That was nice to hear! I am happy that you met these kind people. Although I feel that you didn’t have to refuse them at first, but I gotta say that I admire your will and desire to fight it out yourself while you could. I often tell people that it’s not easy to accept yourself as being weak and in need of help. It took me some time to be comfortable raising funds too. At the earliest stages, I used tp insist that people take a tee for the money they give. I even went as far as to refuse those who gave cash donations in person outrightly!

Joanne, I am not exactly sure what the process for activation is. May Sarah, Yvonne, or Jamie could give some imput since they already have ABI’s. I think the audiologist hooks your implant up to his computer and do the hearing test type beeps to see what tones you can hear at the quietest and loudest levels. But, I am not real sure how the mapping and activation work.

Yvonne, the big donation just came to me. I met a woman on an e-mail list about a year or so ago. She and her husband saw how much trouble I was having fundraising and how quickly I was going downhill. At first I turned them down because that is a huge sum of money, and I didn’t want them to go into debt because of me. But they said that God had been generous to them and they really wanted to help. I took them up on their offer and I will be grateful for the rest of my life. It all just seemed to fall into place. Like I said, God made it happen.

Hello Holly! Happy and excited to know that you finally had the surgery you needed! Please fill me in on how did you get the huge donation for the ABI. They are turning on your ABI so quickly. It’s probably because you are also blind so they want you to hear as soon as you can. I love and miss the people at HEI and St. Vincent Medical Center already!

Actually, I left on the 23rd December 2009. If I knew you were coming, I would have extended my stay!