Another Step Forward

Tomorrow I will return to my classroom for the first time since my cochlear implant was activated. It is time, though I am terribly anxious about what awaits me when I get there. I hit the ground running in my aural rehab and listening exercises this week, and I plunged myself into various listening environments throughout the week to prepare myself for the inevitable. I've made gains in my scores, but I'm still feeling a little uneasy about returning to work.

At best, I can hear a great deal of things around me, and with my hearing aid in one ear, I can tell that I hear better with my CI, but it's still extremely robotic and difficult to understand. I get confused with all the auditory stimuli I'm inundated with.  And that's what makes me so nervous.

I went to a noisy cafe this afternoon to practice listening one more time -- a place that has been really difficult for me to hear, place an order, and pay without having to ask the poor cashier to repeat everything multiple times. I was actually able to carry on a conversation with the young man who helped me today without asking him to repeat himself. It made me feel a little better.

But these scenarios are pretty controlled, and relatively quiet when compared to a classroom full of excitable six- and seven-year-olds. So I'm still apprehensive.

It's another step forward, I tell myself. It's one of the reasons you submitted yourself to getting a CI -- so you could continue working. It'll be good, I say. You have a volume control! It'll be OK! 
 [My self-talk isn't helping.]

Pretty sure I won't rest well tonight. My mind is full of what-ifs again.

Heigh ho...