By late afternoon, the day before the surgery, my parents and I drove against Odense with the hospital as a target. My parents followed as caregivers and to drive me home after the surgery, when I would not be able to do that myself.

We started driving to the hotel my parents had to stay on through the 2 nights we figured it would take before I could get home. Then we found an Asian restaurant in Odense, where we enjoyed ourselves with some good food.

The time was now 20:00 where I was asked to appear at the hospital. I was meeting the night before, because I had to be prepared for the surgery, which would take place in the morning Thursday, October 6th.

The main preparation consisted of a shaving of area behind and above the ear. In my case behind both ears as I will get a double-sided surgery simultaneously.

When I, as it has appeared in my first blog post, has let her hair grow since about beginning of November 2015, I feared a little how it would look. As seen in the picture, it was a rather “interesting” look with her hair up. My mother thought I look like a sumo wrestler on the picture, which I can see she is right about. In the picture, the hair is only set up because the nurses on the ward thought it should be like for the sake of the surgery.

 

Usually my hair just hang down, and then the cutting actually isn’t visible, which you can see in this photo taken today – i.e. after the operation. So luckily it was not so bad with the haircut.

After a good night’s sleep at the hospital, I had to make myself ready with bath and hospital clothes in the morning. The message was that I would be driven down to the surgery room just before 8.00 AM.

Approximately half an hour before, comes the nurse in and introduces me to an accompanying medical student. The medical student who would follow me that day, and thus attend the surgery, started to greet and ask me what I think of the course until then, the arrival at the hospital, and so on.

The porter came as scheduled and drove me down to the surgery room. With the bed parked just outside, came both surgical nurses, anesthetist and the doctor who would do the surgery on me, and greeted me.

Then it was time that I had to walk in and lay down on the surgery couch, the nurses and anesthetist made me ready. Down here, they felt the knot my hair was put up in was unnecessary and would only make me lie bad on the couch. So away with it – they would put the hair to the side during the surgery! Shortly after I felt drowsiness get rolling from the drop in my hand – I asked whether it is now? They replied in the affirmative and gave me the mask for the mouth. I took a few deep breaths … and remember no more …

… The surgery was now underway!

I wake up again, and is now at the recovery ward. Here is no clock visible from where I lie, so I have no sense of time has passed. But I feel relatively fresh, and not used up of the surgery I have just been through. So I were really just awaiting to be driven back to the living room perched on the ward.

At one point, I feel at my ears to know how my dressing sits. It is actually only large patches behind the ears. In the right ear I have a cotton ball, and the left … hey what is this? I feel now that they have given me hearing aid on, without however, I hear something! I took it off, and discovered that there is no battery in it – haha, it must have fallen out in an attempt to turn the unit off during the surgery.

Later, when the porter get me, I lie and think about if the trip back will be bad because of dizziness. I felt just a little bit at the elevator up, and therefore closed my eyes, as you will do in the bunk at sea, to avoid seasickness. It was mostly a deterrent, and I did not feel nausea or discomfort in general.

As we roll into the room, I can see the clock displaying 2.15 PM – So it is almost 6½ hours after I was taken away in the morning. Therefore, it is probably fair to assume that the surgery itself took well over a couple of hours per ear.

Then I wrote a text message to my parents, to inform them that I am back, and that therefore they could visit me again. When they arrived, we were talking about the day that has passed. With talk meant that I solely lip readed since I do not have the hearing aid on longer! We therefore also spoked about what might have happened with the hearing I had before the surgery. To my own surprise, I can still hear the sound when I tamper with the left ear, just as it sounds surprisingly usually when I chew on something. We therefore found a new battery for my hearing aid so I could test my hearing with it. It turns out that I actually hear little, but compared to before the volume is turned down – not on the hearing aid, but in my ear. Curiously, however that certain offensive sounds are apparent. There obviously happened things in my ear!

But the sound is so weak that I do not use the hearing aid now – everything is done by lip reading, which of course is more difficult but also more tiring. Are there any words I do not understand, we pick a block of paper and keywords are written down, so I understand the context.

In the recovery ward, I had a little annoyance that I could not keep my head right but that it would repeatedly go left. It is evidently the pillow with memory foam, which had made a hole to the left of me, but refused to rectify the right. Therefore, I now asked as one of the first, if the nurse could get another plain pillow. Ahh – it helped! Now I could lie properly.

But exactly the pillow should nonetheless give me some irritation later in the evening as it pressed against the wounds on both sides, so it was hard to find rest. This weren’t truly solved until I got some more painkillers. This is clearly the worst thing to undergo surgery on both ears at the same time as it actually is only possible to be exactly right on your back and look straight up. It will hopefully be easier and less painful over the next days!

At a time when it’s time for a toilet visit, I will be out of bed for the first time. I called a nurse to monitor and support me if I get very dizzy. Precisely dizziness is one of the normal side effects of a CI-operation and especially when it is both ears at the same time, since it is the body’s center of balance affected. So exciting it is when I get up. But already here, and after the first few steps, I can feel that it is not a problem for me. And so it still is at the time of writing, as long as I move quietly, avoiding rapid or sudden movements of the head. Therefore, it is only the first few times I were followed by a nurse. The rest of the time until I left next day, I did move around on my own without problems.

Otherwise, I only had a problem with the dressing on the left side leaked a few times during the evening, so the blood ran down my neck. The dressing was regularly replaced and enlarged to solve the problem. It ended up getting a bit big and annoying, but better that than to bleed constantly.

The next day, Friday, October 7 at the rounds, I talk with the doctor who did the surgery on me and as there were nothing special to note, I could go home he said. The doctor also took the dressing of both sides. It now looks nice, and do not bleed anymore.

Then I only awaited that my parents have handed the hotel room and drove to the hospital.

When everything were packed, we said goodbye to the staff and headed home. Incidentally I thank all staff at Odense University Hospital for very friendly and welcoming treatment.

The trip home fortunately also went fine, and no problems with dizziness. Back home, I relax and recuperate after a successful surgery. The next step is to remove staples from the wounds in a week’s time when they hopefully are nicely healed. And later – November 3, 2016, will be the exciting day when I must return to Odense and having my new CI processors ( “hearing aids”) connected for the first time!