I'm offically a bilateral CI'er!

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deafmama78

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My surgery was yesterday. It was for my 2nd side, the le side. I was supposed to be there at 11, but we were 15 minutes late, 10 of that is because of minor traffic, 5 mins of that is because of the front enterance to the hospital was soo different, due to the hospital being under construction, so we were a bit confused as to where the hell to go! But we found it, got myself registered. Then this sweet old lady lead me to the surgery area, and we told her "We were here just a year ago, we know the way" we were teasing her. :) She laughed and wished me luck. Then a male nurse greeted me and said he'll be my nurse. Took me to the bathroom to give me my gown to put on then him and another nurse got me prepped, getting my IV started and stuff. Awhile later, my Dr. came in to talk to me and I told him I was nervous, he asked why and we talked about that for a few and he promised he'd take great care of me. I told him he better not let me die! :P Heh. They took me to the OR at 1pm. I remember saying "It's cold in here!" then gave them my CI just before they placed the circle mask over my face and said you know what to do, right? [teasing me]. I remember breathing a few times and was like whoooaaaa this stuff rocks! Next thing I know, I woke up in recovery kinda freaking out cuz my husband wasn't next to me like he was last year. Turns out that they did things a lil different this year, since I had recently came out [at 3pm] and they were busy giving me pain meds every 10 minutes as they were instructed to start giving it to me before I even came out of the OR due to last year, waking up in shock of how baddddddd the pain was and they didn't want me going thru that again. :) It truly was much better this time around!!! I got to leave at 5:25, got home at 6:40 after waiting 15ish minutes at the pharmacy to fill my script. Got home and we watched TV for about two hours then fell asleep until like 1:30 am and watched TV til like 5:30 then went to sleep til 9:30am. We've been up ever since. I hadn't had a single nap except for the quick 10 minutes one.

Right now, besides the pain issue, I am feeling great physically! I'm even going to go to my Mom's tonight with my husband and daughters to drop off my daughters as my Mom wants the girls tonight so I could relax another day or two. :) The only other issue I have, a part of my face, like around the eye and stuff is swollen. . . sooo swollen. :( But at least it's alot different than last year, last year, my eye was swollen shut due to breaking a blood vessel while fighting the nurses. This year I didn't even do that. So, I'm not exactly sure why it's swollen. :(

My audiologist emailed me telling me that everything looked great and that she wanted pictures. :)

I go in next Friday to see my surgeon for my one week post op appt. He'll be taking off my bandaid if it hasn't fallen off before and remove whatever stitches that didn't get dissolved, I think?

Then I'll be activated June 5th. But I think the rep was wrong, since I know my audi isn't there on Thursday so I emailed my audi about that to have her double check, or to possibily move the activation date a bit eariler. :)

Oh one more thing, today when I took off my white turban style headwrap, I had my CI on my left hand and didnt move it to the right hand before putting my CI back on my right side, so I by accident had my CI to go past the newly implanted side and I heard!!! I was in shock at how LOUD everything I was hearing was, esp that nothing made sense, but I know that will come in time after I'm activated. Heh. Then I quickly put my CI back on where it goes. :)

I am so excited! I truly believe I made the right decision on becoming a bilateral CI'er. I'll know for sure in a month! :)

Sorry for the long ass post. :)
 
I want to be bilateral someday, but I'd want to receive an upgrade on the current implanted ear since the my old internal implant doesn't allow for long lasting battery. About 4-5 hours. The new BTE they are about to release for us Clarion earlier generations will have new features, but will still operate with about the same battery life. It's supposed to have features like being able to use T switch with phones, FM use, cheaper batteries and I don't know what else. They are not releasing more information about it, yet. I guess the internal implant just doesn't make it possible at this time to be able to come up with longer lasting batteries for BTE.

Let us know how bilateral implant goes for you and congrats!
 
Congratulations deafmama! :) Glad everything went a bit smoother for you this time in terms of recovery. Looking forward to reading all about your activation! :)
 
Thanks everyone! :)

This time around is truly much different. It's weird! Even my newly implanted side of my head isn't even numb. Last year it was numb for weeks. Now, it's only numb around the ear. Only thing that's the same is the swollen eye. I had to go back to the hospital, only this time in a different city to see the on-call Dr., who I happened to see last year also. He wanted me to come in just to make sure that there wasn't anything more than just a broken vessel causing the bruised/swollen eye. All is well there. It was weird going to the hospital being the only patient there, as the offfice hours are closed but hey at least this time I didn't have to wait in a waiting room or even in the exam room for a bit. We were in/out in just 5 minutes, which was perfect cuz I was starting to be in alot of pain again and was in tears 1/2 way home, took meds and fell asleep for an hour. Now I'm ok. Listening to music on my ipod and chillin' on the laptop. :)
 
Congratulations! I remember too I had a better recovery for the second one compared to the first one. My friend who is also bilateral, had a slower recovery with her second surgery so it shows how different ears can produce different experiences!

I would still advise you to lie low and not do too much for a week if you can. I always found that around day 3 or 4 that I didn't feel too good after coming down from the high of getting through surgery. Maybe this is the time when the body goes into serious healing mode? Or becomes immune to the painkillers? Who knows!
 
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