IV and Surgery
Devon, Sorry this is so long but I hope it is useful information for you.
I'm a little ahead of you on getting a CI. About 5 weeks. My surgery was on December 16th and it was my first surgery as well. Actually, I didn't feel nervous but my blood pressure told the truth but I was OK. I have and still look at it as "what have I got to loose". If the CI does not give me any benefit, I'm back where I started from. If it helps, I have absolutely everything to gain and look forward to.
My Dr/Surgeon was very confident in that he told me he has performed many CI surgeries in the past and as he said, "he knows what he is doing." He also had the CT scans so he knew where everything was before he made the first move. I had and still have 100% confidence in his ability to perform the surgery if I choose to get bilateral CI's when my better ear totally stops working. I really hope you feel the same way with your Dr/surgeon.
As far as the IV, my wife has had several recently and said she really does not like it and thought I would have the same feeling. Initially when I was in pre-op, I thought I would not like the feeling at all but when the nurse stuck me, I thought, not that bad and that was really quick and easy. What she stuck me with was some numbing agent like what is used when you go to the dentist and it numbs your mouth and tongue for fillings. A couple minutes later, she inserted the IV and I did NOT feel a thing. My wife was so jealous that I had such a different experience. I guess she was only slightly hoping I could understand why she did not like it so much. You may want to ask for this before the IV goes in.
The anesthesiologist was cool. One thing he told me is I could call him anything if I had any problems but everyone else had to call him by name. He also told me about some of his "interesting" patients. I guess he did not want me to get on his interesting patient list. I can say I had no problems at all, they never told me to count backwards or anything. I remember a little about the ride to the operating room and only about 5 seconds of looking around the room before it was lights out for about 5 hours. Don't remember a thing from 12:00 until about 4:30.
They brought my wife back to recovery around 4:15 when I started waking up and can say I talked about being in quite a bit of pain but given what the operation consisted of, was to be expected. My Dr. told me what to expect so it was OK. Shortly before 5:00, they took me to my room where I ended up staying the night which was very good since I really did not feel up to traveling. They kept the IV in all night and I grabbed the railing of the bed with that hand and slept really well with the pain subsiding very quickly all through the night. By the next morning, I basically had just bad earache type pain which was totally tolerable. The Dr. came by to remove the bandage and look at the incision which he remarked that it looked good and nothing was out of the ordinary. Then began the waiting game until this coming Monday which I get the CI turned on.
I wish you luck but wanted to let you know of my experience since I too had the CI surgery as my first ever and since it was so recent.
Additionally, I just came off medical restriction where I can lift what ever I want and blow my nose. Lifting is fine. My ear/head tells me when I try to lift to much like 80-100 lbs but blowing my nose, NOT a good idea. I'm going to hold off for another 3-4 weeks before I do that. Causes immediate ringing and extreme earache type pain which is I think just the tender skin where the electrode goes into the middle ear and into the cochlea. The pain goes away within seconds and the ringing stops shortly after and I feel fine but again, something I'm personally going to avoid.
If you have any questions, please let me know.
Steve in Michigan
but since CIs aren't experimental anymore, I've decided to get my left ear implanted on Feb. 20th. 
