Surgery tomorrow!

Wow, can't believe you had the surgery and are typing a post to let us know how your are doing! Awesome, best wishes for a speedy recovery. When's your activation date?
Rick
 
First Day..

Lets see, I slept like on and off every two hours last night. I missed the moon eclipse by 10 minutes!! I was nodding in and out today too. I took the pressure bandage off at noon time. The doctor did not shave all that much hair off. My mom said she was very impressed with the stitches. She said they resembled the handiwork of a fine plastic surgeon. I have to clean it with Hydrogen Peroxide and Polysporin twice a day and I am already weening myself off the Percoset. My neck is a little stiff and it starting to bruise a little bit.

Otherwise, I feel relatively pretty good. I'm hearing pretty well out of my right side of my ear since there is no tinnitus in my left which is a blessing in disguise. This is the first time that I have experienced quiet since I was 12. What a sigh of relief!! I felt good enough this evening to go take a drive down the street to get my mail. That was my big highlight of the day :)
 
That's interesting that you have to clean the incision. Last time around, because I stayed in overnight, my doctor took off the bandage and put some steristrip band aids over the incision. A week later, I went to my general practioner, who cleaned it for me and put some more steristrips on. Do you have disolvable stitches?

I got a sore neck as well. But I resolved it a few nights later by sleeping on my implanted side!

I'm still shaking my head about your lack of tinnitus! Enjoy your drive.
 
kalboy said:
yep. This will be my first one. How much can you hear with HA?
Click to expand...

Most of the time I just hear environmental sounds. I think my speech discrimination is 23% for my right and 0% for left. I chose my left ear which is my worst to get implanted. What are yours like?

You got two more days to go!! Are you nervous or excited?
 
R2D2 said:
That's interesting that you have to clean the incision. Last time around, because I stayed in overnight, my doctor took off the bandage and put some steristrip band aids over the incision. A week later, I went to my general practioner, who cleaned it for me and put some more steristrips on. Do you have disolvable stitches?

I got a sore neck as well. But I resolved it a few nights later by sleeping on my implanted side!

I'm still shaking my head about your lack of tinnitus! Enjoy your drive.
Click to expand...

I am shaking my head at it too. I was totally expecting it. I had bad tinnitus in my left ear for god knows how long. When I woke up I was expecting roaring but it was total quiet. Ahh, total bliss.

I wish he would have done the glue or something else. He did these ultra fine stitches which come out on the 4th. There is so many of them, i'm not looking forward to that. I think I like your surgeons way of dealing with it.

My neck is starting to feel better. I might put an ice pack on it later on tonight. You got one more day to go :) I'm trying to figure out my time to your time. If I did it right, I think it will be tomorrow night at 7:00pm for me.
 
contradica said:
Most of the time I just hear environmental sounds. I think my speech discrimination is 23% for my right and 0% for left. I chose my left ear which is my worst to get implanted. What are yours like?

You got two more days to go!! Are you nervous or excited?
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm totally excited. I think my hearing and speech discrimination is a bit worse than yours. Both my ears are about the same so I just decided to implant my left one. When is your activation?
 
kalboy said:
Yeah I'm totally excited. I think my hearing and speech discrimination is a bit worse than yours. Both my ears are about the same so I just decided to implant my left one. When is your activation?
Click to expand...

I wish you much success and may you just breeze through surgery. My activation is on September 17th. Right now I am just aiming to get these stitches out which will be right after Labor Day

Were you born deaf or did you lose it later on in life? My hearing loss was diagnosed when I was 3-4. At that time it was moderate-severe.
 
When is Labor day Contradica - we have "labor day" here too but am not sure if it's the same day as the US. I think we have different mothers and fathers days for example.

Well, I'm off to pack my overnight bag (it's Thursday afternoon right now). The hospital rang and said I have to be there at 11am. Last time, I had to arrive at 11am but didn't get wheeled into surgery until 2pm. I can't eat after 6am tomorrow so I will get up early for a breakfast and a run on the treadmill.
 
R2D2 said:
When is Labor day Contradica - we have "labor day" here too but am not sure if it's the same day as the US. I think we have different mothers and fathers days for example.

