The BIG Day!

Hey guys,

I'm pretty dizzy writing this to y'all but I will try to catch you guys up.

We left on June 11th for Dallas to go to my pre-op appointment. Mom and I were surprised and excited to find out that instead of waiting 4 weeks to get activated, they wanted to go ahead and get me activated in 2 weeks, which is now about a week away. June 29th is activation day!!

For the rest of the 11th and most of the 12th, I had alone time with my mom and we went shopping and saw Snow White and the Huntsmen. I had a blast! My Dad, Tara, Memaw and Pepaw came on the 12th and we had some fun shopping and eating dinner with them. I have the most amazing family ever.

The next morning was the big day! I was very nervous and I could tell everyone else was too. The surgery was delayed about 2 hours so it was a very nerve racking long wait for all of us. Then the nurse finally called me back to prepare me for surgery.

Then I started feeling pretty loopy starting right here....

The last thing I remember is them giving me a big shot of something and moving to the operating room bed and them straping me down. Then I woke up in a room and all I could say was that my ears were ringing like crazy and they gave me medicine about three times before they said I was okay to move to another room. They gave me apple juice and graham crackers and I was happy with that because I was hungry. I was excited to see my Dad and Tara come around the corner looking for me. I was very happy to finally be out and to see my family.

Then the next thing I know the doctor comes in and checks on me and says that I was ready to go and that they put on my cochlear implant on in the operating room and he said it worked! I asked him about the ringing and if it was normal, and he said it's very normal and he said that it will probally last until activation day if not longer. He said that i'm used to hearing something so my ears are confused and are trying to hear.

I"m going to skip some things now because i'm very dizzy and my head is starting to hurt. I will give more things in detail in another post. In short words, i'm doing okay. I get sick to my stomach because of the dizziness and the ringing in my ears. The ringing feels like a music box has been opened in my ears and it won't stop. Yesterday, I felt car sick in the car but Mom says it's because of the ringing in my ears. I still don't feel comfortable driving. I sleep a lot but starting today i'm trying to stay up and fight the dizziness and ringing, it's hard but I can do it. I have caught myself trying to find my hearing aid and I have to remind myself that it's gone. It hasn't really hit me yet because it feels like i'm just sick. Tomorrow, I return to the real world and we will see how it goes.

1 WEEK

It's just about one week until my surgery for the CI. I am feeling the nervousness for sure, I am eating everything in sight haha! :( I am excited for the process to finally be here though. I am not nervous at all about the surgery itself, i'm more nervous about after and re-learning everything, but I am excited to hear new sounds that i've never heard before. There have been some misunderstandings and questions that I would like to clarify for you guys.

• I will NOT magically be able to hear as soon as the surgery is over. After surgery, I will be completely deaf with absolutely NO hearing for 4 weeks.
• Once it is activated (4 weeks later when everything is healed), I will be able to "hear" something. It won't be the same as what I hear now. It's going to be completely brand new to me. At first, it is going to sound a little computer like or like alvin and the chipmunks or something, I won't know. It's different for everyone. I will go back to Dallas every couple of weeks for them to tune it to a different "channel" every time and "map" it out until it is perfect. The time frame is different for everyone, but it can take up to a year until I am hearing perfectly.
• With that said, just because I can "hear" doesn't mean I will be able to "understand" what I am hearing. My ear will kind of be like a baby, and it is having to re-learn every sound that I am hearing because it is going to sound different. When they turn it on, I won't be able to understand everything like I can now.
• The first few months will be a roller coaster of emotions for me and everyone around me because i'm trying to match what voices go to what face, what sounds belong to what, and I will be hearing new sounds that i've never heard before. A guy told my mom that his mother (who got a CI a few years ago) broke down in tears when she found out that she was hearing a locust. She said that it was a beautiful sound, annoying, but beautiful. I've never heard that sound before either, so i'm excited for this new adventure.
• I have to be prepared for noise overload when I first get it turned on. A guy that has CI's told me that he could only handle two hours of having it on at a time because he had to process everything that he was hearing.
• My Memaw mentioned to me today about me never being able to hear a cooing baby and I am SO excited because I have a new baby cousin coming in December and I will be able to hear him/her coo.

If y'all have anymore questions, feel free to contact me. I really don't mind talking about it! Thank y'all again for the amazing support and the prayers. You guys are awesome! <3

FINAL DATE!

I (My Mom) got a call today from Dallas Ear and we set our final surgery date to be on

JUNE 13TH 2012!!!

I am estatic and RELIEVED to finally find out a date so now I can keep it in mind instead of always just stressing and wondering. I'm glad the DARS papers finally went through. Now I can focus on the surgery date and prepare myself for surgery. I'm still very nervous but super excited for the adventure ahead!

Again, thank you all for your support!!

Update (part 2)

I know I said I would update a couple of weeks ago... whoops.

