I was out walking my dogs last night and ran across our neighbor Jack and his dog Mollie. Jack and I have been talking for the past 6 months or so and he has a pretty profound hearing loss. Unfortunately for him, it is getting worse and his audiologist has told him that hearing aids won’t help him – he needs a BAHA (bone-anchored hearing aid). Last night, he decided to ask me what my surgery was like for my implant and admitted that he’s scared of the BAHA procedure. This is why I tell my story: so people like Jack know that they are not alone.
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surgery
Sleep is for the weak…
So apparently I’m pretty weak right now, because all I want is sleep, sleep, and more sleep. Which I’m told is to be expected. The thing is, I am an insomniac normally – I usually get less than 6 hours of quality sleep a night. So if I sleep during the day, I wake up at 3 or 4 am and am awake for hours (I should just get up and do something, but I rarely do, instead choosing to lie there and wonder why I can’t sleep).
recovery, part two
It’s been a weird couple of days. This is not really at all what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting a headache or more of a jawache or something. What I’m getting is this weird general uncomfortableness and numbness. Occasional pain in the ear (especially if I accidentally lay on it or lay flat or sneeze) that is like a really bad ear infection – like being stabbed inside your head with an ice pick or something. But that goes away pretty fast. The pain pills do help with the weirdness. I’m sure it’s that the nerves for the ear were cut and they are just vaguely starting to come back. I’ve heard anywhere from a couple of weeks to months to never on when the ear starts feeling normal again. In the meantime, it’s just kind of annoying, and it makes sleeping without drugs very difficult. Just getting comfortable without being able to sleep on either just one pillow or on the right side is really difficult still. I can at least sleep on the left now if I can manage to keep my head high enough.
recovery, part 1
I’m calling this part one, because I’m pretty sure there will be more. I’m doing okay, could be much worse. Lots of sleeping going on which is always good after surgery. It was really difficult to find a comfortable way to sleep but once I did I was out. My Fitbit says I’ve been sleeping about 9 hours, which is incredible given that I usually only get about 3 to 4 hours a night according to it.
surgery
Surgery went well. They actually got me in a little early so I didn’t have too much of the waiting around anxiety. Now, I’m old pro at surgery, so I say it was fine,but I can completely get why people are scared of this.