Time flies - A picture journal of what we've been up to

So, obviously I've been busy or else I'd be spending my time updating this...it is my first priority obviously....:)
I'll come to a CI post soon, instead, you're just gonna have to look at my cheesy kid. :)

Dinosaur for Halloween:

From October 2010

Classic Cheese face:

From October 2010

First time actually PLAYING in the snow:

From October 2010

Just an awesome shot :)

From October 2010

Our little turtle at the zoo

From October 2010

Again, the cheese face:

From October 2010

His most favorite thing at the zoo:

From October 2010

Playing in the moving boxes (yeah, we moved, two weeks ago)

From October 2010

Probably the only picture where you actually see his real eye color. Everyone argues over what color they are :)

From October 2010

So in summary: We went to the zoo a bunch, Wheeler Farm (those pics are on our phones) a bunch, Discovery gateway (pics are also on the phones) a bunch, moved, had Halloween, and I've been working. A lot.

I blame work

Work is keeping me busy, you'd think it'd be making me actually work or something :)

I can't do a whole lot of details, because I didn't write down thoughts when new things happened, which means I can't remember them anymore. So here are the basics:

Before my new mapping this past Wednesday:
I had no chance in heck figuring out what people were saying if I couldn't read their lips.
Everyone still sounded like they had colds.
I was starting to identify songs mostly by the beat of the songs (from a limited set of 170 songs on my ipod that I was familiar with).
I definitely could not discriminate mm and oo (food)

Mapping on Wednesday:
I hate having to try and count the soft beeps. It's so freaking hard, and I doubt myself A LOT. It's the part that tires me out more than anything else.
I got two new programs to focus on, and they are pretty similar, but I'm to go back and forth in between them to see which one I like better so we can do some more fine tuning on the 24th, at which point we will also do a sound booth testing to test the functional part of my hearing.
I have a preference for program 2 so far, but I've asked Bryan to pay attention to see if one is better than the other. Thus far, he's only really seen me on program 1, as my remote died and I had to charge it, and I hate messing with the buttons on the implants themselves.
Voices are MUCH better. No one sounds like they have colds anymore. I could discriminate male and female before, however, I can now discriminate a male from a male (I can tell they are two different people).
No one sounds like they have colds anymore. Awesome.
It is SO much easier to listen to kids now, there is no longer a screeching sound going on.
My last therapy session, I had to figuring out what the therapist was saying with the topic of dinner. I missed a couple of words (chimichanga is the one I'm remembering that I missed), however I did catch Lemon Pie Sundae (completely random), so that's good.
I find myself understanding people when I'm not looking at them from time to time, I still need visuals though to help with the majority of the time.
Things are still "loud". The clock bugs me now, it's no longer cool haha. However, the loud sounds are getting easier to "tolerate".
I haven't done much of my own therapy at home, I've been exhausted after work almost everyday, and just want to collapse (it's not the families exhausting me, it's the catching up to e-mails and paperwork that's exhausting me). And when I get home, I just need time to wind down, eat dinner with my family, spend time with my son, get him ready and into bed, and then...well I'm so tired I want to go to bed by that point.
I have been notching sounds are clearer though, that's a huge pro for me.
Oh yeah, today we used the blue tooth connection in our car to call my mom. She wasn't home, so my dad answered. I've always had trouble understanding him. I was able to understand everything he said with the exception of "Texas", so that was a nice thing :) No way I would've understood that two weeks ago when I first got the implants activated. Makes me realize more and more just how important some changes in a map can be.

I'll try to be more consistent, but like I said in the header of my blog, I make no promises :)

More training

So, here are the basic notes of what I'm finding through my training with the CD they gave me.

Pure tone test - Training 1: 100% 3 tones, 2 same, 1 different, choose the different.
Male vs. Female Training 1: 100% 3 samples, 2 same, 1 different, choose the different. (simply male v. female)
Vowel Discrminiation Training 2 step 1: 85% two words, minimal pairs, differ only in the vowel. The following are the common vowels I would confuse: eh v. uh, oo (book) v. er, ah v. uh, rat v. rot
Consonant discrimination Training 2 step 1: 96% Two words, minimal pairs, differ only in one consonant. k v. p was wrong every time I tried it.
Words: Animal: 100%
Everyday sentences: level 1: 100%
Music Appreciation: 82% Instruments: one sound, four choices, Trumpet sounds AWFUL, piano almost sometimes feels like it's cancelled out, and it's an absence of noise and absence is only in the right ear. violin and trumpet confused once, Clarinet does not sound like a clarinet, but a flute sounds like a clarinet to me, cello and piano and french horn confused
Music Appreciation: Melody: 81.3%
Amazing Grace, Itsy Bitsy Spider, Beethoven Fifth, Rock a bye baby
Confused: Amazing grace and beethoven Fifth, didn't do preview, but after hearing them after I got it wrong, I should NOT have gotten it wrong. Happy Birthday and Baa Baa Black Sheep: Happy birthday so does not sound like what I thought it would sound like. Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Pop Goes the Weasel, again, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star did not sound like what I was expecting it to sound like.

End of August already?

I cannot believe tomorrow is September. The time has *flown* this past month and a half since my surgery.
I officially started back at work yesterday full time, despite the fact that I was working through my vacation :) And it has been somewhat tiring, but encouraging at the same time. I've had interpreters reserved this week for work, but I'm finding more and more that I do not need them for the most part, and am functioning much like I was before I had the surgery and was wearing hearing aids. So that's good news in terms of more work/paperwork/reservation/people in a home.
I'ms tarting to actually recognize the songs even faster when they come on in the car, as long as they are from the list on my ipod (approximately 160 songs), so I consider that a good sign. I'm also finding that I'ms tarting to tell the difference between vowels and can recognize a couple of them sometimes. I'm also recognizing words, common words, that are used in my home. Still takes some work though.
The biggest thing I've been noticing since I've been at work this week. The adults sound like they have colds still, but children are just an entirely different sound pitch/level. They sound much higher, and louder, than adults.

Outside of that, nothing else has really changed. I'm now on volume 7 on program 2, so within the next two or three days, I'll be on program 3. I am now about to go practice listening using my rehabilitation CD, and hope I don't fall asleep doing it from exhaustion! :)

Massive updates all at once

A forewarning: I updated the entire weekend into separate posts by days. So it looks like a lot, but I just needed to separate them all or else no one would make it through.

Also, please excuse any short ungrammatical sentences. They were just notes after all :)

Sunday sounds and thoughts

Post activation day 5: Program 2, volume 3 and 4.
Just glad to be home :)
Got up and didn't put implants on until after I was done showering and fixing my hair. That was a nice piece of silence this morning.
Gave Kiernan a bath, and it was quite noisy. He loves splashing.
Went to church (Bryan stayed home, he had a migraine) alone with Kiernan. I had a volunteer transliterator (Thanks Becky!) today as she was in town, so that helped. However, having a kid, no husband present and sitting for an hour doesn't make for a very good transliterator watching experience :) However a couple came and sat behind me and kept him entertained for awhile so I could actually make use of the transliterator. All things considering, he was very good.
I have discovered that any kind of crying, fussing or high pitch sound made by a kid is almost as bad as the plastic sound. It sounds like....screeching metal on metal. That's the best thing I can think of.
The singing of the songs? No offense to ANYONE who reads this, but my brain is just NOT ready to process that yet. Wow.
I'm getting better at detecting male and female voices, however it's still not 100% accurate.
I tried out the Sound and WAY Beyond rehabilitation CD provided by cochlear. I did it for an hour, and am UTTERLY exhausted.
Basically, there's a pretest to help you determine what you listen to. I got 30% right on the pure tone test, 33% right on the vowel test, and 40% right on the consonant test. That was really hard.
Just for kicks, I did the environmental sounds preview, training and test. I got 100% on the training. There were two pictures given, and a sound was played. Of the two, I had to pick which one it was. Then I took the test. There were four pictures this time. This time I got 88% right. It's interesting the very SMALL things that make a difference in how I choose something.
For example, water running and fireworks. At first, they sound EXACTLY the same to me. Then after about a second, I'll start picking up the "popping" sounds of the fireworks, but BARELY. I still mostly here that constant "rush" sound. If I hadn't heard that popping, I wouldn't have know which sound was which.
I had to stop after that, but at least I can see how this DVD will be used. I was so scared, because I thought I had lost it. I was hoping to use it on the plane while flying to and form Chicago, but I couldn't find it. Today, I decided to look for it. We looked EVERYWHERE. I even went through all of Kiernan's toys just in case he got a hold of it. 2 or 3 hours later, we found it, in the pile of magazines. Right smack dab in the middle of it. Weird, but at least I found it. I got it for free with my cochlear implant kits. If I hadn't it would've cost me $90 to replace it, and that's at a discounted rate because I'm a Cochlear user.
Anyway, I'm back at work officially tomorrow, and it'll be fun to see the families again. I am using an interpreter this week just to ensure the quality of information, however, I think after this week, I might be able to get away with no interpreters as long as I can see people's faces when they're talking. We'll see. :)

Saturday Noises and thoughts.

