Today was the first day since my surgery that I put on makeup and fixed my hair. Today was a special day. I had my processor activiated for the first time (or as the cochlear community calls it, "A-Day").
My audiologist at HELP is Kela Miller, who is also a cochlear implant recipient. As expected, I didn't have the "miracle cure" when the processor was mapped and turned on. Kela played some tones of varying degrees and I told her I wasn't sure if I was hearing the tones or if my tinnitus was acting up. But, from the way I responded, she said I was hearing high frequency tones I haven't heard in 35 years.
I've been wearing the processor most of the day and for awhile I wasn't feeling so hot. We had to run to the mall for a minute to pick up a piece of pottery. We weren't even there 15 minutes and I was ready to puke. I can feel the implant stimulating the nerve and I think the mall was so loud, my body couldn't handle it!
It doesn't sound like my hearing aid. I'm not really recognizing any sounds at all, but I did respond to my husband talking. I had no idea he was saying something and turned around because I heard a kind of deep humming noise. Kela said I was hearing his voice.
While I was in Kela's office, she noticed something wasn't quite right with my incision and suggested we call Dr. Berryhill's ofice. We did and the PA kind of drained the incision and removed the remaining surgical glue. Dr. Berryhill wrote me a script for an antibiotic cream to help with the healing.
The processor is exhausting right now. And the draining process hurt a little bit, so I took the last percocet and crawled in bed to watch Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland" for the 3rd time.
I have a lot of work ahead of me, but I look forward to it. I don't mind hard work if being able to hear better is the end result. Next step: find out whether the insurance company is going to cover "auditory therapy".
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