Revisitation

December 20, 2012, the day finally came!  It was a day of mixed emotions, as I was really looking forward to having this surgery.  Something interesting had happened a week earlier, the original doctor who did my first Right CI surgery, passed away.  It was weird because not only he passed away, but his work was soon going to be removed from my head and replaced with something better.  I am a bit of a superstitious person, so I saw this as a good sign.  

My brother arrived that morning and took me to the outpatient center at UCSD in Hillcrest.  I was so thankful he could come and help me out, even though I had friends nearby, I felt it was more of a family that I would rather be around.  So as we were waiting patiently in the room for the doctor to arrive, she finally did, and things just go more surreal!  No doubts in my mind I had second thoughts of canceling the surgery.   I was so ready to go forward and was open to new experiences.  I was even prepared for if anything happened, especially facial nerve damage.  Having that inner peace with myself made me look forward to this surgery.

The doctor finally came, and we met briefly to go over the surgery, she had told me her back up plan in case the first original plan did not work out.  The original plan was to remove the old implant and place a new one in the same way with a single electrode- which is what most people with CI's have.  The back up plan was to do the dual electrodes.  This meant that she would have to drill another hole in my cochlea as well as removing a little bit more bone around the area.  The reason she had this back up plan due to seeing some scar tissue in my cochlea on the CT scan.  An excellent doctor is someone who has alternative plan regardless of how well the original plan will go.  She knew from the moment she met me my concerns on my facial nerve and the complications- so she really respected that. 

As I walked into the operating room, got on the table and the nurses hooked me up onto all these machines.  I watched the team have a debriefing, and then I was out for the next 3-4 hours.

A few hours later, I woke up, and the very first thing I remember was the doctor came up to me, gave me the thumbs up assuring me everything went well.  She asked me to smile big by gesturing me to smile, so I did.  I could feel that everything was intact.  As the doctor watched me smile, I vividly remember her giving me the double thumbs up and was cheering along with everyone else on the team in the room.  It was the most awesome feeling I have ever had! 

As I got wheeled into the recovery room, I looked at the clock, and it had been nearly 7 hours!  I was shocked because obviously it was not the time I was expecting to be done.  Here's a picture of me post-surgery.  It's a joke in our family that we do pictures of ourselves in the hospital and share with other family members as proof we are okay :)

My brother told me the reasons why the surgery took so long.  There were some complications such as a lot of scar tissue.  And as prepared, the doctor ended up going with plan B with the dual CI.  She was very delicate in her work as to watch out for the facial nerve as she found it was exposed as stated in my 1991's operation notes. 

I am so happy the surgery went well and that I have such a wonderful surgeon!  I am so thankful and cannot wait for the real results which come on January 31, when I am cleared for mapping.  I trust everything will go well, and I am beyond excited to hear well again!