Post Activation Day 4: Program 2 Volume 2. Left it that way all day since the remote died, and the charger for it was left at home.

Mostly the same sounds I heard the past couple of days, except the voices don't sound as much like colds anymore.
I was definitely getting the hang of people saying "um" and recognizing it without looking at their faces :)
On the plane, discovered something. On my way TO Chicago, I kept hearing this weird beeps, as if something was interfering with my implant. Thought it was electrical interference. It wasn't! It was actually the magnet part of my implant being slightly pushed off of my internal implants due to me leaning against the wall. I felt pretty dumb after that :)
Got home, and noticed how much easier it was to hear when Kiernan was talking. It's also easier to hear when Bryan is talking, but not always obvious.

Friday Sounds and thoughts

Friday: Program 2, volume 1 and 2.
Heard voices all the way at the end of the table.
Things are definitely more clear now that the implants are not on telecoil.
Voices still sound like everyone has colds for the most part, however not everyone sounds that way. It's interesting. Also, voices sound different depending on if they are on my left or right side. If they are on my left side, they sound higher, if they are on my right side, they sound more "normal".
I asked my sister something, and I felt better about it. When I turn my implants off, I can still hear electrical buzzing for about another 10 minutes. Apparently it's normal. Sure is weird.
Went to my room, and heard a man talking at some point for a long period of time. Noticed that the voice wasn't changing, even though the characters on the TV were changing, so I turned the tv off. The voice was still there, turns out the radio was on. No idea why or how it got turned on.
The music in the lobby is VERY distracting and interfered with my ability to understand people.
The waterfall in the lobby is equally as difficult.
Plastic sounds are definitely still the loudest and most annoying sounds for me. The crinkling is just....LOUD.
Heard lots of different sounds on the train in Chicago. Mostly just...loud rumbling. But I was at times able to detect the announcer (recorded voice) over the rumbling. Could also hear people talking quite well that weren't right next to me.
Dinner was out on a patio, it was great at first. Then another group came up, and it was VERY difficult to understand anything. It almost as if the volume of noise doubled once the other group got to the area.
Listening is exhausting.

Thursday Sounds and thoughts

Thursday - Post activation Day 2, Program 1, volume 9 and 10.
Went to the airport, loving that I get to go in the shorter line because of the implants, yeah I know, kind of lame to a lot of you, but it's better than me setting off a metal detector every time I go through one, and thus delaying the line even more. Though I'd love to know what people would think when they saw that I set off the metal detector...
Very noisy, constant chatting so I'm constantly hearing voices, for the most part they still sound the same. However, I am noticing a difference between men's voices, women's voices and children's voices.
Kiernan is still getting just a little bit easier to understand.
I miss being able to tuck my hair behind my ear. The coil of the implant prevents me from doing that. Didn't think that would bug me, but with how often I bend down and move closer to kids when I'm on the floor with them, I tend to put my hair behind my ear. Looks like I'll have to start using hair elastics more often now.
Left the darn telecoil on ALL DAY. Wondering if this is what made the voices sound different. Sounds like everyone has colds.

Post Activation Day 1

So I still don't notice the magnet parts all that much, so I'm going to assume it'll be that way for.....well...the rest of my life. Ha.
As for sounds, I'm now on Program 1 volume 9. I started at volume 7 this morning. Looks like I might make it to Program 2 on Friday, but we'll see since I'll be flying to Chicago tomorrow for a weekend meeting.
Here are things of notice at least to myself today:
-I went to work, and sat down in my office. I noticed I could hear someone talking, but there was no one else in the room where I share an office with others. So I looked out the office door, and across the hall is another office and a person talking on the phone. Sure enough, I could hear a person talking on the phone from, to me, quite a distance away. That was a weird feeling.
-When the TV isn't on, and no one's talking, and Kiernan isn't playing with some noisy things, I can EASILY hear the clock ticking in our living room. It REALLY stands out. I haven't heard a clock tick in a very long time.
- I made dinner tonight, and boy, was that loud. Everything was pretty bearable until I cooked the meat. That sizzling sound....ouch. That was REALLY loud.
- I had stopped at another place for work today to pick up some materials and stopped to chat with some people. There was a weed whacker going on outside the window. I couldn't hear it. However when it was nearby, I felt like I was missing a sound, like something was interfering with the constant noise I was hearing, and I felt it more than heard it, so I think that was the weedwhacker. Especially because this sensation only happened when it was near the window.
- I got home, and got out of the car, and immediately heard a weedwhacker that was quite a distance away. That was just weird to me considering what had happened earlier with a different person with a weedwhacker.
- I heard the lawnmower without a problem. I could tell when it stopped, and when the guy started it up again.
- For quite some time, I could hear some SCREECHING noises, and it was making me crazy. I kept looking around to try and find it. I didn't figure it out until later. When I went inside, and Kiernan was fussing, I heard the SAME screeching noise. I realized that the entire time, I was actually hearing a baby outside fussing. She wasn't screaming or anything, but for some reason, any fussy noises seem to really get in there.
- I was able to hear a kid dragging the stick in the sand/dirt/concrete. What was neat about this, for me, was that I could hear the difference in between the stick on the sand, the dirt and the concrete.
- I'm still hearing voices and can tell the difference between a voice and noise. However, it's still very difficult to even guess what a person is saying when I'm not looking at them.
- There is a LOT less squeakiness, but it's being replaced by SCREECHING. That's fun :)
- I'm getting better at being able to detect the beat of the music and detect when the singer is actually singing. Although I am cheating a bit, as I am listening to songs that I like and am familiar with.
- All of the middle notes of the piano sound the same to me. However, if you play the high notes and the low notes, I can tell the difference between the two of those general pitches.
- Kiernan's crying and fussines is definintely more noticeable :) It makes it very hard not to be snippy, period, because crying alone can grate on one's nerves, but screeching crying? that is REALLY hard to ignore and REALLY hard to not just try and quiet immediately.

That's it :) I'm going to Chicago tomorrow, and won't be back until Saturday. Wish Bryan a lot of luck for keeping his sanity :)

The current rehabilitation plan

Right now, my audiologist just wants me to get used to the noises I hear. So over the next two weeks (next appointment is September 8th), I need to work on increasing the volume of my cochlear implants every day.
Basically, each cochlear implant has room for four programs. Whenever a person goes in for a mapping (a session to change the settings of the cochlear implant), four programs are typically set. You start with the first one, then when the first one has been.."mastered", you move on to the next one, etc.
Right now my programs are set so that each program is louder than the previous one. So program one is the softest level of sounds, especially when put at volume one. Over the course of the next couple of days, I am to increase the volume gradually to give my brain time to adjust to the comfort level/noise level. Currently I am at a volume 6 (starting with a volume 5 at the appointment). I can go up to volume 10. So, from now until September 8th, I basically need to make it up 34 volume bars (10 volume bars for each program, I'm on number 6 for program 1, so only 4 left on that one, then 10 more for program 2, 10 more for program 3, and 10 more for program 4). So I really will be constantly adjusting my volume very day to try and build up that loudness and for my brain to handle it.
There's also a sensitivity level, but that will not be the focus for now. The sensitivity level is basically how far away I'll be able to detect sounds. The lower the number, the closer things have to be to my physically for me to be able to detect the sound, the higher the number, the further away the cochlear implant will pick up the sound. People do not go the highest number in general as it picks up too much background noise, and becomes a lot more difficult to understand the noises in the environment. We have my sensitivity levels set on what the average cochlear implant user has it on (12-14).

SO, over the course of the next two weeks, I am just practicing listening to sounds, trying to figure out what is what, and getting used to the loudness. Over time the squeakiness should go away (over the course of the next few days), and things will start sounding more normal.