The night of Gampie's funeral, I noticed that Maddie was acting weird by not eating and she was throwing up. I waited til morning to see if she just ate something weird, but she was still refusing to eat so I took her to the vet. The vet made her take a test to see if she has Parvo and it turns out, the test came out positive for Parvo. I cried in the vet's office while they gave her meds and an IV to make her stop throwing up and it gave her a day's worth of water. They wanted me to keep her in there, but it was very expensive and I thought she would be more comfortable at home. I took her home and I babied her back to health. I really don't think it was Parvo, I think it was some sort of weird dog flu or something. I took her to the vet on friday and she was back to eating soft foods by Sunday. I force fed her pedialyte every hour, day and night until she improved. It was hard to see her like that, but i'm glad she's okay. She ate soft food starting on Sunday then she went back to hard food by Friday. Here is a picture of my happy puppy now :)

A couple of weeks ago, Ami, Zach and I headed to Dallas for Warrior Dash. It was a blast! I didn't do as good as I was hoping, but I did good considering I had several asthma attacks during it. (lol) The water that we had to go through was so cold and that triggered a bad attack! It was fun though and this one was A LOT harder than the one that I ran last year in Dallas and the year before that in Austin. The obstacles were a lot harder and this one was a lot longer too. It was awesome!! Here are a few pictures of our weekend.

We also went rock climbing on Sunday. It was fun, I can't wait to get on the real rocks this summer! We were really sore after we finished, but dang, that's a good work out too, especially for your arms and legs!

I went to my meeting with DARS this last Friday and everything went okay. I still have to wait a couple more weeks for them to send the paperwork to the "El Paso" DARS then they will send the paperwork to the Dallas DARS then they should let the hospital know that they can schedule my surgery. It's really frustrating because I know if they had done everything right, I would have already had my surgery by now and that I would already be in the recovery process. I know everything happens for a reason and I will get it soon hopefully! At this point, I think the actual surgery will be in June.

Update (part 1)

Hello! It's been a crazy month and a half but I will catch you guys up.

I went to finish up my evaluations for the Cochlear Implant on March 16th. They did a balance test which was very weird. They had to put a video camera on one of my eyes and look at the movement of my eyes while they put hot and cold air in each of my ears and water in one of my ears. I also had to move in different positions too. Strangest test i've ever done in my life lol but it wasn't bad.

After that, I went to my therapist that I will be seeing every two weeks after surgery and the activation. She was very nice and helpful in my understanding of what I will be able to hear.. hopefully. She did some testing to see where I am in speaking and listening to people without lip reading. She said that I do very well in speaking and that she was very impressed with me. I didn't do very good on the listening part because I depend on lip reading now. She said that I will hopefully be able to hear almost as good as a "normal" person does and showed me the chart of where I am hearing now where the Cochlear implant "can" help me hear and it will be a dramatic difference but I do have to work hard to get there. She made me that much more excited and not so much nervous.

Then, we went to the psychologist. She pretty much just asked questions about my life and where I am. She had to make sure that I was able to handle the stress and changes that I will be going through once I get it. She also had to make sure that I had support behind me to help me through it. She said that I was a perfect canidate and that she had no doubt that I would benefit from it.

I passed all the evaluations and testing. Right now, we are STILL waiting on approval from the state (DARS). I am hoping to hear from them this week. We ended up having to call the supervisor of DARS to see what was the hold up and it was just a big mess. It's very stressful and i'm so ready to just KNOW and plus it's getting in the way of school because I am trying to figure out what summer classes to take compared to the fall, but I think we are finally getting closer to getting a surgery date. I will keep you guys updated and hopefully the mess will be sorted out SOON! Here are a few pictures of our trip and you can kind of see what the hospital looks like:

The morning after we came home from Dallas (March 17th), I got the sad news that my great-grandfather, Gampie, passed away. He was such an amazing man with a great and HUGE heart who could just make anyone smile even if he didn't know you. He was a successful man and I only hope to become a great person like he was. I'm glad that he is at peace and he is smiling down and watching over us with Gammie. I do still get sad when I realize he isn't here anymore and I cry over the smallest things that remind me of him, but mostly I remember the good times with him and i'm so blessed to be able to know my great grandfather for as long as I have. Here is a picture of us:

Well I think that's enough updates for one blog post. I will update the rest about Maddie and Warrior Dash tomorrow on another post! And again, I thank all of you guys for the wonderful support that I have gotten from you and all the prayers, thoughts, texts, emails and facebook posts that I have got from from you guys. All of you guys are seriously the best!!

BIG change and adventure coming my way

I just wanted to keep you all updated. I recently found out that my hearing is declining rapidly and I will not be able to hear out of hearing aids in the next couple of years. In spite of this information, I wanted to check out Cochlear Implants because I do want to hear at least SOMETHING and didn't ever want to even consider losing all of my hearing. This information leads to my next adventure in life.

