Tuesday, January 31, 2006

Post-op appointment

Today I went to the doc for the post-op appointment and I nearly freaked out when he came into the room and checked the RIGHT side of my head. OMG, he needed the LEFT side!! HAHA.
Anyway, he says "how are you?" and I said "I'm still dizzy" which was a lovely greeting :P Apparently this isn't unusual, he's known people to be dizzy for longer and he's surprised that it doesn't happen to more people. That made me feel a bit better.

Now, I woke up last night and there was some kind of lump in my neck and I immediately start worrying it was a blood clot and it would travel to my brain and I'd be dead by morning. I wasn't dead this morning (phew) so I also asked about this funny lump but he said it was my lymph node, albiet swollen. Fatalistic, much? ;)

My stitches are out now too :) I had 16 of them!

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Back home, finally

I am FINALLY home after being released from hospital yesterday. So much for day surgery.

The actual surgery all went well, its the side effects which have me laid up. Dizzy, nausea... its like being seasick on dry land. I won't go into how awful it is. But its pretty awful :P And I'm putting a lot of faith into the doctor who said it won't last forever. Apparently its a common side effect.

The only complication being I've lost the taste buds on my left side coz he had to drill through the nerve. Well, better that than a facial nerve ;)

Thank you to everyone who has sent me sms's, it is much appreciated. My apologies if I didn't reply to all of them, its an effort to concentrate on a small screen.

I'm going to go collapse on a chair after the tremendous effort of staying upright while typing this out :P

oh, btw... NURSES ROCK!!!

Sunday, January 22, 2006

One day!

And this time tomorrow, cochlear implant surgery will all be over. I'll officially be a cyborg :P Hopefully with no complications *fingers crossed*

Friday, January 20, 2006

Switch on date

There is a God and he loves me.

10th February at 9am! I will try and get it done even earlier if possible but at least its while I'm still on holidays (albiet, my last day).

Now I have heard that you can hook up an Ipod to a CI, but couldn't find anything on the net about it. My instruction book mentions a cord (an "accessory") which connects the CI to a Personal Device run on batteries, ie game console thing... now they didn't exactly mention Ipods but thats a battery powered personal device!! ARRGGHHH!! OMG, AN IPOD!!!

**EDIT** OMG ITS TRUE!!! Direct from the site:
Personal audio cable: Helps you keep up with the exciting personal audio products on today's market. Use the personal audio cable for simple connection to an iPod®, Walkman®, portable radio or other battery-operated audio products

Thursday, January 19, 2006

More tests

I went to the Audiologist yesterday, I was hoping for a switch-on date, but more on that a bit later.

She had fun turning up my hearing aids AGAIN. She turned them up so loud my head was vibrating at one stage so she turned them back down.

One of my main worries with the CI is things being LOUD. I've gotten so used to everything being quiet. But she tells me they aren't going to bombard me with sound, it'll probably be the same volume as my hearing aids, but just with the higher pitches. Good.

So she went through the switch on process with me, the speech processer will have 3 settings on it and I'll start off on the first setting and change it once I think I've gotten used to it. Then I go back every week for a month for adjustments.
I got an instruction book and I read through it last night, it sounds very fancy. It'll hold my name in it! haha, I can just imagine losing it, then someone chasing me down because my name being in it ;)
Anyway, it has all sorts of beeps and lights and LCD screens, very cyborgish.

The switch-on date... she says to me "how does Valentines Day sound?". Thats a TERRIBLE date, I'll be back at work by then and I wanted it done 2 weeks after surgery (as she said I could last week!!) so I could have a few days to adjust BEFORE I go back to work. She wanted it on that date so some kind of representative from Cochlear (the company) could be there, they are flying in from South Australia. I asked did they HAVE to be there, she said no, so I said I really wanted it done before I head to work. This is about ME, not some damn representative! (I didn't say that bit, lol)

So she's supposed to double check with this representative to see if they can make it earlier or something and then ring mum with a date. Please God, let it be between the 6th and 10th of Feb.

Monday, January 16, 2006

1 week to go!

1 week! I'm trying not to think about it too much or I will freak out. I've started dreaming about it already, how sad is it to dream about understanding what people are saying with your eyes closed. ;)

Ariane (Carls sister) has sent me lots of emails about the whole process and its SO useful and encouraging :)

1 week, 1 week, 1 week!

Audiologist appointment on Wednesday, to go through the whole process and what to expect... and hopefully I'll get my switch-on date!! I'm not sure why I'm so excited about the switch-on date when I'm apparently going to hate it.

Friday, January 6, 2006

Tests

This morning I had to go to the Audiologist for more tests. This involved normal hearing tests, speech discrimination tests (ie, how much speech I understand without lip reading) and then just testing my hearing aids.

I'm not off the chart anymore, I can't understand that but the Audiologist said it does fluctuate, its not really completely reliable but gives a general idea and previous audiograms are off the charts too.

Then I had various speech discrimination tests. Im glad I wasn't graded because I failed so miserably I can't believe it. I can not understand a damn thing without lip-reading. One part of the test DID let me lip-read and I blitzed that bit :P

My hearing aids are apparently not at optimimum performance for my loss so she turned them up. Everything is Really Loud now.

She had the actual speech processor in the office so I got to see what it looked like and tried it on. Its SO huge. I'm very good and didn't cry but god, its massive (ie, bigger than my hearing aids anyway).

I don't have a switch-on date yet, I have another appointment before surgery which we'll make a date. And we are thinking 2 weeks after surgery so I can get used to it before going to work! YAAAY!! This might be a good thing considering I've been told I'm going to want to throw it at the wall during the first week, its so bloody terrible. Apparently I'm going to HATE it. So at least I can be mentally prepared for that.

I know I have to be careful about walking through airport security but she didn't know if I'd set off LIBRARY security! HAHA. Omg, I could be stuck at work forever :P