Listen: there's a hell of a good universe next door, let's go

Yesterday was exactly two weeks from surgery.  The incision is healing and the sutures are beginning to dissolve.  The pain is almost incidental now, not at all sharp and so sporadic that it really doesn't matter anymore. I'm still very aware of the implant in my head, but I suspect that will take a little longer.   I've just realized what an act of trust this surgery was on my part.  I really didn't research it much - I was focusing on the devices for the most part, because I had to choose between them.  It never occurred to me to look into what the surgery involved, or to do anything other than to trust Dr. H - and that trust has certainly been justified. But what a surgery it is.  I found implantation videos online, and I found the instructional booklet that the device manufacturer sends with each kit.  I was blithely assuming that the kits were just the devices, the implant and the processors and all the little bits and bobs, but there are tools and fixturing

One week post-surgery and I'm still feeling weird.  Not horrible, and nothing that even prevents me doing anything, I've begun exercising again and all in all considering the activity in my head a week ago this morning I am not at all surprised at a low-grade headache and a sort of ongoing lightheadedness.  We called the doctor today to ensure that it was nothing unexpected, and it's not. So I'm going to go back to work on Monday.  There's nothing there that's any more strenuous than what I'm doing here, and I need some focus.  Of course the guy at the company that administers medical leave absences for us isn't answering calls; I mean, who DOES work on Friday after lunch, right? My husband called them once for me and my friend B at work called two or three times, and yet the guy who's supposed to clear me for work didn't think it was necessary to be available. I'll go in anyway, but jeez.  It's bad enough that the pdf of paperwork

I have an activation date!  May 9.  I'm not sure I can sit still that long, but even if I get a little wiggly the date will arrive! I wouldn't have thought I could continue to get excited but here I am.  Whoohoo!

This morning when I woke up I had a new symptom:  my equilibrium is affected.  I had heard on one of the online forums that this is a common side effect, and several people said that it occurs on the third day after surgery. This is the third day after surgery, and here it is.  I was sort of hoping to avoid this part and to find my own path to recovery, but I guess not.  At least I'm told that it's relatively short-lived, and actually it's not as bad now as it was very early this morning.   Just another thing to get through.

I'm now two days post-surgery.  The pain has subsided quite a bit - it feels tight and a little itchy but for the most part it's manageable.  It mainly hurts when I turn my head (the neck muscles are connected to the head bone, I guess) and I have a new habit:  when I'm in bed and want to move my head I slip my hand under it and lift it so that the neck muscles don't activate the pain. But mostly it's healing much more quickly that I thought it would.  I'm still a little woozy and I suspect that Dr H was right to tell me to stay home this whole week.  I had a temperature of 100F for the first day after surgery but it's gone back to normal and stayed there since yesterday afternoon. The tinnitus in the implanted ear has ratcheted up, but from what I hear on the CI forums, that's normal and will become background noise again once I'm activated.  It's worse when I lie down so at least when I go back to work for the few weeks before activation I

Had my surgery this morning:  it went well with no unexpected issues or problems.  I'm at home now with a thing like a hubcap over my right ear and the surgical site.  The staff at the surgery center was great:  when I arrived and got checked in (and had to say at least four times that I was there for cochlear implant surgery on my RIGHT ear) I was given a gown, and it was MY gown!  I was on the product development team for a surgical patient gown that maintains normothermia.  For the first eight years or so I managed the contract manufacture of the product as well.  It's currently not manufactured through my site anymore, but it's still my gown and I loved having one. The nurse had trouble getting my IV in - my veins are hard to find sometimes and (she said) the one in the back of my hand was jumping around when she tried to get the needle in.  I think I have a really smart circulatory system, I mean, if someone comes at you with a needle wouldn't you jump?  She tr

So this morning I had my call from the surgery center nurse.  It was fine - she speaks clearly and loud enough and once I asked her to slow down a bit we did just fine.  We are good to go. Tonight I have to take a shower and then wash my entire self from the neck down with an antiseptic skin cleanser, TWICE.  Then I do that again in the morning.  Apparently we are Not Having Skin Germs in my incision. And then we go up to the U. Next post I'm going to have a big bandage over my right ear! 😃😊

Going to correct my retraction now.  After worrying way too much about this last night I called (with the help of another colleague) InsuranceCo again this morning and got someone who actually went out of her way to not only confirm that a) the University of Minnesota clinic I'm going to is in-network, and b) I didn't need to get the pre-authorization that I got, and even said c) that for the purposes of this claim I would be regarded as an individual because our policy is employee +1 and not truly a family policy.  So according to this person, my maximum out of pocket should be the original $5400 and not the $10,800 I was expecting after looking at the website, and definitely not the $21,600 it would have been if it had been out of network. The first two things are in writing in a letter to me.  The maximum out of pocket isn't, so we'll see.  But I'm done worrying about it.  Que sera, sera, right?

If this is going to be a record of my CI journey I guess I require an update today:  turns out we were correct about the general structure of my coverage but wrong about the amounts.  My deductible is $5400.  My maximum out of pocket is $10,800.  Luckily we can come up with it; between a little bit of bait and switch with the HSA (we can move a certain amount to next year's spending, and my husband is really good at that sort of thing) and my bonus and our tax refund we will be okay. A lot of people wouldn't, though, and I find that dismaying, that there are people who have to forgo getting something this beneficial because of their insurance coverage, or lack of it.   But I'm glad to be one of the lucky ones.

So most of the last month or so I've been waiting on insurance authorization, which duly came through and we scheduled the surgery and so forth.  But I became curious as to why my surgeon heard from them and I didn't - I mean, it's not HER out of pocket maximum we're concerned about here. So I went to InsuranceCo's website and damned if I didn't have a message.  It was not, mind you, exactly accessible because I don't speak their language, which only looks like English.  But I shot off a response asking for clarification (which is to say, what's this going to cost me?) and received back more unintelligible benefits gibberish. Time for the expert:  I emailed our plant HR manager, who lives with feet in both camps and is usually able to translate, and she was somewhat mystified too.  Either this was out of network but treated like in-network, or not.  Depends.  So yesterday the two of us called InsuranceCo (because B can hear on the phone) and we spoke

Today I had my pre-op checkup.  This involved the lab taking four (!) vials of blood and a urine sample, and an EKG - another first for me, I've never had an EKG before.  And I have my second pneumococcal meningitis vaccine ordered (though I can't get it until late May or so) and had some discussions with my doctor about the surgery and possible risks.  He suggested that part of the reason that they may do this as outpatient is because it's generally safer to recover at home:  the potential infections that you can get in the hospital are worse than what you can get at home. I can live without MRSA so I'm fine with that.  Past experience tells me that getting the kind of rest that you might want after a surgical procedure is difficult in the hospital -unless I was lucky this time and got a private room -  years ago I was in the hospital for three days after surgery and ended up begging the attending to let me go home.  They were talking about having me stay for an extr