Where do I start?? A little pre-op/post-op blogging...

Instead of starting my blog about how the process began with getting the cochlear implant (CI), I thought it was best to just dive right in and start blogging about what I have been experiencing.  Hopefully, my story will soon start to backtrack so that I can explain how I ended up where I am today, as I know there are very curious minds out there.

On December 15th, my mom and I drove to Stanford for my pre-op appointment at California Ear Institute. My surgery was scheduled for December 17th and I was to have the implant placed in my right ear, as this one had less hearing than my left ear.

On the morning of December 16th, I woke up in my bed at the hotel with a neck so stiff on my right side, that I was unable to move my head/neck without crying in pain. Mom and I had planned to get some errandand shopping done that day but due to my unexpected neck issue, I spent most of my morning searching online for a chiropractor in the area who would see me to help alleviate the pain.  Luckily, I got an appointment and had my neck adjusted.  I was then told to come back in on the morning of my cochlear implant surgery to get my neck adjusted again so I would not be hurting quite so much from two issues going on in my neck area. What a way to start off the operation!

On the morning of the 17th, mom and I left the chiropractor and headed for Waverly Surgery Center in Palo Alto to check in around 11:30 am.  When we got to the center, mom started snapping tons of photos while I proceeded to fill out the paper work and get ready to go into the waiting room to change for surgery. I guess there were other patients having surgery before me, so my mom and I ended up waiting for a couple hours. At one point, one of the nurses came to my area where I was on the gurney and told me that the anesthesiologist was on the phone and wished to speak with me. I remember looking at her like she was nuts, and my mom turned to the nurse and said, "she's deaf and can't really talk on the phone, so I will talk to him on her behalf."  I was thinking to myself, "I'm getting a COCHLEAR IMPLANT and she thinks I can use the phone????" Some people just don't get it.....(sigh).

Finally around 2 pm, my anesthesiologist showed up and started an IV of some amazing drugs that I really put me in a  good mood. I gave mom a kiss and a couple tears were shed as I was wheeled into the surgery room. I was feeling whole range of different emotions, excited, nervous, but also very sad, as if I was saying goodbye to a part of myself. I knew in my heart I would always be the same Lindsay.  Yet, I was so used to the person I had become.  After so many years of denial over my deafness, to my acceptance of my "disability", my resistance to the idea of an implant  that could possibly destroy my sense of self, and finally, a change of heart and acceptance of allowing myself to live for ME and not a cultural identity. The emotional attachments and psychological issues connected to my identity had a big impact on my decisions about how I decided to get the implant. I will elaborate a bit more on this topic in another blog..... 

Surgery took about 2 hours and I spent about an hour in the recovery room until I felt stable enough to head back to the hotel. I had a purple bandage wrapped around my head and my right ear area felt painfully swollen and throbbing. Thankfully, I had a good supply of pain relief medications to get me through the next few days. The night of surgery I was pretty much knocked out on medications and was able to rest.

Mom and I left for Truckee on the 18th, and I spent the next few days resting at home and adjusting new sensations I felt in my head of this IMPLANT in my ear.

Usually, patients who have the implant heal about 2 weeks until they get the processor turned on and "map" and program it for sound. With Christmas right around the corner, the doctors thought I was ready to be "turned on" 5 days after surgery.  After traveling back and forth between Truckee and Stanford so many times within the past month or so, mom and I decided it was best to caravan down to the Bay Area; her boyfriend Jeff driving his truck, while we took my Caddy.  It had just dumped fresh snow in Truckee the day and night before we left, and so when we got onto I80 West, we encountered the chain control/CALTRANS chaos that occurs right at the Donner Pass Road exit.  And they were not going to let us pass over the summit without any chains on.  So my mom managed to convince the chain control guy that we were getting off the freeway at the exit so that her boyfriend could put the chains on the tires.

We find Jeff several cars ahead of us on Donner Pass Road by Donner Lake, and he calls us on the cell phone and tells us to pull over at the market. When we met him in the parking lot, he tells my mom to get in his truck and put it in 4 wheel drive. He then gets into the drivers seat of my car, let's my mom pull ahead of him onto the road, and we follow her, sans chains, up and over Old Highway 40.  When we finally got to Emigrant Gap, we all pull off the freeway and the drivers switch cars. Getting back on the road, we make our way down the freeway towards the Bay Area.

I was not entirely sure that I was going to get my processor turned on that day. It depended on how well my ear was healing from the surgery. If it turned out that I was not ready to have the processor turned on, then I would need to reschedule within the next day or so. My mom had to be back in Truckee the next day for work, while I could stay with family in Marin and come back to Stanford if needed. Thus the need for two cars.

We arrived to CEI just in time for my 1:30 appointment. My dad was there to meet us, having driven from Marin, where he lives. This day was as important to my parents as it was to me. They have spent years taking me to my audiologists and doctors during my childhood, and this was not an appointment I wanted either of them to miss. As happy as I was that we made it on time and that both my mom and dad were there with me on this day, I was hit with a flood of emotions, and then a feeling of extreme panic. Right before we were called into the doctors office, tears started to pour down my face and it all started to really sink in. THIS WAS IT. The moment was finally here-and I was so overwhelmed with the thought that EVERYTHING was about to change. And the drive from Truckee did not help calm my nerves prior to walking into the appointment that was going to be the start of a new life for me. I felt so embarrassed in front of the staff, while the tears just started to come down and I started to hyperventilate a bit. I am a bit prone to panic attacks (which is something that I am now beginning to see had a lot to do with coping with my deafness over the years). In the privacy of the doctor's office, I had a slight meltdown. I'm so grateful that my parents just stayed present with me and hugged me and held my hand until I was able to calm down enough to actually talk coherently. It was so interesting, the influx of emotions, as they were so mixed together. My mom asked me if I was scared. I know I had no reason to be, but I felt slightly afraid, but also exhilarated. I am not sure if I can really convey my feelings appropriately here in this blog. But by the time the doctor came in to let me know that the surgery was successful and to take a look inside my ear and tell me everything was healing well, I was cracking jokes and smiling as if I had not just had a panic attack. Since I was healing just fine, I knew my "turn on" was going to happen next., and that this was the moment I had been waiting for since I had made the decision to get the implant.