The first 6-7 hours of what I've been hearing

So, at first, everything was just noise with the basic barely distinguishable sound for speech. There was at first no difference between Bryan's voice and the audiologist's voice. They were both squeaky with a hint of "normal." When we went to the front desk to schedule my next appoint, we went out in the hall, and the first thing I noticed was the clomping of the audiologist's shoes on the tile floor.
We then got in the car, and Bryan had the radio on. I could tell it was a person talking right at first. Then music started playing, and it sounded like static. We had to go straight to Heber to pick up Kiernan from my parents who had been watching him for the day (THANK YOU SO MUCH!). Near the end of the car ride, I could start detecting the beat of the music, especially the sounds of the more obvious drums, but still had difficulty with telling when a person was singing.
We then got to my parent's and I started noticing the things that seemed really really loud to me:
Crinkling of foil, dog toenails on the tile/wood/cement, crinkling of paper, "pssshhhh" of a soda being opened, breathing really sharply through your nose. I could also hear the click of the blinker REALLY well, and the clicking of texting on my phone.
I also started being able to differentiate between voices towards the end of us being there. My dad I could differentiate more than anyone else's which was a weird thing for me. Kiernan wasn't too hard, but he's still really difficult for me to hear at all. Bryan's is getting easier to detect, and my mom's was just more female than any one else's.
Then we went home. By the end of the ride I was definitely differentiating the singing from the music, and was starting to hear strong sounds of the guitar.
We got home, and Kiernan was insisting to play outside, so I went outside with him since Bryan was kind enough to get up early with him to let me sleep a bit more.
Wow. Was that noisy. I had no idea where some sounds were coming from, At. All. I thought I kept hearing birds chirping, but then I realized it was Kiernan laughing with another kid. I kept hearing this weird sound that seemed to happen regularly, to find that it was the older kids crashing the wagons into the tables (they were definitely having fun). Talked to a couple of people, and could still definitely detect voices. Just over all though, it was noisy and busy.
I came inside, got Kiernan ready for bed, watched TV a bit while he finished his milk. Noticed that the tv now sounds a lot like I heard it when I wasn't paying attention to it at all and the volume was low (lots of sssshhh and mumbling type sounds). I took Kiernan to bed, read a story to him and sang a song. It was definitely weird to hear me attempting to sing again. I sang every time I put him to bed in between the surgery and now, it was just weird to "hear" it again.
He went to bed, and then I got busy with taking pictures and updating. I can definitely hear the clicking of they keyboard as I type better than I can hear anything else. Basically, if it's a higher pitch sound, I'll hear it better than anything else right now.

So the over all progress:
I can discriminate speech from general noise.
There's no more completely squeaky voices.
With both ears on, things are sounding more normal.
I no longer hear the clicking in the background in my right ear.

Weird things: "hearing" things is definitely a different feeling this time around. When the implants were first turned on, it seemed like I was feeling things more than I was hearing things. This is still true from time to time.
I keep going to push my hearing aid mold in since I'm still hearing higher sounds and my brain is automatically translating that into hearing aid squeals. Imagine my surprise every time I actually feel my finger IN my hear. Weird, I tell you, weird.

There have been no disappointments. I came in not really knowing what to expect, and I'm glad I came in that way then I could not be disappointed or devastated. I had very low expectations if at all, so I'm happy with them so far.

The materials I received

All right, this is mostly a picture post of what I received. I had *NO* idea just how much stuff I would be getting. Holy moly. Also, note, some of you may be very familiar with what one gets, or how cochlear implants look on a head, I have some friends that have never seen one, so everything is posted here :)

First we'll start off with the cool part, my cochlear implants and how they look on my head.
The cochlear implants

One of them on my head (they look the same on both sides):

The cochlear implants with my "pretty" covers (They were free, and believe me, they were the best choice for me from the selection I had):

The pretty cover cochlear implant on my head:

The two boxes I got:


The very top layer of the box (both boxes are the same):


The bottom layer of the box:


The bottom layer of the box spread out:


So that's all the stuff I got.

Here's what I can remember from memory what's in the boxes (remember, it's kind of late...and I'm a bit overwhelmed):
Back up processors, back up magnet/head pieces, back up coils, back up ear hooks, microphone protectors, zinc batteries, batter compartments (for the zinc batteries), battery covers (for the zinc batteries), rechargeable batters, compact rechargeable batteries, battery recharger, plugs for battery recharger, remote control, plugs for recharging remote control, cochlear implant "headphones" for battery operated things, cochlear implant "headphones" for plug in the wall things, auditory rehabilitation cd, remote control cd, poster for a quick start of basics, cochlear implant dryer (not a machine, just dries out the water that's accumulated in the processors), dryer..stuff, advertisements, lots of reading material, the "pretty" covers, cases for carrying implants, belt clip or neck loop for remote, user manual.
I think that covers it. Just remember, everything is times 2, since I have 2 cochlear implants.

Activation Day

All right. It's been a long evening :) You're lucky I'm posting this now, but most of you won't read this tonight anyway :)
So we went, and first did a sound booth test before anything else. Turns out, I can still hear some very high sounds when they are really loud. So, maybe I wasn't imagining some sounds after all. But I can only hear them in my right ear. I heard NOTHING in my left ear. It was a short test...maybe 10 minutes. I guess this is a new thing, as they have started doing what is called a soft insertion of the implant device in my head (basically, they try to be as careful as possible, so that some natural hearing can be preserved).
Then we went to the room with the chair and all the equipment to look at your ears, etc. The nurse came in and checked my scars, and found that there was a stitch left in each incision, so she trimmed them down as they were poking out. I was glad to find this out, as I thought maybe I had a skin tag growing, and it was annoying. Now, I don't feel that "skin" anymore, YAY!
Finally, we meet up with the audiologist who was doing my activation. First we talked about some confusion, and I basically got to determine who would do my activation, and I chose the one who came to see me...as she was going to do it anyway. Then there was a student observing the session today. That had to be an exciting one for him, an adult who was doing a simultaneous bilateral cochlear implant, and on activation day to boot.
She then said she really wanted to push me through this process. I'm SO okay with that :)
We first did my left ear. She checked the magnet strength. The level 2 magnet was not strong enough, so she put it to a level 3 magnet. That seemed to work.
She put the magnet on, and I was very surprised to find that I could barely even feel the magnet there. That was a good thing, I expected it to be a constant annoying feeling. So that was another plus. Then she did a check to make sure all the electrodes were working, and they were working just fine. Then she did a check to so see if the auditory nerve was "catching" the specific electrodes that were being turned on. It all looked good, so we proceeded. Next, she had me count the number of beeps that happened to establish the threshold level. Basically, we wanted to see how quiet the beeps could be with me still counting the correct number of beeps. Got that established. Then we wanted to establish the comfort level, or basically the loudness level that I was comfortable hearing at. She did a series of beeps until I thought it was comfortable. Then she turned on the implant. It was a bit too loud, so she turned it off, and adjusted it, then turned it on again. It was better, but was I surprised to even tell that a person was talking.
At first I could NOT make out what the heck the squeaking noise was. After a few moments, I realized it was the audiologist talking. Honestly, it sounded exactly like the wii fit board that "talks" to you on wii fit. If you haven't heard that, then the best comparison I can make is a mouse squeaking. It was really weird. Then she had me do a listening test where I had to name a day of the week that she had said. I got them all right, which REALLY surprised me, she said all of them except for Friday. She said that was great, and then programmed the back up processor for my left ear.
We then went to the right ear. Same process. Magnet on, checked the electrodes, did the clicking sounds, did the threshold level and comfort level. This time I really was off on the comfort level with the beeps for my right ear. She turned it on, and boy howdy, was that loud. She quickly turned it off, and I loved that she turned to tell the student that this was precisely why she kept the mouse over the "off" button, for reactions like mine when something was too loud. We then turned it on again, and it was all good, except I kept hearing clicking in the background. Kind of like hearing an AC going in the background, but you can still pick up speech over the AC hum, except this was clicking. She tried some adjustments and made it so that it wasn't so prominent, but it was still there. She didn't want to turn it down any less if she didn't have to as she wanted to keep the auditory stimulation there, which was fine with me. It was definitely a sound I could deal with without going crazy.
We then the did the days of the week test again. I got them all right except for the last one. I just could NOT figure out what she was saying. I went through them in my head, and none of them sounded right. I went through Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday, Sunday in my head...and it didn't sound like any of them. I just could not figure it out, so I guessed. Turns out it was Friday...which I didn't even THINK about. So I felt better once I realized she hadn't said it before, and that it was just one I couldn't remember in my head. She then said it was good, and programmed the right ear back up processor. As for what things sounded like, it was definitely NOT squeaky. So bizarre. It's closer to what I was hearing before the surgery. Not quite the same though. It's definitely more mechanical, and I can't quite make out what people are saying without reading their lips.
Then we had them both on at the same time. That was a really confusing moment at first. Combining squeaky talk with more normal talk...mechanical and hearing all the background noise as well. Talk about a sensory overload.
Anyway, I've kept them both on since then. Another post will be coming about what I've noticed throughout the day, and what I think has improved and what has not.
I'll also be doing a picture post of all the materials I got (think two thick briefcase size boxes full of a lot of stuff).

Two weeks, sorry!

So I have had a couple of people nudge me and remind me that I have not posted. :) I've been gone, and have had a difficult time accepting that I've been back in reality for a week.

