to get on to one of those jeep-like vehicles. Since there were quite a few passengers also waiting to be escorted that obviously needed the ride more than me I offered to walk but the lady would not hear about it and sort of told me to get onto the darn cart and shut up.

Eventually we were taken almost to the other side of the airport and I then realised why she insisted that I get on the little cart. We were taken to the transit lounge and told to wait and make sure that we were there one hour before our connecting flights were departing. There were a lot of people in the transit lounge and almost all the chairs were occupied so I looked for a bathroom and took a walk through the duty free shops. That was nice and before I really knew what I was doing I bought a nice wristwatch!! All the Swiss chocolates in the shops were of course also very inviting but I decided NOT to buy some because Ruth had told me that her daughters specifically said NO Chocolates; I gathered they were perhaps dieting or at least very health conscious. Being a dietitian I decided I must at least make a good impression upon arrival in Newark - sort of showing that I practice what I preach although I was dying to buy loads of those chocolates. I thought that I had to go via Zurich a few more times I would buy the chocolates the next time I got to Zurich...never got the opportunity but did buy a very expensive tin of chocolates on the plane on my way back!

I went back to the transit lounge and by that time there were more empty seats and a number of people was stretched out on them sleeping Opposite me were a young very friendly Lebanese girl and her parents. She started talking to me and I immediately had to explain to her about my CI and the fact that I still had to lip-read. Then of course they all became very interested in my CI and it triggered off a nice conversation with me ending up telling them just how exhausted I was. Then the girl walked up to the desk and came back with two of those little cushions and blankets that one gets on the plane for her mother and me.

Without a care in the world I then stretched out on the chairs and was lost to the world for a few hours. The Lebanese people also had to wait for a connecting flight in the afternoon and the girl made sure that the Swissair people knew that we were sleeping and had to be alerted when it was time to get to the plane again. Afterwards I could not help smiling at how easily one does things like this when you know there is no one around that knows you!! In South Africa I would never dream of just lying down on a few seats at an airport!!



21 Rickland Drive, Randolph, NJ – Richard and Merle Blackman’s home.

By 3 o clock the afternoon I was ready to leave and a little less tired. Again the Swissair people assisted me very nicely and about eight hours after departing from Zurich I was welcomed in Newark by Ruth and her daughter and the kidlets. Ruth had arrived about three hours before me and had already dished out all the goodies that she bought from South Africa for the kids. By that time it was about 26 hours since I left South Africa! All I wanted was a nice hot bath and a bed!! Jet lag had set in with a vengeance and I could not be bothered about anything but to fall asleep!! America did not seem half as inviting as I expected it to be.
Fortunately I had experienced this with my previous trip and I knew that it would take a day or two before I would be ready to really start enjoying myself, getting interested in my surroundings

The miracle explained

This past week I had to explain some about audiogrammes in a community that I belong to on the Internet. In my search for information I decided to use some of my old audiogrammes that I kept since my hearing loss was diagnosed for the first time. For purposes of this blog I think it will be interesting to show them for the record too because it shows how little I could hear 20 plus years ago and what was restored with my implants. To me this looks like a wonderful way of looking at the miracle of cochlear implants.

For those of you not familiar with reading audiogrammes I also include something on how to read and interpret them. So let’s see what I lost and what I gained…
I will only summarise the main information and you can find more here:

http://www.audiologyawareness.com/hearinfo_audiogramread.asp

I will further explain the audiogram for sensorineural hearing loss with examples from my own audiograms.

An audiogram is a chart of a persons hearing ability. There are some different styles of audiograms, but most use a standard set of symbols for representing items on the chart.

The audiogram reads in frequency (pitch) indicated as Hz, across the top or horizontal axis and it reads in decibels (loudness) down the side or vertical axis. Just like a piano's keyboard, the pitches are low on the left side (125 or 250Hz), and then gradually climb to higher pitches on the right side (8000Hz). 0 dB is not the total absence of sound but merely the softest sound that a person with normal hearing can hear. Normal conversational speech is about 45 dB (also referred to as the hearing threshold).

(If you are not familiar with what happens during a hearing test – please refer to the link provided above)

Ranges of hearing loss for adults are as follows:




To understand an audiogram one should be familiar with the symbols used to read the audiogram. The legend for these are as follows:





An audiogram for a person with normal hearing (in the left ear) would look more or less like this:



To explain further I will use my own audiograms before and after my cochlear implants.

