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.