My last post was about dizziness and finding out what made me dizzy, and was just a couple of days before I flew out to DC/Maryland for a Cued Speech Retreat. My dizziness had actually decreased a LOT over the two days.
I went to security at the airport, told them I had implants and went into the "special line" and went through the new micro something technology where it's kind of like an x-ray of you. No problem, but now I've got my sister telling me that her doctor not to said to go through that at all. I'll have to ask about it at my activation appointment. I then got gum, and chewed it like crazy once I boarded the plane, as the surgery directions had said that if I were going to fly, to do so to help my ears "naturally" pop. The verdict? No popping, no pain and no dizziness. It was a very smooth flight. It was the same story for the flight home. The only time I got dizzy during that trip was when my friends, Chance and Jenny, gave me a tour of the capitol in DC. The dome...very big. Looking up at the top made me very dizzy. Chance thought ahead and told me to go up the stairs looking down, and to wait until I sat down before looking up. I'm very glad he did, cause boy oh boy that made me dizzy. It went away quickly though.
Then I got home Monday night. Bryan picked me up, we dropped our son off and went to see Inception at the rear window caption theater in South Jordan. Great movie. Not why I brought it up though. It was so freaking loud, that I'm SURE I actually HEARD some of the movie. It wasn't all in my head, I'm pretty darn sure that I actually heard them talking here and there in the movie. That was weird. Then we came home, and packed for Lake Powell and went to bed.
We left the next morning (Tuesday) to go to Lake Powell. I was nervous about that with staying on a house boat, and with having a 21 month old with us there from Tuesday to Saturday. Overall, no dizziness or motion sickness! It really is gone! The only time I got dizzy was when we were hiking back to the boat from Rainbow Bridge, and there was a very steep hill. Other than that, nothing. I was pleasantly surprised. It was a wonderful trip. No access to technology and no service on the cell phone, it was truly a break from reality.
Then I came home :( Both Bryan and I agreed that Lake Powell was too short. Kiernan did so well there (probably because he's used to our TINY apartment...seriously about the same size as the houseboat...it wasn't a fancy house boat). I was just glad we were able to be on a houseboat for this visit, as I'm not sure how Kiernan would've handled sleeping on the ground with a sleeping bag in a tent.
Anyway, we got back late Saturday night, and slept a lot on Sunday. I went back to work on Monday (technically still on vacation, but things need to get done!). And this entire week has been easy in terms of the implants. No dizziness, period. Awesome.
Now as for the silence? I'm starting to get more ringing in the ears type things than "hearing" the sounds that should be coming from the people/objects. The weirdest "ringing" type thing that's been going on constantly? Dial Up connection sounds. 13 or 14 years ago, my parents had dial up connection, and I was addicted to the internet, so I was constantly connecting. When the computer would connect, it would make that screeching and crashing noise. That's what I hear quite often, BUT only in my RIGHT ear. My left ear has the actually ringing sound, and never the dial up sound. Weird right?
It's getting harder to "remember" what the sounds are of some things. I KNOW what they are, but they're not as easy to "hear" anymore.
The thing that's been the hardest and most confusing for me this week? Not hearing my own voice. For work, I've met some new families to help them with the orientation process. THis means I've never actually heard the names pronounced, and some of them, I have NO idea how to pronounce them. I went to one home, and asked how to say the name, my interpreter did the best she could (No cued speech transliterators were readily available) to help with the pronunciation of the name, and I repeated it back. I got it right, but I still felt somewhat at a loss, because I couldn't REALLY confirm with my OWN hearing that I said it right. I had trust the mom, and I sure hope she was honest!
For church, I did some visits with some people, and everyone is hearing around here, and well aware of my needs as I have no hearing. I really appreciate the kindness of everyone. During these visits with some people, it was really hard for me to not hear my voice while I was talking. I think it's because I'm still very self-conscious of whether I'm too loud or too quiet. Mmmm...I've just decided that is a part of it, but the other part is that I'm afraid my speech quality may have gone down, but I have no way of truly knowing myself. I have to rely on other people to know. That's a hard thing to do.
That's all that's really happened in the past two weeks in terms of implants. A really exciting thing though? My sister-in-law had a baby girl yesterday! Apparently she showed up at the hospital at 5:15 and the baby girl was born at 5:22. Amazing, hopefully my future birth(s) will be that way :).
My activation date is on Tuesday, August 24th. The post-op appointment is at 2, and the activation appointment is at 2:30. Then I fly out to Chicago for my fellowship meeting on the 26th. Then I'm "officially" back at work visiting ALL of my families on the 30th. It's gonna be a whirlwind week next week.

Purposeful Dizziness, yes vs. no

My dizziness has decreased immensely the past couple of days, thank heavens. I have been paying a lot more attention as to what exactly makes me dizzy. Turning quickly, getting up too fast, bending at my waist for too long rather than my knees, you know, typical stuff.
Then one more thing.
Nodding my head yes.
Do you think that says something about me as a mother? I don't get dizzy from shaking my head no anymore, at all, it's not even a problem anymore. But I do get quite dizzy from nodding my head yes.
I do have a toddler....:)

Been a few days

It has been a few days since I blogged, however, if you read up at the very top I put in my disclaimer "I make no promise to be consistent." It's very true :)

So last time I blogged, it was all about dizziness. It hasn't really stopped. I have a airplane trip this weekend, and will be on a houseboat next week (this was a pre-planned vacation before the CI surgery was determined, so if y'all think I'm just taking advantage of the time off for recovery, this was already planned :P). I was dizzy every day at work last week. I didn't drive again until yesterday. Friday was even more dizziness, but I still got to see my mother in Heber and we had a short chat, and then I went home, and I believe I crashed on the couch at 9:30. I believe my husband told a friend of ours that I fell asleep on the couch with the tivo remote pointed to the tv. I actually fell asleep in the midst of trying to fast forward through commercials. I was exhausted from all the training at work and the dizziness was just especially killer.

Saturday was no different, I was dizzy then as well. This became a concern because I'm about to fly next week and I really don't want to add motion sickness to the dizziness from the flight or from the houseboat week. So, I put in a request for a prescription refill so that I would have enough while I was gone and not run out.
Sunday, I just felt sick all over and was dizzy as well, so we stayed home to help me take it easy. I slept, A LOT.

Monday, I met with some ladies from work to do some additional training and set up my office, and the dizziness had actually subsided quite a bit, and I was able to drive to the office (which is literally maybe 5-10 minutes from my place, so really, no big deal).

Tuesday (today), the doctor's office called (and I received an e-mail saying my prescription couldn't be refilled) to ask about my symptoms. The nurse was concerned because she said it had been over a month since my surgery (it's been two weeks and one day). So Bryan called back and told them the correct number of days, and then the nurse called back asking what kind of dizziness I've been experience and asked lots of questions and said she would call back later after consulting with the doctor. She then called back not too much later, and said the doctor wanted to see me. Freaky right? I suddenly think I've done something horrible requesting more of the meds, or actually have something wrong with me. I then think maybe, just maybe he'll see this as the post-op and move the activation date up (highly doubtful though).

So, we had a couple of hours to kill and went to Wheeler farm. Holy hot day, and that did not help with dizziness at all. I had been fine all day, up until I took a hot bath, and then added this heat. I then became dizzy, so just in time for the doctor right? This is when I realize that if I am still dizzy, then I'm pretty darn sure he won't move the activation date up :)

We go, and we sit down, we talk about what I've been experiencing. I finally think of the right description of dizziness. The nurse kept asking me if it was the room spinning kind of dizziness. Well..sometimes it is, and when it is that, it's for a brief moment until I sit down. Literally like 3-4 seconds long. However, the rest of the dizziness is this: Imagine you're sitting down, then you stand up way too fast and get lightheaded. You know that kind of dizziness/disorientation. *THAT* is the perfect thing to use to describe how I feel the majority of the time. Sometimes it's really intense, sometimes it's not so bad and I can function just fine with the annoying lightheadedness/dizziness.

So what does the doctor tell me?

I need to purposefully make myself dizzy if it happens with certain things. Did your jaw just drop, or your eyebrows go up in confusion? Yeah, ours did too. I'm also to not use the medication if I can help it (I'm already doing this, I don't like taking medication). The proof of me not taking it all the time? I was allowed 15 pills the day of the surgery. You can take it every 6 hours. It has been 15 days, and I still have 6 or 7 pills left, and the majority of the pills I did take were within the first 3 days. So yeah, proof that I try not to use it if I can help it.

Anyway, back to the point. Purposeful dizziness? Basically since the doctor had been in my inner ear (where your equilibrium is), it's really messed up my brain's ability to match the fluids in my inner ear to what I'm actually seeing and feeling. That smoothness of the fluids in my inner ear has been disrupted, on both sides, not just one. So double whammy.