This is a scanned copy of my very first audiogram:




(Since the audiogram is now almost 30 years old I transferred the information to a new graph for this blog discussion).



This audiogram shows how my hearing dropped rapidly at a range of 1000 Hz and above for both ears resulting in a moderate to profound hearing loss for the right ear in the higher frequencies and also indicating a sensorineural hearing loss. My left ear was slightly better with less hearing loss in the high frequencies. Both ears show a severe loss in the normal speech range.

Ten years later the audiograms looked like this:



At this stage my hearing was beyond the normal range for the lower frequencies and way into the severe to profound range for the high frequencies.
Another ten years later brought me to the stage where I had my first cochlear implant.



As you can see I could only hear very soft sounds up to 250Hz between 30and 60 dB which meant that I could hardly hear anything and particularly not in the range for speech. Most of the high frequencies could not even be measured and my hearing was what is often referred to as “off the charts”. There was no doubt at all that I was a good candidate for a cochlear implant!

My hearing in the left ear was a wee bit better and did not deteriorate much further till 2005 when I had my second implant. After that the miracle was complete for me since I was back into the mild hearing loss range for both ears. This is what a hearing test revealed two years after my bilateral implant.



Since 2005 the miracle continues every day with my CI hearing getting better all the time. I came to realise how much the bilateral implants mean to me since I have been wearing only the latter implant now for about a month because my other processor is sent in for repairs. I miss hearing from both ears and think it is such a pity that we now have tot pay to hire a loaner processor. I refuse to do that!


I am just happy that I am one of the lucky few who have a second processor as backup. It is a shame that our processors have to be sent to England for repairs even if its just a small plastic part that is broken of – like the little piece of rubber that covers up the Freedom to prevent it from attracting moisture. For something as simple as this I have to wait more than two months before the processor is returned to me. The other one is already broken again too and when I receive the one that is in for repairs now I have to repeat the waiting part for another 8 to 10 weeks Sigh…

OK I did not really want to vent but the back-up service from Cochlear is beginning to suck…

At least I can hear and if need be I will also have the old 3G mapped for a further backup. What deters me from doing that is that it is expensive. Depending on a small pension for income makes me think twice before just having new maps done or hiring processors.

Mother’s Day and a Return to sound

This is the story of how I made a “right” turn when I came to a fork in the road on my journey back to the hearing world on Mother’s day 2004…

I was in a state of denial after my first bad experiences of not coping well with my first CI (a long story that I will come back to later on.) and I went for days without sound. Being alone at home and not having anyone to talk to I often did not even put on my CI. The only people I talked to apart from some here and there in the shops when it was absolutely necessary were the few CI friends that visited me.
One of them thought that I needed company and nagged me to tryout a dating site on the Internet. I was not at all interested but later on decided that I would give it try just to shut up this friend because I did not believe that anything good could come from it.

Well, a guy by the name of Kalie replied and wanted to meet me in person. I was hesitant but since Mother’s Day was around the corner I decided that it may be the ideal safe opportunity to meet this stranger. I would have my 93 year old mother with us for the day as well as my two young nephews. Anyone who could cope with them would be OK in my book.

Now you must have a little background about mother and the boys…
Mother was one of the most curious people I ever knew. She would ask questions of a complete stranger that would make me cringe. She seemed to have no way to evaluate the personal nature of her enquiries and just had in mind to learn as much as she could about any stranger. I think this is an inherited trait since my grandpa was just like that too. And maybe I am becoming so as well the older I get. I do however believe that I am a bit more sensitive for asking very personal questions of strangers though.

My two nephews were all fun and also not shy to play pranks and have fun. I reckoned that it would be a good test to see if this stranger can handle mother AND the two of them and pass their scrutiny.

I was a bit scared of course but the scene was set as Kalie arrived right on time at 10:00 that Mother’s Day morning. The boys kept to the background more or less but mother was immediately interested. I did not tell any of them much about Kalie apart from mentioning that I met him on the Internet. The Internet being something altogether alien to mother and the boys just chuckling about their “old” aunt getting involved with a man from a dating club. The one whistling the tune to a SA lyric called “Wat maak oom Kalie daar” (What is uncle Kalie doing there?” LOL)

Well much to my surprise (and theirs I think) Kalie was unperturbed and immediately sat down talking to mother and answering all her questions! NO problem whatsoever and it actually appeared as if he enjoyed it! Later on he was tending to the barbeque with the boys as if everything – the house included – belonged to him! Bossing them around to help with the fire and the barbeque! I could not believe that we only met him that morning since he was so “at home” with us. At 11pm that evening he started making plans to go home and wanted to know when he could visit again…
From there on things developed quickly and we ended up as friends and soul mated within a few months and after about six months he moved in with me.