Well, I'm off to pack my overnight bag (it's Thursday afternoon right now). The hospital rang and said I have to be there at 11am. Last time, I had to arrive at 11am but didn't get wheeled into surgery until 2pm. I can't eat after 6am tomorrow so I will get up early for a breakfast and a run on the treadmill.
Click to expand...

Our Labor Day is this coming Monday. Then Tuesday, I am going to get my stitches out. I can't wait for that one. I am probably going to pass out from the pain haha...

Wow, we are usually told not to eat anything after midnight regardless of what time the surgery is at. That would make it 9 o'clock Thursday well tomorrow night my time. I think I did that right. How are you feeling so far? I will be praying for a successful surgery and I will be to moan and groan too :)
 
R2D2

Good luck with your surgery tomorrow. I am amazed you get to eat breakfast. I could not eat after midnight but I was able to have a glass of juice in the morning.


Contradica,

Glad you continue to do well. Keep us posted.
 
I'm back now! (I know, I sound like I went to the 1 hour CI express place). Anyway everything went fine. I'm not as dizzy as last time around and maybe a bit less pain as well? I do feel tired though and am looking forward to bed tonight.
 
R2D2 said:
I'm back now! (I know, I sound like I went to the 1 hour CI express place). Anyway everything went fine. I'm not as dizzy as last time around and maybe a bit less pain as well? I do feel tired though and am looking forward to bed tonight.
Click to expand...

LOL @ 1 hour CI Express place. I"m glad to see surgery was a success!! When you wake back up you can tell me all about it!! Do you have tinnitus?
 
How are you feeling today? this last week the back of my left ear has been really red and it started bleeding at the top. Is this normal? I don't want to change ear things to the smaller ones since I am on 50/50. It cuts the hearing down. The right one is okay. I even use the smaller battery.

So any advise?
 
vallee said:
How are you feeling today? this last week the back of my left ear has been really red and it started bleeding at the top. Is this normal? I don't want to change ear things to the smaller ones since I am on 50/50. It cuts the hearing down. The right one is okay. I even use the smaller battery.

So any advise?
Click to expand...

Perhaps it might irritated? I would try some antibiotic ointment on it at night to see if that will clear it up if that is the case
 
kalboy said:
Yeah I'm totally excited. I think my hearing and speech discrimination is a bit worse than yours. Both my ears are about the same so I just decided to implant my left one. When is your activation?
Click to expand...

We are still waiting to hear from you Kalboy!! I hope your surgery went well.
 
Question for all your Ci'ers

I'm wondering is it normal to experience

a. Headaches
b. Shooting pains in ear
c. Ear feeling heavy
d. Your voice reverberating in the side that you got implanted

I am hoping that it is since I never experienced it this before.
 
I had the headaches and shooting pain. I was able to e-mail my doctor anytime day or night with questions. He e-mailed me back within an hour.

I had tinnutis in both ears after surgery. I heard 50's big band music - the same song 24 hours a day. The other side was just noise. Once they activated me it stopped.

I felt better when I moved from pain killers to just motrin. I also found some food made the pain worst. If I ate anything that had a lot of chewing then the pain and others got worst.

Another question - I am reading a lot about people implanting one ear at a time. Are most doctors thinking that is the best? My reason for waiting so long was fighting my insurance company to get them to pay for the second one.
 
contradica said:
LOL @ 1 hour CI Express place. I"m glad to see surgery was a success!! When you wake back up you can tell me all about it!! Do you have tinnitus?
Click to expand...

Hi I'm back and as fresh as a daisy after my epic 10 hour sleep! I do have a little tinnitus but not too bad - not like first time around.

In regard to your other questions yes, all of the things you mentioned are normal for the first 2 weeks and is all part of the ear healing up. I remember the shooting pains worried me a lot but they went. I didn't notice the voices reverberating though. I'll have to pay attention to that one to see if I can pick that up!
 
vallee said:
How are you feeling today? this last week the back of my left ear has been really red and it started bleeding at the top. Is this normal? I don't want to change ear things to the smaller ones since I am on 50/50. It cuts the hearing down. The right one is okay. I even use the smaller battery.

So any advise?
Click to expand...

I would definitely go to your doctor and just rule out any infection. Is it anywhere near the magnet? Sometimes if the magnet is too strong for the thickness of your skin you might need to get one that is less powerful.
 
Back
Top