However, the best way to solve the dizziness? Let it go away. My brain is relearning how to match up what I see and actually feel to the movement of the fluids in my inner ear. Taking the medication actually suppresses the body from being able to make that connection, so it takes longer to do so if I take the medication. So...yeah, don't take medication and make yourself dizzy.

No, I am not to go and start spinning in circles all the time, though I'm sure the people in my apartment complex court would LOVE to watch that and call me a crazy deaf lady outside. It'd be pretty funny :) But the things that do make me dizzy (looking up at something...like an airplane in the sky, turning my head left to right quickly...it used to be turning my head at all, but now it's just if I move it faster than I have been the past two weeks, bending over at my waist to picking something up instead of bending at my knees, crawling on the floor, picking up Kiernan), I am to keep doing as if it were normal just to help my brain readjust to the new movement of the fluids in my inner ear.

I hope that makes sense, and I did do research on it before going to the doctor. I just don't LIKE feeling dizzy/sick all the time, but I guess I'll just deal with it. So, no meds, do every day things that make me dizzy repeatedly. Only take meds if the dizziness is severely impairing my ability to function while doing something I *must* do (like work last week).

Otherwise, everything has been healing up nicely and there are no problems with the implants (even though you can feel a HUGE drop off on the side of skull right now. Go ahead, feel yours, it goes around nice and smooth on a curve, mine no longer does that. If you want to feel my head, I promise I won't think you're weird, it's quite different and kind of cool/weird to feel). He also checked the ear drum and middle ear, things look great there as well, completely clear of anything. So the good news out of all this? I'm healing very well and there are no infections that causing the dizziness.

Tomorrow I'm driving to Ogden for a meeting to satisfy the last of my Helen Keller fellowship. Yes, I am driving. I can actually move my head completely from side to side now, so that's not a concern while driving. And I can definitely handle driving a lot better now than I could last week. But I promise, if the dizziness is too severe in the morning, I will make Bryan take me :)

Now, the pictures as promised. The first one is the left ear and the second one is the right ear.





If you look at the last picture, you can see a bit where my hair was shaved. It's REALLY not noticeable at all. And the scars, they're almost right on that edge where your ear meets your head. So no one can see it. Seriously, vanity wise, this surgery was nothing.

Dizziness

Holy Dizziness batman! (So, if any parents of kids with CI read this, can you tell if your kid is dizzy? if so, how? or do you not have any clue if they are after the surgery?)

So yesterday, I woke up after getting only 3 hours of sleep. I guess that afternoon nap on Tuesday affected me after all. When I got up, I could barely stay standing up, but I needed to get ready for work to go to training. I got in the shower, got dressed, did my hair and make up without falling over. By that point, SOME of the dizziness had subsided, but I was still dizzier than usual. I decided to just drive myself to work anyway because I didn't make poor Bryan and Kiernan wake up just to take me to Ogden at 7:00 AM. The drive was fine. At one point, I thought I was losing it, as I could feel the car going off the road, and I steer back onto it. I was about ready to pull over thinking it was from my dizziness, when I looked at the trees and realized that it was actually the wind. The trees were bending almost halfway over, so it was definitely the wind.
I was dizzy all throughout the day at work, and then I drove home after promising my "Ogden Mom" (The secretary for our department, sweetest lady ever) that I would e-mail her when I got home. I did do that by the way, I try my best to keep my promises :)
I decided to go to bed really early in the hopes that it would help my dizziness. I went to bed at 9:30 PM (yes, you did read that right), and woke up at 6:30 AM. Hah...yeah it got worse. I should have asked for a ride yesterday for today's meeting, but I figured the dizziness would get better after sleeping it off a bit. No dice. I had to lay down about every 10 minutes just to be able to keep getting ready for work. I woke up my husband (as I did warn him the night before that I MIGHT need him to take me to work), and asked him to take me to work. Thank heavens he was good about it (not that I expected any different, I just felt really guilty making him get up for MY job). We got Kiernan up and they went with me to Ogden to go to work. I had have the seat reclining, ate some bread, had some water on the car ride up there. That seemed to help a bit. Then throughout the day, if I just rested my head on my hands somehow, the dizziness wasn't so bad. But every time I stood up, it came right back, I seriously couldn't even attempt to walk in a straight line. By the afternoon, something had made me really mad, I'm not sure what anymore, and that seemed to make my dizziness go away...of all things. So maybe I should just get mad every time I get dizzy?
I've been fine since then in terms of dizziness. I'm still going to go to bed relatively early (10:45 is early right?) to get the rest for work tomorrow. I have a ride tomorrow (thanks to Ogden mom!), so that will work out fine and I won't be putting myself or others in danger on the road.

In other news, the tenderness of the incisions has completely gone away. So, it honestly is a lot less noticable now that I have implants in my head. I can still feel exactly where they are, and could touch it immediately if you asked me where it was, but it's not so...prominent.

And for your viewing pleasure, the scar on my left ear. I haven't been able to find the camera so you'll have to wait for the right ear. I'll then post both ears so you can see if there's any difference between the two.

Driving

Today was my first driving since the surgery. Sure, it's only been 8 days. I was nervous, just because I do get dizzy spells, but I can still walk through the dizzy spells, and I knew if it got bad, I'd pull over and wait for it to pass. Turned out to be an awesome ride in terms of no dizzy spells. Here's what I did notice:
-Turning my neck. I can't quite turn it all the way to see my blind spots, so now I need to actually move my body forward and turn my body a little more to see my blind spots. Not sure if this will go away or not, I'll need to ask my sister.
- Music. Holy cow, did I rely on that music to keep me entertained and awake in the car. I had no problems with sleepiness, but I was bored. I COULD turn it up loud enough to feel the bass of the music....but it's not quite the same. Makes me nervous for what music will sound like once I get the implants turned on.
- I can't hear the car start. I didn't think I could before, but now I know that I did hear some sounds that indicated the car start. So weird to realize I DID hear something before.
- I relied on the beep beep of the unlocking of the car that we have now. It took me a couple of tries of unlocking the car before I realized I didn't have my keys since we have the button on the door handle thing. I had to say to myself "are you FEELING it unlock?" I didn't, and when I got my keys and came back, I did.
Other than that, the drive, thankfully, was really uneventful (how many commas can I put in a sentence?).
Today my apartment complex court had a sprinkler day. I took Kiernan out to give Bryan a break from the kid. We were out there for an hour and forty five minutes. While I was out there, everything was great, no dizziness...until about 10 minutes before we came in. Not sure why, it was probably the worst dizzy spell. My best guess is that I wasn't used to be outside, squinting in the sun, and where it was a bit warmer (We keep our apartment pretty cold). That, and the meeting I had for work today really took a lot of focus for me to figure out what was going on, not in terms of having to read lips (I had an interpreter there), but in terms of everyone being confused and unsure of where things were, etc. I think we got it figured out, but that confusion, combined with the time I spent outside with Kiernan (doing almost nothing other than sitting down and talking to people) seemed to wipe me out. I ended up taking a nap from 4-7. I could definitely go to bed right now, and will soon, because I have to leave for work training tomorrow at 7.

So all in all, a good day. I haven't taken pain meds today either, so the pain front is fine. Just the dizzy spells. Cannot wait for those to start decreasing.

OH yeah, the sticky tape stuff? They came off today, I'll try to remember to take pictures tomorrow once I've had a chance to shower and cleanse the area more with water.

First day back at work

Definitely wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I thought for sure I would have to take pain meds, but I didn't need to. There was NO pain at all today, so that was nice. I did need to take my anti-nausea pills about halfway through just because I was getting dizzy spells just from sitting down. I think it was the fact that I had to actually focus to watch the interpreters. I am so used to being able to hear some, and then look at the interpreters/transliterators/real time captioner when I know I missed something (which is often in group settings). This time, I found myself looking at the speaker who was talking, and trying to figure out why I couldn't hear them. Part of the reason is because my brain has an assigned voice for everyone, I think it's the voice for each person is close to what I've heard their voice to be like. So I "think" I'm hearing them, but I'm really not. It was a weird thing to come to that realization, it still hasn't really hit my brain yet.

Other than that, it was pretty uneventful. I felt good enough to help move chairs around, set up and clean up. No pain, just dizziness, which is fine by me. I still have to take one pill at night thought, just because, as I said before, the head in one spot is just not a comfortable place to be.

I also went outside with Kiernan at Bryan's request today, and it started drizzling. What did I do first? I put Kiernan down and started to cover my ears. Then I realized...wait, I don't have hearing aids. It was weird to be out in the rain not worrying about my hearing aids getting wet. And it felt weird covering my ears too when there was...nothing there. So I took this opportunity to stay out in the (just a small drizzle) rain to play with Kiernan. He loved it, and it was nice and cool outside. Then it started raining a bit more, and I started worrying about my shirt getting wet and showing through, so we went inside. Of course it stopped raining then. :) We (all three of us) returned the dishes of everyone who helped out with meals this past week (ALL of you are lifesavers!), and watched Bryan interact with them, I tried to lip read, but with Kiernan, I was just too scatter brained to do it.

