Two Weeks Post-Surgery

Recovery from surgery is going well. I ended up taking the whole week off form work. I had thought I would try and go back the Thursday after. I probably could have, but Wednesday, I made trip to the store with my dad,  and even that short trip pretty much wore me out, so I decided to take a couple more days. Even with the full week off, the first couple of days back to work were pretty tiring. Here are a few more impressions and thoughts at two weeks post surgery:

-Apparently, I spent a lot of time in recovery. Typically, it’s one hour in recovery. Turns out I spent 3 hours, as they tried to get the pain under control. Luckily, I don’t remember much of that, and since then the pain has been minimal.

-The loss of the residual hearing in my right eat (expected) is both better and worse than anticipated. It’s a very different feeling, receiving no sound from that ear anymore. So far, however, it’s revealing how little difference it making when it comes to understanding speech.

-The swelling has largely gone down, and I think I’ve figured out where the implant is positioned. I haven’t tried on my bike helmet, as the incision and the ear are still a bit sensitive to touch, so I don’t know how it will interact with the helmet.

-The implanted ear feels stuffed, or full of cotton, some of the time (again, expected). At first it was all the time. Now, it just feels that way after I’ve been up and moving around for awhile.

-The tinnitus I have in that ear seems to have actually decreased right now.  A lot of people report a big increase after implantation.

 

-Taste is still off a bit on the right side. However, it seems more of a “burnt tongue” thing than anything. It doesn’t really seem affect how things actually taste, but taste doesn’t “linger.”

 

-My neck is still stiff and sore, mostly because I’m still sleeping entirely on my left side. The implant side is still too tender to let me sleep on my right side.

 

I go back to see the surgeon in about one week for the post-op exam. That should be a really short visit, since the incision seems to have healed well. Hopefully, he’ll also clear me to start biking again. I’ve been really bummed to have missed some really nice October biking weather this last week or so.  Activation is in two weeks on the 28^th.