The surgery was two days ago, Friday. To date I’ve relayed how things went on the day of my surgery, including coming home. Well, it’s Sunday morning so I thought I’d fill you in on how I’ve been feeling since surgery. Again, the operative word is feeling.
The first night I didn’t sleep that well which isn’t surprising. I must say though, I haven’t been in very much pain. From time-to-time I feel a dull throbbing sensation on the side of my head (you know, the area of the scalp directly behind my right ear that was shaved and cleaned; where an incision was made in the skin behind my ear and where the Doctor drilled into the mastoid bone, creating a pocket for the receiver/stimulator, and then into the inner ear where the electrode array was inserted into the cochlea – yeah, that area).
Perhaps the reason I’m not feeling a lot of pain is because I’ve stayed on top of it with pain medication and have taken it as prescribed. Since people tend to get addicted to pain medication (not me of course) Roxanne suggested that I begin tapering off and only take it when it becomes “intolerable.” Which brings us to an interesting subject called “pain threshold.” You see, Roxanne and I have very different opinions about my pain threshold. I say I have a rather high pain threshold while she says I have a very low pain threshold. She reminds me from-time-to-time about an incident several years ago where I thought I broke several bones in my ankle only to find out when going to the emergency room that, I in fact, “almost had a Level-1 sprain.” Roxanne will never let that one down. I ignore her mental jabs.
I spent most of yesterday (Saturday) at the house hanging out in the Den reading (as best a groggy mind could), visiting with the kids, and watching the puppy chew whatever came in close proximity to her mouth. I went outside a couple of times to take in the fresh air; a beautiful fall day here in Mid Missouri. Toward the end of the day I went with Roxanne in the Mini Van to pick up our son at the mall where he was at a children’s theatre practice. Yes, I still had that big Princess Leia bun on the side of my head so I stayed in the van. I didn’t want to scare the kids at the mall even if it is close to Halloween.
I haven’t experienced any dizziness, nausea or other major side effects that might occur after surgery. I’ve read that some people lose their sense of taste, experience ear numbness and other things I don’t remember right now. I am experiencing ringing in the ear (tinnitus) which I understand might happen after surgery and should go away over time. I am now used to this ringing / roaring sound because over the past couple of years it has been rather pervasive and, at times, quite loud and very distracting. I’ll spare you the history of my hearing loss progression and ringing / tinnitus and save it for another post.
Last night Roxanne removed the head dressing. I figured all of my hair under the bun would have been shaved away for the surgery but lo-and-behold only a small area was actually shaved. Note: all blogs about cochlear implant surgeries have before-and-after pictures; therefore, I felt compelled to follow suit and provide an obligatory photo of my head with mere flesh wound. If you see closely you can discern the gray hair which miraculously appeared after surgery (I was blonde-headed before surgery). 🙂
We ended the day by watching the beginning of the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. As majestic a movie without sound as with… I fell asleep before Frodo even left the shire…
I’m here typing away early Sunday afternoon. Another fitful night’s sleep behind me and another beautiful day ahead here in Columbia. I think we’ll take the puppy to the park so it can chew up some trees. I haven’t taken any pain medication since 5 AM and am feeling just… wait… maybe I need to take one pill now before going to the park. Although my pain threshold is very high, who knows how long we’ll be gone…?