Cochlear Implant Surgery: The Healing Story

(Written a few days after surgery in July):

 I’m tired.  I’m mostly deaf.  It’s hot outside and I am content to lay around in the air conditioning.  (Oh, wait… that’s normal for me…)  I think I underestimated what CI surgery was going to mean as far as recovery.  Honestly, I didn’t look into it all that much and I probably should have.  I figured an hour long surgery plus the annoyance of losing what little hearing (I thought) I had… how hard can that BE? 

Hard.

Plus, I don’t think of myself as ‘needing more recovery time’ because I am merely 54 years old.  I can walk 100 miles during vacation, so how could a little surgery wipe me out?  I usually don’t feel ‘older’, even with my snowy white hair. But, this time, it’s hitting me.  I found a cochlear implant group on Facebook and joined up which I should have done a few months ago, actually.  Turns out that most people need two – four weeks to recover from the initial surgery.  So, I am quite normal in that I am still in the recovery mode, I just didn’t EXPECT that to be the case. 

The short story is that what little hearing I had is gone. Whether or not my one precious “Oh I can hear the trucks in the driveway” frequency returns or not remains to be seen.  It’s like someone stuffed a wad of cotton in your ear and left it there. But, there’s no cotton.  Just no hearing.  That, in turn, has made it harder to hear through my other ear. I underestimated the amount of sound I WAS getting through my right ear which in some fashion stereo balanced what I hear in my left ear.  Needless to say, it takes a ton of energy to try to keep up with any conversation right now.  I bow out of situations where there’s a lot to keep up with.

The side affects that are to be expected included strong ringing in my ear… so strong I thought an ALARM was going off the second night after surgery!  Dizziness which has mostly passed, praise God.  A sore jaw which is a little more pronounced now than it was, a cool black eye (never had one before) and a sore head where the computer thing is jammed up there inside my scalp. It’s kind of like a bump to your head.  Weird. My friend and CI guru told me my body will adjust to that in time and I won’t notice it.  Oh, and the basics of an incision behind my ear that needs to heal. The worst, surprisingly, seven days later after I’d been up and about for a couple of days.  The side affects of the prophylactic antibiotic decided to burst onto the scene.  I was flattened for the whole day in gastrointestinal and headache misery.  The head bumps and sore jaw and ear ringing are most welcome in comparison.  It was music to my ears (har har) when my husband called the doc on Monday morning and he said I did NOT have to finish the last 5 pills!! 

I can’t see my incision as it’s covered up with steri strips and well, I haven’t looked!!!  Ick.  I DID take a regular old shower this morning, not the ‘hold a cup over your ear’ shower that was suggested up to this point. I get activated August 2. That’s when everyone around me will turn into munchkins!!!  Getting sound in some way will be nice, so they say...but hearing my friends and family talk like they live along the yellow brick road, not so much.   That will begin the PROCESS of learning to hear again. 

Everyone keeps telling me “It’s a PROCESS.”  Yep.  Love those concepts of “process” and “patience”.  Character building, of course.  Making me more compassionate… preparing me to be a better listener (functionally and emotionally), helping to enlarge my world once again… all benefits that are no doubt coming around the corner.  That corner which exists somewhere in the colors of October. 

It’s a mix right now, which you’ve no doubt caught.  I have no doubt that the Lord led me to this point and he is near to me as I walk through it, for sure.  There will be numerous God moments and connections that come up through all of this, if I but keep my awareness and heart open. I am and I will.  I’m journaling and trying to listen, happily reminded by my spiritual director that I can hear the Lord quite clearly when he speaks to me, regardless of the status of my physical hearing… a simple reminder to listen with my eyes and heart as well as my ears. 

On that note, I’m off to bed for more rest and healing. I can’t sleep on that ear yet and it might take a while til I can, but I can sleep. For that, and so much more, I will continue to be thankful.