Initial Fitting

I went to the clinic today to hopefully get fitted with the Lyrics. I wasn't getting my hopes up too high yet. My ear canal has a pretty substantial curve in one ear, so I was expecting to be rejected.

I met the Audiologist for the first time. She sat me down and asked me if I had any questions before we began, (she'll think twice before asking me that again!). I had a page of questions I had written down in the past 48 hours. Many of which I knew I'd find out the answer to as soon as I got them in my ears, but others had to do with the company, her practice, etc. (I think I'll dedicate a separate post to my Q&A session later).

She gave me a quick demo of the device and then escorted me to what looked like an examination room and introduced me to an ENT that would do the initial exam, take measurements and determine candidacy. He spent just a few minutes examining each ear and said I was just fine on one ear, but barely a candidate on the other. Whew!

I think he started out with a little sizing device that mimicked a Lyric in their various sizes. It also had a very, very, small little flexible antennae looking thing that poked out the end towards the ear drum. The antennae looked like a miniature version of the CIC retrieval cords if you seen one of those. The ENT explained that this would go up against the ear drum and that I should let him know as soon as I hear it touching. He gently inserted the device and a second later I heard a little rubbing sound on my ear drum. I believe this is what he used to determine the depth for placement. He tried a few different sizes until he was satisfied with the fit.

He measured the depth of my canals and then asked for a Large for one ear and then a Medium-Medium for the other, (I think that's right). My audiologist returned with one of each explaining that she only had one of each of those sizes in stock, so I was in luck.

He turned them both on and voila I could hear again! He asked how they felt, and they felt great. I couldn't tell the difference in feeling between these and my regular ear molds from my BTE's. He had me move my jaw around and chew a little to see if they slid or moved around and they just seemed to fit great.

The ENT went back to his work and I followed the Audiologist back to her office for some adjustments and training. At this point I'm hearing everything... and I mean everything! The sound of the shoes on the carpet, the papers rustling on the desk by the receptionist, doors closing, the A/C... everything. None of the sounds were loud though or overly distracting or unnatural. It was very surreal hearing those sounds that my BTE's were probably filtering out because it was stuff that I really didn't need to hear.

Back in her office she held up a PDA with a big speaker like attachment and pointed it at my ear. (Off-topic: For you tech geeks out there, it appeared to be a vintage Handspring Visor, fitted with a big speaker in the accessory port to blast electromagnetic adjustments at my ear. I used to have one of those in Ice!) She tapped on that thing for a minute and then pointed something in my ear and sent what sounded like a fax transmission into my ear canal. This adjustment apparently turned off the high-frequency gain which took down a lot of the ambient noise in the room and the tinny’ness of people’s voices.

The Audiologist walked me through making adjustments using the little keychain magnet and helped me make adjustments to the volume. She said she'd call me in 30 days to check in and see if I wanted to continue or not. She gave me her email address if I preferred to use that method for questions, but asked that I keep in touch if problems or concerns came up. She left me a cheat-sheet, answered the rest of my questions and sent me on my way.

That was it! No papers to sign, no contracts, no money... nothing. I was really surprised I didn't have to sign my life away, or at least make a deposit of some sort. She was obviously pretty confident that it was going to work.