Anyway, thursday we finally received a letter from the insurance company. Well, it was a pretty quick response, considering that it is an insurance company. They basically said that they have approved the second Cochlear Implant in my other ear, which means they will cover it! Yay! This means my grandparents won’t have to cover the whole cost after all. What they do have to cover will be even cheaper than last time because of having met the deuctible with the last surgery.
So my husband called and left a message with Dr. Baker’s nurse, and she called and left a message on the machine Friday morning. I had my mom tell me what she said by holding the phone over the machine while I played the message back. My mom told me through IM that they had scheduled me tentatively for September 7th, and to call them back and let them know if it was good for us. She also said that it would be at a different place this time, along with other stuff I can’t remember.
My husband and I decided over the weekend that since getting this surgery is pretty much going to put me into recovery enough to ruin all the holidays this year, including my upcoming birthday and anniversary, that we would see if we could get the surgery delayed until after our anniversary so that I could enjoy at least one event this year. We decided on October 4th, since our anniversary is October 1st and we wanted to go on a little road trip or something. So he called and left a message Monday asking if we could get the date of October 4th. Ginger called us back and said that the 4th was taken, but that the 11th was available, so we took that date.
So, the official date for the surgery is October 11th, 2004. That works out well for me, the only thing I don’t like is that my birthday is on the 24th, less than two weeks after the surgery, so I will not be feeling very good for my 25th birthday which to me was kind of a milestone birthday. I’m more upset about that being ruined than the holidays. Oh well, can’t have it all, at least I’m getting to be well for our 5th wedding anniversary! My husband and I are thinking about getting tattoos for our anniversary present to each other, so at least I will have some time to let it heal before the surgery if we do.
Anyway, I am very glad that the insurance company is going to cover the second implant. I’m glad the surgery date is soon, because that means more recovery time before the holidays and when scool starts in January. But I am very nervous.
I’m nervous because of the fact that if I get this surgery, I will be destroying all that’s left of my natural hearing in that ear, which is all that is left of my natural hearing at all. I will no longer be able to hear with that hearing, it will be Cochlear Implant hearing for the rest of my life, and there’s no way to get the natural hearing back.
This particular issue is kind of in a way silly for several reasons. The first being that we are pretty suspicious of the fact that my hearing aid was in fact, causing Meniere’s attacks all this time. I noticed it because I would start feeling sick whenever I put my hearing aid on for a while. So I’ve barely worn it since I took it off when the implant was activated. If I’m not even using my natural hearing that much, what’s the point of saving it? I might as well take advantage of a hearing nerve that was much healthier than the one that DOES have the implant right now. Everyone’s pretty sure that I will do even better with an implant in that ear than I do right now with this one.
Another reason this issue is silly is because, even if I were to use my natural hearing a lot, the fact remains that it’s not that good. It sounds pretty muffled compared to the implant, and I never realized how many sounds I actually missed out on. I hear so many different sounds now with the Cochlear Implant. Although there are still a few sounds I hear better with the hearing aid, I think that the implant is starting to catch up to it as of just recently, like I said in my last CI journal, I am starting to hear more of that. So there’s really no good reason to hang on to my natural hearing.
I think I am just nervous about destroying it because it’s all I’ve had all my life… something that has always been with me for as long as I can remember. It has always been one of my “At least I have’s”. No matter what went wrong in my life, I’d alway say “At least I have…” and it was almost always “what little hearing I do have”. It was something that I thought I needed. I don’t need it anymore, when I can use such a wonderful technology and get far more out of it.
It’s like saying goodbye for good to an old friend. I almost feel as though I am betraying it. I realize this is a natural reaction to something like this, especially when I thought I would have more time to prepare for the surgery than I do, more time to “say goodbye” to that old friend. But I realize it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Sometimes you just outgrow things in life and it would not do you any good to hang on to it. You’re better off letting go to make room for bigger and better things. At least I had what little of my hearing I had all my life, but now I can move on to at least I have two implants to help me hear better than I can ever remember!
So, in that respect, I’m ready to move on.
That just leaves one last thing that I’m nervous about: the recovery. The recovery for the first implant was so horrible, I swore I’d NEVER do this again. It is not something I wish to go through again, and neither does my husband. Yet here I am, willing to weather the storm yet again for what will hopefully be well worth it in the end. What’s scary is, I’m pretty sure I remember Dr. Baker saying that this recovery could possibly be worse than the last time, because last time my body still had the balance in my unimplanted ear to rely on and help compensate for the loss in the other one. But this time it won’t, so I may be dizzier and for a longer period of time. My husband says he doesn’t remember Dr. Baker saying that, but my husband doesn’t remember a lot of things. Add that to the fact that he was mind-numbingly (emphasis on mind-numbingly here) tired at the last appointment with Dr. Baker, as he usually is with most appointments, it’s no suprise he doesn’t remember it. So, I can’t put a lot of stock into the fact that my husband doesn’t remember it. I do, and that’s what’s important. Deep down inside though, I hope I just imagined it. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
I think the recovery thing is really the only thing that is making me panic when I think of the surgery right now. I’ve already had one panic attack from it, I think I am going to have to try to pretend I’m not doing this to get through the month. Everytime I think of the last recovery and how this one could “possibly”, which we all know is Doctor-Speak for “Will”, go worse than the last time, it’s all I can do to keep from calling Dr. Baker’s secretary and calling the whole thing off! Am I crazy for willingly putting myself through hell for the next 2 months?
I have an appointment to see Dr. Baker one last time before the surgery. When I see him I guess I will ask him to PLEASE make sure he does NOT give me the wrong painkillers this time. Last time he kept giving me some with Phenergan in them, which I am allergic to. Right after the surgery the nurse also gave me the same thing. It made me very sick. I HAD phenergan listed on my allergy band on my arm! They could have really hurt me, if I had thrown up severely I could have messed up the surgery site! What is the freaking point of the allergy arm band they put on you if they give you what you’re allergic to anyway?!?!?!
Then Dr. Baker couldn’t seem to write the prescription right for the kind I can take, then when he got the right one, he forgot to write the strentgh on there and we had to go all the way back up to the office after driving all the way home to the pharmacy. and I ended up spending an hour an a half in a car right after the surgery miserable as hell when, if he had written them right, I would have only spent 30 minutes in the car and then been in bed and comfortable. He apparently didn’t know what Phenergan was or which painkillers have it and which don’t.
This time, my husband is going to try to get me home as soon after the surgery as possible and get me into bed before the morphine wears off. Hopefully everyone will get my meds right this time and I won’t have to suffer so much. I think if my pain hadn’t been allowed to reach the level it did due to not having painkillers when it all wore off, it might not have gotten bad at all. That and not being in the car for an hour and a half would have helped.
I am so not looking forward to this…