The best thing about the entire day? It's the seven day mark and I got to WASH MY HAIR! Oh man, that felt SO good. All the white stuff has come off the sticky strips, so now I have newer pictures for ya. Don't worry, that reddish stuff isn't all blood (most of it isn't) it's that iodine type stuff they use for cleansing the areas before surgery. I know that because the right ear in these pictures has more red stuff on it, but it had virtually no blood at all on the ear dressing from the princess leia cups. Where as the left ear has virtually no red stuff on the sticky stuff, so I'm pretty darn sure the red stuff on the right ear is the iodine type stuff.

Left ear:


Right ear:

Dos and Do Nots

Before I get to the implant part of the post, I totally feel this way all the time when I'm driving.


That part is actually somewhat related. My brother texted me yesterday asking a question that made me think of all the things I am not to do for the next...I have no idea how long, but at least awhile. I'll list them below. I'll also type them as they had put it with my thoughts and comments in parentheses.
1. DO NOT blow your nose until such time that it has been indicated that your ear is healed. Any accumulated secretions in the nose may be drawn back into the throat and expectorated if desired. This is particularly important if you develop a cold. (Gross right?)
2. DO NOT "pop" your ears by holding your nose and blowing air through the Eustachian tube into the ear. If it is necessary to sneeze, do so with your mouth open.
3. The incision behind your ear should have water kept away for one week (I so cannot wait to wash my hair tomorrow!).
4. DO NOT take an unneccessary chance of catching a cold. Avoid undue exposure or fatigue. (well crud, my son has a cold, croup even...sigh). Should you catch a cold, treat it in your usual way, reporting to us if you should develop ear symptoms (let's cross our fingers I don't get Kiernan's cold).
5. You may anticipate a certain amount of pulsation (check), popping (check), clicking (double check), and other sounds in the ear, and also a feeling of fullness in the ear (Remember number 2? It's been SO HARD not to pop my ears). Occasional sharp shooting pains are not unusual (check). At times, it may feel as if there is liquid in the ear (Check, and I've had to consciously not shake my head to the side to get the so called liquid out...did it once without realizing it, and boy did I get dizzy).
6. DO NOT plan to drive a car home from the hospital (yeah...I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the head rest...good thing I buckled up first). Air travel is permissible two days following surgery (and I was worried about 2 1/2 weeks! I'm still not very clear on what to do about metal detectors and such....need to make a note to have Bryan ask the ENT tomorrow when he calls to set up the post op appointment). When changing altitude, you should remain awake and chew gum to stimulate swallowing (I had to do this going from Salt Lake to Heber yesterday....couple of sharp pains but the gum chewing definitely helped).
7. DO NOT perform any heavy lifting (more than 30 pounds) or vigorous physical activity for three weeks after surgery (I am so gonna be having to restart Couch to 5K, sigh, and more than 30 pounds? It's been difficult to not lift up Kiernan....let's just say I haven't and call it good then I won't feel so guilty, and pretend to believe me :) ).

Mild intermittent ear pain is not unusual during the first two weeks (check). Pain above or in front of the ear is common when chewing (check).

Minor degrees of dizziness may be present on head motion and need not concern you unless this should increase (note how they didn't say if it would decrease or not....yeah, apparently my sister gets severe vertigo from time to time...three times now. She stands up, get's vertigo hit head on and falls and throws up. They gave her meds for when that happens....she said I should get it now...tempting).

Finally the dressing. We already took off the ear dressing the day after surgery, as instructed. The incision behind the ear is covered by paper adhesive strips which should remain in place for seven days. Tomorrow is Day seven. I can remove these strips after one week and expose the wound area to water for cleansing. So...yeah, these strips I have? Currently not showing any signs of coming off easily, so I'm going to just let them come off over time, but I get to WASH MY HAIR tomorrow! YAY! Then tomorrow maybe I'll take a picture of my ears again to see if any of the dried blood will wash away under the strips, so that you can have a better idea of what my incision looks like now, especially since those white things in the last pictures completely wore off today.

So yeah, I think all of this information would have been good to know BEFORE the surgery, because I didn't even know we had this paper until three days after the surgery. Good thing I didn't try to pop my ears before that, I accidentally did once without thinking about it yesterday....ow. It hurt for a very long time afterwards, but everything appears to be normal so I'm not worried about at the moment. Believe me, I won't do it again. Ever.

Recovery Day 4

SO. I won't be posting every recovery day. I promise. Just the beginning part is where I discover things are different.

Kiernan has been sick with croup, which has been a nightmare for Bryan. If it weren't for the ward (our church group) and friends bringing dinner this week, I don't think we'd be eating at all. However, it seems tonight Kiernan is finally taking a turn for the better as he's acting more like his normal self (as he sneaks in M&Ms that he spilled and we can't find every single one of them).

Today I had a chance to go outside, and I wanted to for two reasons. 1 - I hadn't left the front door since Monday. This is very unusual for me to go more than one day without going outside. I was getting anxious to get outside again. 2 - Kiernan needed to go outside for Bryan's sake. So I took Kiernan outside with me.

The first thing I noticed: Holy lightheadedness. It never went away. So I'm assuming I'll feel like this for awhile. I texted my sister and asked her if that's how it felt for her as well. She said it did. I seriously felt like every time the wind blew, (just a breeze) I could easily fall over. So weird. So I sat down in the shade. Kiernan lasted about 15 minutes outside before he wanted to go back and see "papai" again. I was done being outside too, it was pretty warm :). But that outside experience alone made me realize just how different I feel over all mostly dealing with the lightheadedness. I thought it was just maybe the stuffiness of the house or not getting out, but nope, I really am just that lightheaded.

Before I went outside. I think I spent about five minutes looking for my hearing aids. I wonder when that habit will die. Then I realized I couldn't, because I had just gotten dizzy and remembered even if I could hear with them on, no way they'd go on right now. My ears are still swollen and my head is still sore. So I went outside....man was it quiet. There were two neighbors out there. One lady with her young baby, and a couple out by the bench. Normally I can hear kids out there with my hearing aids on, birds, trees rustling (if it's windy), and Kiernan saying ball, hot, ah ah, no, wheee, or something. Today...Nothing. So bizarre. It hasn't really affected me in a negative way yet, other than that I wish I could help Bryan throughout the night with Kiernan as I know he's not sleeping through the night. It's just....bizarre.

A few people stopped by today to drop of lasagna/soup/home made ice cream. I missed the lasagna person (sorry Becky), and the soup person (sorry Sheila). However, I saw two neighbors who dropped off the ice cream. This was the real test to see if I could understand anyone. I felt for the most part, it wasn't too bad. I definitely had to rely on Bryan though to help me understand that we needed a bigger bowl for the homemade ice cream they made, etc.

I still fear that I talk too quietly or too loudly just because I cannot hear the volume of my voice. That'll just have to wait a few more weeks right?

Oh yeah, nothing looks different from the last pics I posted. Just a swollen face, and the two ears with the white strips. That's it. Hence, no picture updates :)

Recovery Day 3

So not much of an update, just more thoughts and realizations.
The sides of my head, in between my ear and my cheek bones, have started swelling up. It makes me feel like I look sort of like an egg laying on it's side. If I really wanted to exaggerate, I could say I feel like when Drop Dead Fred gets his head stuck in the fridge and pulls it out. Just like in this image:


Yes, an exaggeration, but that's how I feel my face looks right now. And no, I will not take a picture because then you will just tell me that it doesn't look like an egg, and then I'll feel crazy :)

I've been taking it a lot easier today than yesterday. I don't want the swelling to get worse, so I've just been laying down a lot and playing around on the laptop. It's making me crazy that I haven't left the house in three days. I don't even know when the last time that happened was. But I just feel better if I stay down. I haven't had to take any pain meds since this morning, which I think is good. The pressure sore on my forehead is going away (it looks like the mother of all zits, another reason why I won't take a picture :) ).
Despite not being able to actually hear sounds, I've been getting random songs stuck in my head all day (and all of last night as well). Tom's Diner by Suzanne Vega, a bunch of techno songs, and zombie my cranberries have all made it to my head today.
There are sounds I've noticed I'm not hearing again: Kiernan crying, the microwave door opening and closing, the beeping of the microwave, Bryan talking (i knew before, it's just become even more prominent now), my voice (I have to keep asking Bryan if I sound different, or if I'm too loud or quiet cause I have no idea what the volume is on my voice), and the water running.
I definitely am not enjoying the ringing in my ears, that has been coming and going, I wish it was going more than it was coming.