From that moment onwards sound returned to my life. I suddenly had someone to talk to all the time. More than that he came with his love for traditional Afrikaans music called Boeremusiek. The radio was on all the time and I had to accompany him to gigs and Boeremusiek events. I joined the local Boeremusiek Guild and met the most famous musicians and started sharing Kalie’s interest in the history, development and preserving of this music genre.



Without noticing it at first my hearing benefitted by this new exposure to sound. Within three months I could hear so much better and it was only then that I finally believed that one had to “train your brain” to get used to electronic sounds…

So Mother’s Day was the day that I took a new road in the journey back to the hearing world. More than that however it brought Kalie into Mother’s life. Looking back at it today that was the best Mother’s Day gift that we could ever pass on to her. He was the one that made sure that I do not neglect her and visited often. He also was the one who took care of things when she was unable to communicate with anyone but him after a stroke caused by severe stress (what we believe to this day was due to ill treatment in a nursing home).

Kalie was also the last one to communicate with her when no one than him would evoke a response from her a day before she passed away...

I never had children and strictly speaking no need to celebrate Mother’s Day in the normal sense of the word. I have only been a “surrogate” mother to my siblings’ kids and Kalie’s children and they do not owe me any Mother’s Day greetings or recognition and that is right and OK

However - tomorrow Kalie and I will celebrate our fifth anniversary but more so we will remember Mother’s Day and Ouma and my return to sound…and Mother’s Day will forever make it easy to remember exactly when we met!

Enjoy the day! Even if you think about it as just another commercialized silly holiday – it means different things to different people and I hope that my story brought a smile to some of you.


In the photo:
Kalie and his Boeremusiek friends at a gig that he arranged with them for mother and her cronies at the Old Age home for her 92nd birthday.

My First Hook-up

Today I cannot remember much of that first hook-up except that it was a bad and disappointing experience.

My hook-up was on the 29th of November. My sister Hester accompanied me and we took the usual cakes etc. to celebrate the occasion but my heart was not really in it! All I wanted was to start hearing again and I had high hopes that I would return home and hear Hennie once again. The moment of hook-up was one of the most disappointing experiences of my whole life!! All white noise!! I just put on a show for everyone present. Smiling, trying to laugh and pretending that I was pleased with what was supposed to be my "new" hearing! I even kept up the pretence after getting home since I was so scared that Hennie would say: "I told you it was not going to work!!" Instead he just said: "You expected too much! You must be patient, it will get better!! Now open your presents!!"


The next was discovering that the processor was faulty. In hindsight this was a blessing in disguise because my processor was returned to cochlear and I was fitted with a Sprint body processor and all sounded more like speech. This made it possible for me to hear Hennie’s last words, to follow word for word during his funeral a week later and to have quite a wonderful CI moment hearing the birds the morning after his death... I am not going to repeat those much told stories here but you can read about them again on my home page if you want to.

For the rest the hook-up photos will tell the story. In those days I was not so obsessed with photos but fortunately I had quite a few taken and today they are part of the memories and this life-changing experience.

My wonderful sister was at my side once again for hook-up! She travelled all the way from their small town Coligny – more than a 2 hour drive to be with me. See how good we looked a mere ten years ago LOL




Esti did the hook-up as shown by the following photos:

Esti explaining what its all about and showing me how to use the tiny switches etc.

My first try at putting on my new “ear” As you can see I was not yet comfortable with doing this LOL Today I don’t even think of it and just use one hand to plonk them onto my ear(s) and off I go.






My absolute astonishment at the moment of hook-up! It seems as if Esti and the other audiologist (I cannot remember her name and she was not one of the team but attended out of curios ity) was really thinking that it was a wonderful experience for me NOT!!





More (awful) new sounds and me trying to explain to Esti what I heard. You can see she is a bit more concerned than in the previous photo LOL Elna looking on.





Esti, me, Elna and Ronel with her then still very tiny baby. (Today this kid is almost a teenager…and has a little sister too – beautiful children)

My sister with Elna and Esti – All of them all smiles believing that they attended the most wonderful day of my life. Today I can smile about this…








Hester with the cake to celebrate – at least the cakes and tea were good.