Friday morning, I had a minor procedure to relocate my right Esteem. Admittedly, it's hurt quite a bit more than I expected, but I'm doing very well. The whole surgery experience was great this time! After my surgery last December, I was pretty nervous about dealing with the surgery center again, but they actually filed the right paperwork with insurance this time and all of the nurses were wonderful. I even had the same pre-op nurse and anesthesiologist that I had for both of my other surgeries. I begged both of them to NOT let Dr. S remove the implant, even if it was infected or doing damage. That was my big fear! When Dr. Shohet arrived at the surgery center, he was pretty shocked at how bad the skin around the implant looked. See, the implant and somehow come loose inside my head and moved to the back of my neck. It should be just behind and above my ear. He confirmed that it was "mobile" and needed to be moved. In fact, he said if we had waited much longer, the skin would have broken. I can't even imagine how awful that would have been! They gave me the option of being sedated instead of using general anesthesia, but Dr. S wasn't sure what he would have to do, so we went with general. Fortunately, they used a much lighter dose this time and I woke up really easily. The post-op nurse was wonderful and gave me 3 cans of apple juice so I didn't pass out this time either! :) She also gave me plenty of pain medicine via IV, unlike the awful nurse I had last year who refused to give me pain meds or juice.
In surgery, Dr. Shohet did not even disconnect the wires on the implant. He didn't have to drill out more space in my skull either. Basically, he just opened up the same incision and moved the sound processor back to where it was originally, but this time he stitched it to the bone. I didn't know that was possible, but apparently it is. :) He did say there was no sign of infection but some of the fluid was cloudy so he took a sample just to make sure. The device stayed on the entire time and I woke up hearing out of it. We came home that day and I felt really good. Yesterday, I was pretty groggy and sore but the pain meds are helping a lot. I am only taking Tylenol for pain today because I have to go direct the church choir in a few minutes, but I feel pretty ok. Interestingly enough, this feels a lot like my first surgery. My throat hurts, my neck is sore and I'm really swollen, but I'm so grateful that I can hear. It's absolutely worth it! As you can see, my head already looks MUCH better.
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| In recovery |