Many thanks to the neighbors who have helped us this week. Kiernan's been getting more and more sick of the past couple of days, and poor Bryan has been stuck with taking care of us both. I feel helpless as I cannot pick up Kiernan (not supposed to lift anything more than 25-30 pounds, and he's 32), and take care of him. Definitely makes me grateful for a wonderful and supportive husband.

Recovery Day 2

Today has been a lot better. My chest, stomach and ribs are extremely sore from throwing up so much, but it's completely stopped. I was able to eat some of the food our neighbors had been bringing over to us. My bishop from our church had stopped by as well to see how we were doing. It's nice to be a caring community.
I can get up and walk a bit, and I can sit up for longer periods of time. The sore on my head definitely still hurts, and is probably a pressure sore from the dressing that we took off yesterday.
Things I've noticed from the surgery itself:
I REALLY want to pop my ears, but I am not allowed to do so. It's driving me crazy.
I have to be careful when I cough, and every time I even start to cough I think of the Seinfeld episode where he's amazed at how many muscle you use to cough.
Just to simply lift your head up, it is amazing how many muscles you use to do so.
It really doesn't hurt any more to lay on one side or the other than it does to lay on my back. So I've noticed in my sleep I'm all over the place right now.
I can feel where the implants are (the magnet and computer chip portion). Not with my fingers, but you know how you can feel where a headache is coming on? it's that same kind of sensation.
I truly cannot hear. There were some sounds that I could hear before without my hearing aids that I've noticed i'm not hearing now. The toilet lid slamming down was the first one I noticed. I had just bumped the lid and turned to wash my hands, and found myself just subconsciously waiting to hear the sound of it slam. When I never heard it, I turned around, and saw that the lid was down. That was my first indication that I cannot and will not hear anything right now. Other times have been Kiernan crying nearby, the vacuum going off near by, and my talking. I can still feel myself talking, but now that I can't hear it at all, it's a different feeling. So bizzare.
I am not allowed to lift heavy things, I'm not even supposed to pick Kiernan up. This is difficult as I want to cuddle with him and such, especially since he's been feeling sick :(. I cannot bend over, if I do need to get down, I have to bend at the knees, so I just think about how I should bend when I'm in a dress.
The ringing in my left ear is making me crazy. This is normal, but it's only happening in my left ear, which is actually the ear that would usually ring when I would do sound booth tests. Just an interesting thing.
Other than that, I'm still mostly just laying down and taking it easy. I was thinking of doing some work on Friday, but I don't think I will. Especially now that I found out it's a day off for the state holiday that is on Saturday.
I've asked for a car pool ride to Ogden on Monday as I don't quite trust myself to drive yet, and would rather be safe than sorry.

Recovery Day 1

So Tuesday was the first real day of recovery for me. I was able to get out of bed for moments at a time, and go out to the front room. Usually for only about a half hour at a time. This was when I really noticed the dressing on my head. I was feeling some pains in my forehead, and I was pretty sure that it was from the dressing. I knew we were going to be taking it off later Tuesday night, so I just dealt with it. I had also slept with this dressing, and it was not easy, but I was tired enough to sleep on my back for most of the time, or I slept on the actual dressing (without consciously knowing I was). Here's a picture of me with the dressing on. Bryan wasn't kidding when he said it looked like Princess Leia's hair. I apologize for the picture being sideways, I can't get it to work otherwise.

Excuse the quailty of the picture, it was taken with a cell phone :)
Bryan had wanted to take a picture while I was in the hospital with me like that, but was afraid I would murder him. I wouldn't have actually, as I know people would want to see what it looked like, and people would also understand why I looked like crap. So to get the full effect of yesterday, just imagined my eyes almost closed and my jaw drooping, as I was just that out of it yesterday.
We took the dressing off right after the previous picture. My right ear had almost no blood on the gauze, etc. Which is the one we took off first. My left ear is a different story. Since I have friends that do not like looking at anything gross, there's a link to the pictures. Honestly, it's not that gross, and all you see are white strips with dried blood on it. So there's your warning of what it looks like. You can't see the incision itself, or anything of the sort.
http://picasaweb.google.com/slvrchic83/CochlearImplant#
Along with the big cups that were over my ears, there was gauze underneath them, and then cotton balls in my ear canals. Those were all taken out when I took the cups off.
In the pictures you can also see the purple mark where the surgeon had marked where the surgery would be. They also shaved just a bit of my hair off, not much at all, and Bryan and I are pretty sure they may have shaved off the edges of my eyebrows...weird I know, but we both swear their shorter than they were before.

Implantation Day.

We dropped Kiernan off at a neighbor's place and the drove to the hospital.

This is me right before going in to the surgery.

We got there at 10:10 AM, and within 5 or 10 minutes, we were called back to start the pre-op stuff. I had to change into a hospital gown, hospital pants and slippers. They then did some labs, took my temperature, blood pressure and asked questions (when was the last time I ate, drank, and what surgery was happening today, and by who). I was in that first waiting room for about an hour. I think it in only took so long because they were waiting for someone to be done with an operation that was scheduled before mine. No big deal, I wasn't in a rush, I figured we'd be home around five or six at the latest.

They then get the IV in my arm and have me move over to the gurney. They wheel me to the next pre-op room. In here, the nurse and the anesthesiologist came in and asked questions (separately), and they were basically the same questions as before. Then the surgeon came in and marked where the surgery would be. Then they sent Bryan away and wheeled me into the operating room. It was FREEZING. When I was in the first room and first got on the gurney, I thought it was silly that they put a pre-warmed blanket on me, but now I know why, cause man, that room was cold.

Then they had me scootch over to what felt like was the narrowest possible operating table. It barely fit the width of my body (maybe I just need to lose a LOT of weight?), and my arms couldn't rest on it.

Next they strapped my legs down, wrapped my arms in the blue egg foam pads, and then strapped my arms to my body using the blankets that were on the table and on me. During this time the anesthesiologist is apparently talking to me, and forgetting that I can't hear him, so the nurse kind of motions for me to do what the anesthesiologist is telling me to do (lift up your head, breathe, this will hurt), so it was nice that she took the extra step, cause honestly, I would've just laid there trusting them to do whatever. Finally, the anesthesiologist tells me that I'm going to feel some pain as he puts some meds into my IV, and the nurse is going to hold the oxygen mask over my face. I remember telling the nurse, that they weren't kidding when they said the meds would hurt, and then taking a deep breath. That's all I remember.

The next thing I remember is waking up in a different room, and I had only woken up because I was dry heaving. The nurse or whoever it was in there asked me if I was dry heaving (maybe it was Bryan, because I understood the person, and Bryan may have cued it?), and I was really annoyed that they were asking me that as I was dry heaving. Then I went right back to sleep.

The next time I remember waking up was to throw up again, and this time I was in a different room. I went back to sleep. I woke up three more times after that, briefly, because Bryan was waking up to tell me to breathe deeper because the oxygen monitor was going off. Finally, at about 8:00 PM (I can't believe it was that late), I was awake enough to keep throwing up, and walk myself from the wheelchair to the car. So I got dressed (barely, as I was still having heaves now and then), then the nurse walked me out to the car. Bryan and the nurse must have crossed paths at one point because he wasn't at the car when I got there. I remembered being annoyed, just because the nurse seemed to be in a hurry, and I just wanted to go back to sleep again. Once I got in the car and buckled up, I fell asleep again, and didn't wake up again until we got home. Bryan dropped me off near the front, as there's almost always no parking near our place at this time of night. So I started walking home, and was throwing up the whole way as well, then got home, and laid down, and went back to sleep.

I know I mention a lot of throwing up, but that's seriously all I did for the first 24 hours after the surgery. Finally, by about Tuesday afternoon, the throwing up had eased up quite a bit, and I was able to keep some liquids down fairly well. That was a major improvement.

Pre-op

So, I'm a total nervous wreck right now, yet I feel really good about this simultaneous bilateral cochlear implant surgery right now. I'm not so worried about the surgery itself. Bryan's stressing about the insurance part (understandably), and I'm getting anxiety about not hearing a single sound for four weeks. While this is no big deal to some of my friends, for me, it is. I've had hearing aids since I was 9 months old, and I don't recall a time where I went a whole day without hearing aids. Even when I had an ear infection, I still kept one hearing aid in, so I was still hearing...something. It really is freaking me out a bit :)

I am to be at the hospital in just a little over an hour. My dad came over this morning to give me a blessing with Bryan. That was fun, I love how much Kiernan tries to show off for people when they come over here.

I am definitely thankful for our ward (local church community), they're helping out a LOT for an outpatient surgery, but I'll take what I can get at this point as you never know what may or may not happen.

