Note: I actually started writing this post on the night of the 14th, but only just got around to checking it and posting it. Oops ahh well no harm done eh?
I’ve started writing this on the ward I’m staying in overnight. Hopefully it will be a quite fresh account of for a lot of people is the most scary part of getting a Cochlear Implant.
The day started with meeting my parents at the hospital at 7:00am (despite my mothers attempts to get me to stay the night at hers the night before, I wanted to sleep in my own bed!) we then went to Ambulatory care, which is obviously medical speak for “massive ward taking up a chunk of the ground floor of a massive building” I was on bed 68 or something and I don’t even think that’s halfway in the ward!
Then after a bit of waiting, the nurse called me in for pre op assessment, just stuff like sticking on my ID bracelet (which is really just a sticker that sticks to my hairy arms, that’s going to be fun to pull off tomorrow) asking questions (“Do you have a metal implant” not yet!). And giving me a pair of fetching tights to prevent DVT. Curiously no photos of me in said stockings exist, they all mysteriously were not taken (perhaps some threats were issued my memory is a bit hazy…).
A while after this the anaesthetist asking similar questions to the pre op assessment, things like any health problems, allergies that sort of thing. She then explained what would happen in the anaesthetic room, putting in the drip thing into your hand, making you breathe through a mask and well falling asleep.
Then the surgeon came around with a team of students, after handing him a notepad to write things down for me (asking the same questions and by this time I had worked out the order exactly so I started preempting his questions before he wrote them down).
At about 10:30 it was time, my little push bed came with me as I walked to the, well I’m not sure what it was theatre waiting bay? After more waiting another guy came out to ask me yet more questions! How deaf I was (very) what operation am I having (Cochlear Implant) and am I wearing cotton pants, well I had no idea so they needed to be checked, luckily they were not so got to keep my pants on!
Then got wheeled into the anaesthetic room, full of people, had a drip inserted into my hand, had to have these blow up what I can only describe as cricket shin guards but fully around the lower leg (That dam DVT thing again). They took out my hearing aids and glasses at the last moment, then I got the mask started breathing then, well woke up straight away in another room being told that its all done. Was still a little out of it at this point but distinctly remember shooting the guy telling me this a disbelieving look, I was then wheeled back into the ward quite soon after that, still a little out of it and just wanting to go back to sleep. The whole thing took 2-3 hours, I was “awake” (and I use the term loosely) some time after 1pm, I had no pain what so ever just a strange feeling that my ear was stuffed up, a big bandage on my head and the fact that my natural hearing what is left of it has not changed at all.
When I was more fully awake, I asked to stay overnight (it was a choice, at this point the dizziness started to kick in, and the thought of getting into a car was not an appealing one!) and was then moved into a ward room with 4 proper beds (the kind that have those electric controls to make them sit up, yes I played with it for about 5 minutes).
Other then that there is not much to tell, hospital food is well, hospital food, but I was fed an evening meal, something just before bed (basically drink and biscuits) a breakfast with cereal and a bread roll and a sandwich for lunch.
The next day was simply waiting to be discharged, getting an X-ray done (although that was a little bit undignified, basically “mush your face up against this X-ray plate on the wall please”. Then after more waiting got discharged.
And thats about it, currently at home recuperating!
Next big thing should be the start of the Switch on appointments which start on the 10th August.
Also changed the tagline at the top, I’m no longer “hopefully” getting a Cochlear Implant. I have one, I am a Cyborg!
Itchy Implanted 