I envy people who can come up with catchy and creative titles for their blog posts - mine always seem silly to me. Well, some incredibly good news over the CaptionCall® telephone this morning. I got a call around 10.30 - it was from the surgical scheduler who sets up the surgeries for my Cochlear Implant surgeon. First available date for surgery is exactly one month from today, and you can believe I took it as quickly as it was offered (after asking, of course, if there was any earlier dates available). So now I know - October 14, 2015 is the date where I officially leave the world of being Hard of Hearing and join the world of being deaf. I know that I may still have some residual hearing after the surgery, but I won't plan or hope for it. At any rate, I can't hear much of anything without a hearing aid, so I'll be functionally deaf for sure. A few weeks later, on the 20th of November is when I'll be transformed into a Cyborg - that's just a roundabout way of saying that it's the date when the audiologist will first connect and activate the external component of the CI - the speech processor.
There isn't really much for me to do in between now and then - I'll just be following up with my general Doctor to make sure he sends in the clearance for surgery, and in a few weeks, I'll check with the surgeon's office to see if there were any concerns raised by the MRI and CT scans. I feel like a young child after the Thanksgiving holiday knowing that Christmas is only a month a way. Josephine and I do have some things scheduled that will help make the time pass by more quickly; this week, we're having dinner with a Greg, who works for Cochlear - he is a Dr. of Audiology and he also has bilateral CIs. I really hope that Josephine will ask a lot of questions and that Greg's experience and answers will help her be less worried about the whole process. We've also been trying to set up a meeting over coffee with a lady who has bilateral CIs and her husband. I think it will be useful for Josephine to hear what it's like to be the spouse of an implantee and what to expect.
I'm just slightly disappointed that it's a whole month away, but having an actual date is exciting. It's the first surgery for me involving anesthesia since I had my tonsils out as a child, but I'm not worried about that at all. Time to start counting the days - I'll have to make a countdown calendar to tape to my desk in the office. 30 days and counting!
There isn't really much for me to do in between now and then - I'll just be following up with my general Doctor to make sure he sends in the clearance for surgery, and in a few weeks, I'll check with the surgeon's office to see if there were any concerns raised by the MRI and CT scans. I feel like a young child after the Thanksgiving holiday knowing that Christmas is only a month a way. Josephine and I do have some things scheduled that will help make the time pass by more quickly; this week, we're having dinner with a Greg, who works for Cochlear - he is a Dr. of Audiology and he also has bilateral CIs. I really hope that Josephine will ask a lot of questions and that Greg's experience and answers will help her be less worried about the whole process. We've also been trying to set up a meeting over coffee with a lady who has bilateral CIs and her husband. I think it will be useful for Josephine to hear what it's like to be the spouse of an implantee and what to expect.
I'm just slightly disappointed that it's a whole month away, but having an actual date is exciting. It's the first surgery for me involving anesthesia since I had my tonsils out as a child, but I'm not worried about that at all. Time to start counting the days - I'll have to make a countdown calendar to tape to my desk in the office. 30 days and counting!