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I’m back at home now. The whole thing took 24 hours almost to the minute.

The staff at Sunnybrook Hospital were all great, especially the night-shift nurse, Janet Scott. And, of course, the surgical team but I have to admit I saw little of them and heard even less.

I’m feeling pretty good now. There’s not much pain and what pain I have is probably less than the typical earache. I’m wearing my hearing aid in my left ear but nothing in my right ear (the implanted ear). I can understand Barb fairly well with my left ear plus lip-reading but it takes a bit more concentration than before and I have to cock my left ear towards her.

I do have some ‘side effects’, none of them unexpected. I’m told that these should go away in a few days:

• My balance is off, especially if I move my head up and down. Left to right is not so bad. I’ll have to be very careful going up and down stairs.
• There’s some taste disturbance. For example, a tangerine tastes like a tangerine on the left side of my mouth but like piece of rag on the right side.
• I have some tinnitus (noises) in my right ear. I normally have some tinnitus in both ears and it comes and goes. It’s usually peeps, clicks and whistling noises. But this is a new noise: a deep pitched hum that comes and goes.

After getting home, I had a shave. My electric shaver is very loud so I usually turn off my hearing aids while shaving. Usually I can still just hear the shaver when I shave close to each ear. Not today! The right ear doesn’t hear a thing. So now I’m completely and totally deaf in my right ear and it will stay that way until January 30th when the external processor is connected and turned on. A bit scary.

Some Photos





A 'before' picture. Short haircut as I won't be able to wash it again for a week or so.




The assistant surgeon (sorry, I didn't get his name) drew some things on me to make sure they don't do the wrong ear in their excitement to get going. Ironically, this is the electronic symbol for amplifier.




OK, this is a bit gross. But it will start to look better soon. The staples will come out on Jan 28th. The yellow stuff is some sort of disinfectant. The electronics are somewhere under the shiny bit. I can't even feel a bump or anything so far. There may be a small bump after the swelling goes down.




My brain huuurts!