I spent a good portion of the day after church yesterday watching cochlear implant surgery videos. It really is fascinating.

As for work, I worked it out with my boss/director to be able to take paid vacation time four weeks in a row for the next contract year (which starts next week). My families that will be on my caseload will be covered by substitutes, so that's a relief. I still feel guilty for taking so much time off, but overall, it's just better to do it that way. I also had to say bye to quite a few of my families this week as I'm changing areas for where I'll be providing services. It was hard, I was proud of myself for not tearing up in front of any of the families, but I definitely did tear up in the car as I drove away from each family. It's amazing how much you can come to care about, not only the children, but the families in this job. It definitely makes the job worth it for me.

This is a scattered post, sorry, but it's how my brain has been functioning the past couple of days. I'm scare, excited, nervous, and just anxious to get it over with. I know there have been people, specifically family members, who have been keeping us in your thoughts and prayers, and we really do appreciate that. We know that every single one helps :)

I can't say I'll post as soon as I get home, but I'll post as soon as I feel up to it. :)

Here's to a new chapter in my life.

MRI and Consult

So I had my MRI and surgeon consult today.

Both went well, the MRI took way longer than 30 minutes, and I have no idea why. It was definitely boring. Once in awhile I would feel vibrations and banging, but I heard...nothing. So it was very..relaxing, but boring :) That went well, no problems, they handed us the film and off we went to a different hospital for the surgeon consult.

We go to the surgeon consult, he looks at the film, asks about my history and then takes a look at my ears with a microscope. Declares everything fit for a surgery, even for a bilateral (two cochlear implants). Except for one possible problem....

I might hear too well for the insurance companies. A lot of insurance companies go with the medicaid policies, and medicaid says I can't understand more than 40% with my hearing in the better ear, and right now the better ear consists of...both ears :) With both ears, I can hear 57%. So...if my insurance company (not medicaid) doesn't go by that, then we are good to go.

We then met with the surgery scheduler/insurance know it all person for the office. We asked her some questions, etc. I absolutely love her. She's awesome. But she gave us the codes and such we would need to get specific answers from the insurance company. Meanwhile she'll be submitting an official request, etc. She schedule my surgery for July 19th. I'll have my pre-0p appointment on July 15th.

This is awesome and scary. Bilateral implants are scary. When I have the surgery this means that I will have absolutely no hearing left. The implanst basically replaces my ability to hear naturally, and becomes the bionic hearing. Once I get the surgery it'll take 3-5 days to recover, however, my implants will not be activated for six weeks. That means I'll hear absolutely NOTHING for 6 weeks. This is scary for me, coming from the girl who hated having her hearing aids out as a baby. Yeah, I'm also concerned about how it'll affect my job, etc. I've e-mailed my boss about it, and we'll see how it all works out.

So there you have it. As long as insurance works out, I'll be getting two implants July 19th.

Crazy.

Vacation

So our little family decided to take a road trip for our vacation. I had to force myself to clear my days off for vacation. I was supposed to take off this entire week, but that didn't happen. However, I did end up with only two appointments/visits. That was a good thing. My training last Friday had also been cancelled, so we were able to leave earlier than we had planned. So what follows are pictures and captions of what we did on our field trip. Holy cow, did I just type that? I meant vacation, not field trip. Geez, I need another vacation apparently.

The beauty of this entire vacation/roadtrip? Not having a planned agenda. It was so nice to just say, "hey, let's stop here," and not worry about being late for anything else.

First stop:
Fillmore - We stopped and got a free (the lady was so nice, we were so late and close to the closing time, and asked if we could just walk around really fast instead of getting an official tour, that she didn't charge us!) self-guided tour of the historical capital building of Utah. It was VERY interesting. There were SO SO many portraits of people on the wall. We asked who they were, and they were all people who had settled Fillmore. Amazing.

Kiernan was excited to get out of the car.

Our first hotel had some awesome quality artwork posted...(if you can't tell..it's a magazine page...)We stayed in St. George in the Cronoado Inn. It's...cheap and you can tell it's cheap. But we had a kitchenette, a playpen, extra pillows and everything, for HALF the price of the next place we stayed in. So worth it.

He was such a good kid for this entire trip. I seriously couldn't have asked for a better car kid.

We stopped at the Rockville cemetery in Rockville, Utah to take some pictures of Bryan's ancestor's graves.

Then we spent the rest of the day at Zion's National Park. Man...we're not going during shuttle season again, getting that stroller on and off was a pain. Otherwise, it was a beautiful place.

I think this may have been one of...three? tantrums Kiernan had for the entire trip. Yeah, I'm totally counting my blessings.

I just love how happy we both luck, despite the blurry pic

The hotel we stayed in that night was in Page, Az. It was *AWFUL* Travelodge is a place we'd never recommend again. They didn't have a playpen/crib for Kiernan, so we had to share the bed with him. As you can see, he takes up a lot of room.

The captioning didn't work on the tv, and they had no extra pillows, and etc. etc. etc. Fortunately, that was the worst part of our trip. Not bad if I say so myself.

The next day we stopped at the Glen Canyon Dam on our way out. It was cool, but it made me sad to see how much water has dropped at Lake Powell. I really miss Lake Powell.

We wanted to go to the Petrified Forest, but there was a SEVERE dust storm going on I40 and the road was blocked off for basically the entire day and night. So we turned around and went the other direction and went to the Grand Canyon that day instead. See, that's the beauty of having no set agenda. It was awesome!

The pictures REALLY do not show the beauty and the wonder of the canyon. Seriously, it was AMAAZING. Kiernan loved it too :)

See how tiny those people are? We were right on the rim of the grand canyon. (south rim if you're curious).

Kiernan and I got out to see some Hopi ruins at the grand canyon

The watchtower. I was SO disappointed to find out it was a modern day building (1930ish) and not built by the Native Americans. It was still cool though.

A stuffed mountain lion at the general store at the grand canyon. We were buying some much needed excedrin, the sign said that kids were welcome to touch, pet and climb on it. Thank heavens, because Kiernan was getting anxious to do something.

We stayed at the Ramada in Flagstaff that night, found a great deal on Priceline. No pictures for that though.

Next stop, random stop too, Walnut Canyon National Park.

The picture above makes it seem like "so what?" after the grand canyon. But if you look below, you'll see the cool ruins we saw there.

See the piled bricks and such? Yeah, they were living on the SIDE OF THE CLIFF. Amazing!

There were so many stairs (though not nearly as many for Iguazu Falls in Brazil), and the ranger lent Bryan a pack to use for Kiernan. It was a very wise thing to have. Behind them you can see the ruins up close, we're almost halfway down the cliff at this point.

See the black? That's from the smoke that the Native Americans had used...around I believe 1250.

I think this is our ONLY family picture :)

Then we moved onto the Petrified Forest. It was really neat. SOO many logs that were fallen, petrified and broken into pieces. They also had some places with petroglyphs. It was pretty neat.

This was a HUGE petrified trunk.

The Petroglyphs

Ruins at the Petrified Forest

We drove through Native American Reservations. It was amazing how spaced out everyone is! We stopped in Tuba City to try some chinese food (totally did not want to do it, but Bryan said to think of it as an adventure). We couldn't even take more than three bites of it. It was AWFUL. We went to McDonald's to get me some chicken nuggets to get rid of the taste...they were out :( It was very sad. However, the drive was beautiful and really made us both think about civilization, etc.

We then stayed the night again in St. George at the same Cronado Inn. Again, it was cheap, and SO much better than the Travelodge.

We headed over to Bryce Canyon National Park. I honestly didn't expect much, since it was such a small park compared to the other ones we had just been to. Much to my surprise, Bryce Canyon is BY FAR my favorite Place. It was SO beautiful!

Just a preview of what was to come.

How awesome is this? There's more!

I thought the white part looked like a bust of someone.

They called it the natural bridge, when really, it's an Arch.

Seriously, Amazing! Hard to believe it's water, ice and wind that creates all of this.

That was the end of our trip. We drove home that night, and got home around 11:00 PM. It was seriously such a good vacation. I think the key part was that neither one of us brought our laptops, and I did not bring ANY homework or work with me. I checked my e-mails once in awhile on Bryan's iphone, as did he, but...that was it. It was really just us three spending time together getting an eyeful of nature's beauties. It was awesome. I can't wait to do another roadtrip. We're thinking of doing one in July to go to Yellowstone and the Glacier National Park. We bought an annual national park pass for $80, If we hadn't we would've paid about $100 just for this trip, and more for any future trips into other national parks. So worth the money for us. AND it gives us an excuse to go visit more national parks! YAY!

Now it's back to life and reality. I was so not ready, but I do have to get back to it....my Final Comprehensive Presentation outline and printed materials for it are due on Tuesday. Sigh. Just two more months. Then I'm done with it ALL.