A Month In, and 3 More Weeks To Go

After a month of having your hearing ability cut in half, one would think you'd get used to it, right? In a way I did adjust pretty well, but I hated being even more isolated. Friends and family were great about texting, calling, and visiting to keep my spirits up and I am thankful for that all the time. My husband was a champ too, helping me out when I struggled to hear conversations. He became a life line to me in public! I didn't really have to worry about people not knowing what I had done as I was (am) so excited about this technology that I pretty much told strangers about the Esteem and the possibilities it holds for the HoH. Everyone was empathetic. I'll tell you what, though, I actually began to think my hearing really wasn't so bad before now!

I was still dealing with total numbness of the right side of my scalp and ear, with the occasional nerve zaps in the upper lobe of my ear (I felt like the tip of my ear was being stung by 100 bees) but at least I knew that meant the nerves were waking up and I should get feeling back at some point. It drove me slightly batty though when my head itched and I couldn't relieve it from scratching over the numb area! I also still had very little taste which was so annoying. I could smell everything just fine, so when I put food in my mouth and it tasted like nothing, it was disappointing. I can't tell you how many times I forgot I couldn't taste! Eating is no longer an enjoyment, but purely just for nutritions sake.
What was starting to bother me the most though was my tinnitus. I have always had it to a degree, but suddenly in the last few weeks the ringing in my right ear became so loud I could hardly hear out of my left ear. I emailed Dr. Seidman about this and his suggestion surprised me. "Wear your right hearing aid, but don't let it get you down since you won't really hear anything". From what I understood, the idea was that the hearing aid should be able to pick up about 30-40 decibels of sound, not enough to hear, but enough to filter noise and diminish the tinnitus. It was worth a shot! I tried it and whether it was psychological or real, I felt it did kind of work! Who would have thunk it?

By this point, I am extremely impatient to have my ear activated. But there is a slight worry in the back of my mind that maybe it didn't work, since there was that slight hiccup during my surgery with my ossicular anatomy.
I am scheduled to return to work in just two weeks, so I will be half deaf for one week. That should be interesting! Not only will I have to speak up for some of my patients, but I'll have to ask them to do the same for me! Tit for tat!