BARRIE'S STORY - An acoustic Neuroma patient

16. EQUIPMENT

I discovered a vibrating alarm clock that is sold by the RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf) in the UK. The RNID have a publication called 'Solutions' for people with hearing loss of all types and in this I have found a clock called the 'Portable Shakeawake'. This has a metal cord with a simple clip on the end that allows it to be attached under a pillow. It wakes up the sleeper when the alarm goes off and vibrates. I have found this to be very effective and has the benefit that it doesn't wake my wife when it goes off.

I have also found very useful, 'Ear Protection Plugs' available from the 'Solutions' catalogue. Now I have only one useful ear I believe that I need to protect it from any sort of damage or infection. I therefore use three types of earplugs. I use one type that protects my good ear during swimming giving protection from water pressure and harmful water pollutants. The second set of earplugs is for protection during air-travel. They protect against the changes in air pressure during take-off and landing. The third set are ear filters which reduce noise by up to 20db and are useful when going to rock concerts, using noisy machinery or any other situation where I may experience loud noise. All three sets provide protection without losing all sound input and so can be used in my good ear without losing the ability to hear. Needless to say I get twice the life out of these earplugs, since I only have to use one at a time.

A problem I had when I was in the early stage of recovery was my inability to breath properly when in bed. I have always found that when laying on one side in bed the nostril on that side would often become blocked. Now that I had to sleep on my left side, that nostril blocked and I was left with my right nostril which was badly affected by my facial palsy. This seemed an intractable problem; often I would wake up unable to breath at all. My solution to this problem was to use Olbas Oil (a mixture of menthol and eucalyptus intended to treat a blocked nose caused by a cold). By putting a few drops of Olbas Oil onto a handkerchief on my pillow next to my nose it helped my breathing. I carried on with this technique for some months and I think it became a support that allowed me to go to sleep. Eventually as my palsy and other problems improved I managed to dispense with this support.

Sometime before my operation I had received a SONY mini-CD player/recorder as a present. I had purchased a digital link that connects between the output of a CD player and the mini-CD recorder. This enables very high quality stereo to be recorded onto mini-CD's. I recorded a number of mini-CD's from my collection of CD's, using the digital link. After my operation, it was a long time before I wanted to use earphones again. When I did use earphones I obviously could only hear sound in my left ear. Many of my recorded mini-CD's were quite satisfactory i.e. the sound, although recorded in stereo, was sufficiently full in one ear to be sufficiently useable. I found, however, some albums, such as the 'Beatles Anthology' were recorded such that the sound was split between the two earphones making listening quite difficult. I have now recorded further mini-CD's and found that the supplied analogue cable (linking an amplifier to the mini-CD recorder) can be used in monologue mode thus guaranteeing all sound is available. This ensures that I can hear all the sound in my one ear.