Going Bilateral: CI SURGERY II

In only 8 months, Brandt has gone from Nearly Earless to Bilateral Cyborg.

Preparation for the second surgery was minimal. No 6-hour drive to Dallas for a second opinion, no long discussions about whether he should go for it or not, and I haven't spent hour upon conflicted hour crying and binge-watching 30 Rock to keep my mind off my fears. We've been here before, it's old news, and instead of being terrified I was surprisingly calm about it. Brandt always seems calm, so it was hard to tell his exact feelings.  The only difference in prep this time was a VNG Balance Test, which is required for all patients getting a second CI.  Brandt spent several hours wearing special goggles that tracked his eye movements as he looked at dots, and had air puffed in his ear to see how he responded. The ear about to be implanted didn't do as well as the already-implanted ear, and his results were near the cutoff of failing, but he passed and Dr. Awesome wasn't concerned.

On the morning of May 28 we checked in to Outpatient Surgery at 9:00 AM. The waiting room was PACKED, which was odd because last time we were the only ones there. We saw Dr. Awesome power-walk back and forth through the waiting room several times, as the hours dragged on.  Brandt was finally called back at 11:00 for surgery prep, and I followed half an hour later. Dr. Awesome talked to us about Brandt's progress being dragged down by the nonimplanted ear. He said that this happens sometimes, it's "an issue with the integration of being bimodal." He explained that it's like trying to see with one contact and one glasses lens, and the brain can't integrate the two.  Then he said "It's time for the left ear then. Let's get this done." I said "Good thing we're already here!" After another 20-plus minutes Brandt was wheeled off to surgery.

Surgery began at 1:12 PM and I expected him to be done by 2:30, since last time he was done in exactly one hour. I gave a little more time in my estimate since Dr. Awesome says it takes "exactly 90 minutes." By 2:45 I was starting to get antsy, and when Dr. Awesome finally came through the door at 3:00 I was getting worried. I couldn't tell if he looked upset or exhausted (Brandt was the fourth surgery of the day instead of the second like last time). He said everything went fine so I breathed a sigh of relief. He said that Brandt should do much better with two CIs, reiterating that "once they adjust to the implant, that natural hearing is just blah."

I knew from the previous surgery that Brandt was going to be pretty out of it when I was called back to get him ready to leave. I thought he seemed more lucid than last time but he mumbled "Why do I feel so much worse this time?" He had a male nurse who I asked for assistance in getting Brandt up and dressed (he couldn't use the "need for privacy" as an excuse like the female nurse had used last time). He was very helpful and Brandt tapped him on the arm to slur "You are a much better nurse than who I had last time." Brandt kept saying that he felt worse than before and was in more pain. I was confused because he actually seemed to be doing better.  We got him loaded in the car and of course it started raining, just as it had last time.  It took almost two hours to get home in the rush hour traffic, a drive that takes 45 minutes at less congested times of the day.

Brandt continued to say that he didn't know why he felt so awful, and took a lot more pain medicine than the first time. The next day he casually mentioned that his calf was sore, and I immediately called the hospital to see if we needed to rush to the emergency room, as this could be a sign of a blood clot. He also e-mailed Dr. Awesome's assistant and she echoed what I was told on the phone, that unless he developed other symptoms we shouldn't worry. Then the day after that, I got another shock when the bandage was removed. It had basically fallen off since it wasn't wrapped onto his head very tightly, and when it came off there was a golf ball sized lump behind his ear.  Googling "swelling after CI surgery" resulted in conflicting advice that swelling is both 'completely normal' and 'cause for alarm.'  I waited until first-thing this morning to e-mail Dr. Awesome's assistant (again) to ask if we needed to come in to the office. She asked me to send her a picture of the swelling--can you believe the Age of Technology we're living in?!--and said that yes it was swollen but there was nothing they could do about it in the office, so just make sure he continued to sleep upright and the swelling should subside.

I honestly don't see how this massive Ball-of-Swelling is going to go down enough in one week for activation to be possible...