Did someone say orange jello?????

Hospitals are not the place to go if you need to rest.  We all know this.  Meds every four hours, vitals every four hours (but not the same ones as the meds - why? I don't know) and other interruptions to your rest.  That being said, my stay at hospital was uneventful and both Michael and the staff did everything they could do to keep me comfortable.

So first things first, a little tidbit that I learned on the aforementioned bed ride from surgery to the inpatient ward, alcohol swabs rock!  I know, this is not the tidbit you thought I would mention, but they do.  For some very strange reason, they help stave off nausea.  So picture my arrival into the hospital room with an alcohol swab perched delicately on the tip of my nose....I am sure I made at least one person giggle along the way.

But wait, you say, I thought cochlear implant surgery was an ambulatory procedure.  Well normally it is, and the original plan was to have me overnight in the PACU (post op ambulatory care unit) and leave bright and early in the morning.  These plans were foiled by my ossified labyrinth; the extra work and hours necessitated bed rest, an inpatient stay and observation.

So bed rest, not fun....but the beds they have at WRNMMC are interesting to say the least.  These beds have little magic fingers, its like those old motels where you could put quarters in the bed and it would vibrate or...anyway, every few minutes the bed would shift to relieve/prevent pressure points, AMAZING.  According to my nurse, they got these special beds with the influx of GWOT injured soldiers as so many of them were bed bound for so long. A nice little reality check for me and the struggles I was having that night.  Certainly put things into perspective for me (even though that was not her intention).

We arrived too late for dinner, really no problem for me, the thought of food just about made me want to get sick again. Anyway, after getting me settled a bit, the nurses' aide took Michael on a tour of the floor and the patient canteen.  This is when he brought back manna from heaven, nectar of the gods and whatever other superlative you can think of for amazing food, ORANGE JELLO.  He also brought water and ginger ale, but it is the orange jello that remains fixed in my mind.

Orange jello, it feels so good on a sore throat and you can actually taste it when your taste buds aren't quite working right, it was phenomenal.  So much so that Mike has made sure that I have it for the my at home recovery too :)

It is funny, the soreness and pain is not just at the incision and implant site.  I mean the part of my head and ear around the implant is sore, kind of like a horrible headache and ear infection combined and the incision hurts and pulls and I try to avoid having even my hair come in contact with it the external part of my ear, but there is also tenderness, sore muscles and bruising from whatever position I was trussed in for those seven hours in the OR.  This is the pain I wasn't expecting and seems to have bothered me the most.  The easiest way for me to describe it is that I feel like I have been in a car crash......Obviously my head was in some sort of clamp, I like to think of it as a vice grip because there is bruising right below my ear on my neck this is the spot I complain about most.  Imagine that, drilling about in my head for hours at a time and I am complaining about where they had me clamped.  It is what it is and each person is different, but this is what bothers me the most. 


The pain in my jaws and neck made chewing was particularly difficult as was opening my mouth very wide.  Hence the (should I say it again?  Of course....) ORANGE JELLO!  I will say the other hit was lunch, tried and true of third graders and convalescents alike, grilled cheese sandwich, tomato soup and a blueberry smoothie.   In case you wanted to know, it was a f'real smoothie (I kid you not - I even took a picture).  I know, I can't believe that I didn't take a picture of the orange jello, it was so important to me, but the f'real smoothie certainly tickled my (albeit sore) funny bone.  You just never know what you are going to find entertaining at the hospital....boredom and pain medication make for strange bedfellows.

 So after many "field trips" with Michael around the floor to get me sea legs back, a wet wipe bath (the ultimate in refreshing experiences, NOT), and a trip to radiology for a CT Scan where another lady as stylishly dressed as me, but hey she had pants, gown and robe....they hadn't given me in of that back (no fair!) in a wheel chair in the hallway waiting for "patient transport" told me "Nice Hair" came the visit we all had been waiting for, my ENT and surgeon came in for the last time, to check the incision site and write discharge orders -  YEAH! Even he liked my "hairdo" and complemented me, he said because of it, they didn't really have to shave much hair for the surgery.  So without making you wait any longer, I give you THE Cochlear Implant hairdo of the year.  I can not begin to tell you how long it took take these out, but they saved my hair, and to who ever put them in, you have my eternal thanks.

Finally, what all of this hard work by the doctors and nurses looked like on Wednesday night when I left the hospital.  It isn't pretty, but most of the scarring should be hidden by my hair as it grows back in.  It is only hair, and it will grow back.  All in all, a small price to pay for the chance at bilateral hearing again.

 

A special thanks to the night shift nurses on Wednesday, they worked doubly hard to get us out as a huge storm was coming and they wanted to get both Michael and I home safe and sound. :)