Hearing aid and FM system update

I apologise for not adding to my blog sooner but boy i have been very busy and i wanted to post about my new hearing aids and new fm system and how i came to need these in the first place

About 6 weeks ago i went to my audiologist because there was a problem with my hearing aids they kept opening and closing and turning off and on again it was SO annoying. So anyway they sent them off interstate somewhere and i had to have a loan hearing aid only on one side without any BICROS - this means that there is a microphone transmitter hearing aid on my deaf left ear and it transfers to right one and then there is amplification and volume controls on each side.

So for a couple of weeks i had this loan one which was frustrating but i thought oh well wont be too long before i get my old ones back again..boy was i wrong ....so anyway i rang up to say can i pick up my hearing aids and got told sorry you need an apmt because your hearing aid is broken beyond repair and you need a new one so i had an apmt about a week later and it was decided on what i would get my hearing aids are free to client they said and i would just have to cover the cost of the icom (which i'll explain later) and the Fm system i managed to get funding for which was fantastic!!!

So anyway then comes an email from my audi saying option 1 and option 2 didn't understand what she was talking about and apparently what had occured is that the audi at unitron had given my audi the wrong information and so it was impossible to meet my needs "free to client" so i discovered i had to pay an extra $500 which apparently is the wholesale price the retail price would have been a lot more. In any case 24 hours ago i got the icom the new hearing aids AND the new FM system
I have a Phonak Certerna Art with a microphone transmitter(this is the same transmitter that i used on my old aids) on the other side (to make the hearing aids BICROS) so essentially it picks sound up on the left and transfers to right and amplifies it.

I also have an icom with an FM reciever this is a REALLY cool device it works with a digital induction loop and the sound quality is way better than anything i have ever experienced! I have managed to "bluetooth" the icom to my phone (or audi did) and basically i can hear my phone through my hearing aids when im wearing the icom and it can "bluetooth" up to 8 devices apparently. So far i haven't worked out how to do that to my PC in the hopes of listening to music through the PC however it also has an audio cable and i managed to get it to stream audio from my CD player to the icom to the hearing aid.

As for the Fm system it is the Phonak Zoomlink and it has an external microphone which i can clip to the viola and use when singing as well in choir. it also has 3 built in microphone buttons omnidirection zoom and super zoom.

I did have a disaster though - keep in mind ive only had these for 24 hours and not good with new technology either....

I wanted to be prepared for my viola lesson so i charged both the icom and the zoomlink up last night and when i went to use the zoomlink it would not turn on!!!! Not on whatsoever. So i tried everything i could think of before lesson and the taxi turned up (i put the old FM system into the bag as plan B not realising that i had 3 charged and 1 uncharged battery!!! they look similar) So while in the taxi i kept reading the instruction manual but couldn't figure it out i did discover that the external microphone has an on switch but the book did not say how to turn it on my viola teacher worked that out you have to turn it!!! But i could not get the zoomlink to turn on. So i went for plan B put my hearing aids to the "telecoil + mic" setting and of course didn't realise that one battery was flat hence why i was getting no sound out of that FM system So i was VERY brave and just played the viola without the FM system it was bad because i could not hear myself properly but when i was playing with teacher i could hear what she was playing against me and tell when i was wrong actually i could often tell i was wrong just didn't know whether sharp or flat thats the difference the FM system makes. With my old aids i probably wouldn't have even managed that much! So i got home and plugged in the zoomlink thinking somehow it was not charged however there was nothing on the screen at ALL so i though oh ohh thats not good so i read and reread the instructions and found in case of error message please press all three buttons and it will reset and voila it WORKED and it turned on!!!! WHY there had been an error i have NO idea absolutely NO idea!!!! Then i started again tried plugging everything together and it all worked i got the microphone to work and everything.

basically the icom is the reciever for the zoomlink and when you have both of them on it automatically changes the program in the hearing aid!!! makes a few beeping noises first but essentially thats what happens.

I am a bit scared cause i have a concert in TWO days time!!! a really really big one in a choir of about 80 people with orchestra and everything we doing mozart requiem and mozart vespers!!! SO i have to figure out all this again and make sure i have some idea of what to do. In concerts i give the external mic to a friend in the alto section and she literally wears the mic and cause its omnidirectional it picks up everything in the choir but the alto line the most i hope it works.

As for health wise things have not been going brilliantly for me at all except to say that i did see the genetic metabolic dr only last friday and she is doing more tests to figure out what is wrong shes testing for rare degenerative neuromusclar conditions and if they are all negative then she will do a muscle and skin biopsy to figure out what is wrong well that is the hope anyway.

I have a wheelchair assessment in a weeks time which i hope i will gain more info about what that actually involves and hopefully eventually i will end up with a better easier to use wheelchair.

i have been grateful to have 4 hours a week from the respite centre and they are continuing this help for another 3 months which will go til march.

I have finished my TAFE course practically and should recieve parchment soon.....

And I am hoping that the music ensemble and teaching will start sometime next year.