The Surgery and My New Hairstyle

I am touched by how many of you have left comments and emailed me after my first blog post. Thank you! Along with wishes of support and excitement, many of you had questions. What exactly will the surgery do for me?

Well, as I already stated in my first post, a cochlear implant is not a cure. Rather, it is a piece of technology that will ultimately give me access to a greater range of sound frequencies. My current hearing loss limits my sound awareness to low frequencies, preventing me from hearing sounds like birds chirping, a person whistling, or certain letters of our alphabet. Advanced Bionic's new technology is impressive in that the number of outputs on the processor and implant have increased, enabling the device to pick up and transmit to me, a greater range of the natural spectrum of sound. With time and therapy, I will learn to decipher these new sounds so they become meaningful and recognizable for me. In the beginning, I will be asking "what is that sound?" a lot! Thankfully, Matthew is one of the most patient individuals I know.

While I'm excited for the days after the surgery, I'm nervous about the procedure itself. I have full confidence in my doctors that they will do an excellent job; that is not my concern. The greatest source of anxiety for me, personally, is that at the start of the surgery, my doctors will sever the remainder of my natural hearing. From that moment on, I will never have any normal hearing in my right ear again. I was telling Matthew the other day that I had this mental image of myself putting in my right hearing aid one morning a few weeks after the surgery..just out of habit...and after turning it on -- nothing will happen. My stomach does flip flops at that image...it's a scary thought for me.

Back to the procedure itself...the surgeon will drill a tiny tunnel through my skull to the cochlea of my ear. They will insert the electrode array (the implant) through the tunnel and place it in the cochlea. After the device is implanted, they stitch me up, bandage my head, and I'm done! Some of you have asked...and yes, they will shave some of my hair off. While a buzz cut is a small sacrifice to make, I'm still a girl, I'm still vain, and it will still make me grimace when I look in the mirror. =( But no worries -- it won't be nearly as dramatic as Brittney Spears.

After the surgery, I will be given a month to heal and then I return to John Hopkins for "activation day." On that day, they will turn on the implant in my head and I'll be using it for the first time. The whole idea of an "activation day" is kind of weird to think about; it'll be an interesting experience. When they turn it on for the first time, I will not have an "aha!" moment where I'll immediately be able to pick up the phone and call someone. Rather, it'll be a slow, gradual process of my brain learning to interpret these new sound vibrations.

So in a nutshell, that is what I have ahead of me for the next month or so. I hope this post gives you a better idea of what the surgery is about and what my first experiences will be. 15 days!

Love,
Becky