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.
No comments:
Post a Comment