One Week post-second CI surgery, March 7, 2012

My recuperation from the second CI surgery is going pretty well. I do have some bruising on my face and some swelling along my jaw line.  I guess it took a while for the bruising to come to the surface. My newly implanted ear is definitely sore. I was cleaning the incision site before bed last night and somehow poked the cartilage on my ear above the incision site and literally saw stars. That did not feel good. A big ouch.

One of my CI veteran friends recently talked online about music, and mentioned listening to music using Spotify.  As someone who has never used a smart phone, or an i-pod, I was curious about Spotify. I downloaded the application on my computer, logged in and started listening to some oldies but goodies.  One was Seals and Crofts, "I'll Play for you." I had a flashback to a memory of listening to the song, "I'll Play for you," in the family room of my parents house.  The song ended, and my father came out of the bedroom and asked me to play that song again.  Together we listened to the song again, and surprisingly, my father really liked that song.  Growing up in a hearing family, the one constant in my life was music. Most of my friends are hearing, so I grew up with music in one form or another. It was a sweet memory, traveling back in time in my mind's eye to the family room, and listening to Seals and Crofts again.

I'm having Hearing Dreams again - all of which involve music. I am really glad to have discovered Spotify.  I am starting to recognize lyrics, and while the voices singing still sound scratchy, the lyrics are coming through and my brain is tuning in. I am going to enjoy hearing music in surround sound out of both ears. I can't wait for my i-pod Nano.  I plan to go shopping for one after Activation Day.

I am hopeful that I will be able to talk on an i-phone or the telephone without the aid of captioning one of these days. I'm not quite there yet, but I will be. I am pretty confident of that. It may not happen tomorrow, or next week, but the light is definitely there at the end of the tunnel.

I am just so hungry to hear more.  The fact that the Hearing Dreams have started again, tell me this.  My parents, had they lived today, would be so giddy with excitement for me.

I am so glad I went ahead and got a second CI, this time in my right ear.  I just really am so relieved that it is done.  Not because of fear or dread of the surgery itself, but because I don't like what is happening with health care.  I am unhappy with insurance companies finding ways to turn down people for cochlear implants and second cochlear implants. I just felt that I didn't have the luxury of waiting.

Activation Day is in 20 days.  Let the countdown begin!  Hearing is such a gift.