 

 

 

Last Thursday, I went to my first appointment to the Dallas Ear Insistute in Dallas, Texas. (Thanks again Mom and Dad for taking me!:). They are the best hospital that specializes in Cochlear Implants. The hospital is amazing. The staff there is really nice and Dr. Peters is very positive and reassuring. They told me that I am a canidate and that I will LOVE my implants and wonder why I never got them sooner. They have absolutely no doubt that I will be able to hear MUCH better than I do with hearing aids and be able to hear sounds that I've never been able to hear before like birds that y'all say are so pretty to hear and the water dripping out of the faucet and some of the quiet and high pitched noises that I was never able to hear before. 

 

The surgery which will be done on the side of my head above my ear will most likely be done in May or June. The doctor said that he wants to do it in my better ear that I can hear with my hearing aid with, which means NO hearing aids or hearing at all for at least 4 weeks if not more. I won't be hearing my kind of "normal" for quite some time. I will be hearing anything and everything between robots and alvin and the chipmunks for the first few months. I'm very excited for the experience and the opportunity to be able to hear better than i've ever heard before because I've noticed that my hearing has gone down rapidly the last two years with my hearing aids. It will be a long hard road to learn and teach myself how to hear again and get used to the strange noises that i've never heard before, but I know I can do it with the HUGE support network I have behind me. I am honestly kind of scared to not have my hearing aids or the option of having them anymore after this but I know it will be worth it to hear the little sounds that make life even more enjoyable. I am also nervous about the recovery and the hard road of getting it back to normal and teaching myself how to hear again and therapy and things like that, but like I said, I have a huge support network behind me and I know that I can do it. I will be updating my blog on this information as a journal and keeping record of my experiences for my benefit as well as to keep my family and friends and you readers out there informed on how i'm feeling at the moment.

 

My next appointment is in March and it is a series of appointments to make sure that I can handle getting the implant which I have no doubt that I will pass and from there I will know more about when my surgery will be and things that I can do to make the recovery as easy as possible.

 

If y'all have any questions feel free to ask me!

Playing Catch Up!

Wow, it's been 4 months since my last post! hahaha... I'll catch you guys up and i'll add the pictures later when I get to my computer with all the pics on it.

Shortly after my last post, I was running with Ami a week before the half marathon that we had been training for, my knee popped and it hasn't been the same since. That entire month I took a break from running and jiu jitsu so I wouldn't hurt it further because it would hurt after I would bend it and I sadly had to miss my half marathon after trying everything from a knee brace to heating/icing it. We were thinking it was a displacement of the knee cap. I was really disappointed. After that month I decided that I wanted to focus on my love for running and save money and stress by not going to Jiu Jitsu and all the seminars and that definitely helped with my financial troubles. I do miss it, but I love running more. The knee brace that I got is helping keep the knee in place and all of our short runs has made it stronger. We are now currently training for a new half marathon in March so wish us luck! We are also planning on running in Warrior Dash in Dallas, will be going to Tough Mudder in November and who knows what other trouble we'll find and get into!

Ami, her husband Zach, and I have also decided that we're going rock climbing in March. This will be a first for me and I'm excited for a new adventure! I've climbed a rock wall before but it's been years and I remember being scared of letting go, but that will be the adventure part!

My dogs are doing great! Maddie is bigger, but she's not near as big as I thought she would be, she is still smaller than Marley and is very very vocal when she's angry at Marley! Marley has started this thing where she grabs her own tags on her collar and starts walking around and running into walls lol, that dog is trouble. They're still cute and wouldn't trade them for the world.

The house is now undergoing remodeling construction! YAY! We painted the office Turquoise and painted my desk yellow with brown curtains and it looks great in there! We recently got into the master bedroom and started tearing out the walls, ceiling, everything! The people before me did not know what they were doing so we are having to redo pretty much everything, but that's the part that makes it fun right?!

I had to go in and get hearing tests done to "confirm" that I was deaf so I could get new hearing aids from the state. I know... i've only been deaf ever since I was born right?! I guess they didn't believe me with all the paperwork I had on it. ;) I found out during the process that I lost quite a bit of hearing since the last hearing test I had. I was a little disappointed about it at first because I was a little scared about losing all of it, but I know that i'll continue on to greatness and I will figure it out once it happens. They have a lot of new advances out there and eventually they will have even more amazing ones! I love my hearing aids and I will continue to embrace having them until I get to that point. I got the email today that I have been approved for them and I'll be going to the next step into getting them. I hope I get them soon!

I also wanted to add that I am so grateful for my friends and family that has stuck with me through thick and thin, y'all know who you are. I'm loving our girls night and family nights and i'm enjoying life as I know it! I know the year 2012 will hold great things for all of us! That's all for now and I will add in pictures later... maybe ;)