Cochlear Implant 11

[This is me this morning - day 2 - at breakfast. See, it's not so bad. The reality was pretty pedestrian, and not anywhere near as bad as my imaginings. The main thing is that I've been showered with good thoughts, prayers, white light, love, good vibes, the works from all kinds of family and friends. Cathy gave up two whole days to take me to the hospital and stay with me. Sally is giving up today and at least part of the weekend. Lida has offered to help me order in from Joe's Noodle Shop, and Barbara intends to look in at some point.

Peggy has been pulling for me from afar via her blog and email (check out her blog for another view), as have my old friends Paula (who sent poems by email from her favorite writing website) and Annie. Other bloggers I've "met," Ex-Shammickite, Little Red Hen, and Ronni also have offered their good wishes and encouragement.

Helen sent a most beautiful card, and her mom sent good wishes and prayers. Medea sent good luck, and Ian promised to send me "lots of music." My brother Gene typed an encouraging note with great effort--he is fighting against both post-polio and the after effects of a stroke.

The folks from work, especially Linda, Yinka, Cat, Anita, Tim, Ricky, Margaret, Marteal, Mary (ex officio), and Susan, are pulling for me.

Then there are Bev, Deb, and Ronnie, all great women with CIs, who have offered their encouragement and celebration, too. Their experiences have really been part of the tipping point in pushing me off the starting gate and over the finish line.

To every single employee I encountered yesterday at Johns Hopkins--from admission clerk to head surgeon to the guy who wheeled me out the front door when it was over, a great big THANKS! Their friendliness and competence are awe-inspiring. It's one of the world's great hospitals.]

Anyway here's what it's like to get a cochlear implant. Cathy and I take the train and a taxi to Johns Hopkins. I sign in, fork over the co-pay, and head down to the outpatient surgery (most implants are done as outpatient procedures). They ask me a bunch of questions (same ones, over and over, to make sure they're not implanting the wrong person or the wrong ear).

They lead me to the pre-operative holding area, which is a bunch of curtained cubicles with those reclining chairs that flop back. They pull the curtain closed, flop a pile of hospital garments on the chair, and tell me to take off everything, rings included, and put on two hospital gowns, one frontwards and one backwards, some of those footie things, and what looks like a shower cap.

When I'm dressed in the floppy cotton garments, I pull back the curtain. The interpreter comes in and sits in one visitor's chair, and Cathy sits in the other. We chat about housing in Baltimore, and the interpreter tells us about her roommate buying a house and moving out without telling anyone she was leaving. (No problem, a nice replacement roommate moved in.) A nurse comes in and hooks me up to a saline IV drip.

After I'm hooked up, the anesthetist stops by and goes down my medical history, which has been faxed over from the primary care physician. Somehow she misses the line which says I have three stents. When Cathy asks her if she knows I have three stents, she says, "NO! Did you have a heart attack?" (No, I didn't.) I do tell her I'm having the right ear implanted so I can lie on my left side; I can't lie on my right side because everything kinda stops. Now SHE'S looking worried.

The information IS on the chart, she just missed it. The beautiful Chinese resident (see Cochlear Implant 3) stops by, and Cathy asks her "Do you know she has three stents?" This doctor says "Yes." Then the surgeon himself comes in, shakes my hand, and marks my right ear with a blue magic marker. I ask him how HE is feeling today, and he says "Good!" Today is his light day...only three implants, and I'm the second.

Then another anesthetist comes in with a needle. He says it's time to go, and he slips the needle into the IV line. "Whoa....whoa....Am I in Moscow?" I babble. Cathy answers, telling me not to dance on the operating table, but she says my eyes have gone blank. "She's out," she says. The anesthetist says "She's a cheap date!"

And what seems to be immediately after this, I'm back in another one of those chairs, but this time in recovery, and I've got a soft white cup held against the incision by a velcro strap around my head. There's no pain, but my ear is ringing off the hook! The interpreter says, "Hi...How do you feel?" and I just smile and SIGN some kind of gibberish. The nurse says, "That's a great smile!" One of the possible risks is losing control over the side of your face by the implant. They're happy I can smile with both sides of my mouth.

The beautiful Chinese resident comes in and says they will call me tomorrow to see how I'm doing. And then it seems it's time to go. They wheel me down the hall and out to the front, where I climb into a taxi. The driver takes us to the Peabody Court hotel, which is a beautiful little hotel in Baltimore. The doorman helps me out of the cab and down to the registration desk. I hand over my credit card, they give me the keys, and we go up to the room.

I climb into bed with all my clothes on because the room feels cold, and I take a pain killer because my head is starting to ache pretty good. Cathy turns up the heat and calls room service. I drink the ginger ale that arrives, but don't want the soup. And I conk out for a while. It's dark when I wake up, and Cathy is watching "Law & Order"....she asks if I want anything, and I ask for a grilled cheese sandwich so I can take the antibiotic. The sandwich arrives, and I eat half and conk out some more. I wake up about 10:30...Cathy is reading with the TV still on ("Law & Order", which I like, but I can't see without my glasses. My head is too fat from the swelling to put them on.)

I get up to go to the bathroom, and notice I have a nice little shiner developing under my right eye. I get back into bed and reply to some text messages from my wonderful grandson Ian. And then I conk out for good.

Today when I wake up, I feet pretty good, more like normal, and with no pain. My face looks a bit less pumpkin-like, but the bruising has blossomed.

And that's what happened when I went to the hospital and got a cochlear implant. Now I wait a month, and then they'll turn it on. From what I've been told, that's when the fun/hard work starts. We'll see....