September 5, 2013

Hearing the Rain!

September 5, 2013

Today was not the first time I have heard the rain since my Cochlear Implant was activated, (in fact I think I have mentioned it before in this blog), but it may be the first time that I heard it from my office at work.  My office is a windowless office away from the front of the building.  It is hard to hear sounds from outside when I am at my desk, but I did go out front today, thinking that it might be rain, and it was.  It was a blowing, heavy rain.  There had been a nice rain earlier in the day, but I was still at the house when that one came.  This one was heavier.  It was nice to be able to hear it a little from my office.  Once in the front of the building I could hear better, naturally.

Rain dripping off the roof following this morning's rain shower.

 

Just typing the word "naturally" in the same sentence with me talking about hearing seems strangely amazing!  Of course the sounds are not completely natural, but many are very close.  There are times that I actually forget I am wearing the external device.  It does rub some behind my ear, but is far less uncomfortable than my hearing aid was.  The part (the coil) that is magnetized to hold it over the internal parts, is very light weight and is not a problem at all except that my hair rarely covers it.  That really doesn't bother me except for the fact that I am concerned that it might bother other people.  My one concern with forgetting that I am wearing it is that someday I will step into the shower with it on.  It is water resistant and should be OK if I put it in the dryer unit, but it would be best for me to take it off before taking a bath.

It did stay overcast here almost all day with the nice shower this morning and the heavy rain this afternoon.  I think all the little migrating birds are hiding out.  I hope that they are hiding and not that they have headed on south.  There were the usual sparrows and doves early this morning and some sparrows late this afternoon, but little else.  Wait, that isn't correct.  As I filled the feeders after work, the Green Heron that lives out back flew by and a flock of probably a dozen White Ibises flew by just after that.  I didn't have my camera and would not have been quick enough for photos anyway, but they were lovely and I am always glad to have conformation that they are still around.  I had not see the Green Heron for a while.

The day at the office was not too busy - rainy days are like that.  Few people get out in the rain to go buy a key.  But a few customers were in and a couple of them made nice purchases so all in all it was a good day.  I spent much of the day making calendar sheets for my husband so he could keep up with the assorted medical commitments coming up for both of us.  Have you ever seen the movie The Absent-Minded Professor?  Ron could play the part only it wouldn't be acting.  He is truly brilliant in many areas.  He knows more Bible, history, physics, and science than I will ever know but times and dates are another story.  Sunday School at our church has started at 9:15 for about 15-20 years.  But every Sunday morning he asks me what time we need to leave.  Those things just don't register with him.  After mentioning a couple of medical appointments, it dawned on me I had better make him a calendar that he can look at to see what appointment is when.

After getting the information on the calendars, I decided he would be overwhelmed by them so I color coded them: his appointments in green - his favorite color, and mine in red.  He already had an appointment for the 18th of this month that had been scheduled months ago.  That turns out to be the day of his surgery.  So I told him to call the other doctor and reschedule the appointment.  It took me a bit to get that across to him.  He did it and then was totally thrown for a loop when he found a voice mail on his phone telling  him the date of the 18th would not work because they were going to be out of the office.  It turned out one nurse was calling and leaving that voice mail while he was talking to another to ask for the appointment to be rescheduled.  It got done, but it took a while.

That is basically how our day went: I worked on printing out the calendars and he spent time making calls to set things up (for our pre-surgery registrations) and to reschedule things.  I did discover I didn't have a time down for one of my appointments so he had to call on that and I think they discovered they had not given me a time.  Today I did three months of calendars and decided I better list upcoming birthdays and anniversaries on the calendars since I may not be driving right away and need to plan shopping in advance.

I did one of the listening exercises when I first got to the office this morning but there were too many interruptions to try any more today.  I am not sure if I will get to do some tomorrow.  I need to go to the hospital early in the morning to pre-register for the surgery Monday.  I am to go "fasting" for the blood work they will do.  Then they will do a chest x-ray, EKG, and assorted other tests, so I may spend most of the morning there.  It is a shame to redo all these tests that have been done for the other surgeries earlier this summer, but better safe than sorry.  I am praying that they will all be fine and that I will not have any reason to delay Monday's elbow surgery.

A rainbow over the house next door following this morning's

 rain shower as the sun tried to peek out.