The CAT scan went smoothly, but when I got up from the table I was hit with a wave of dizziness and nausea that took several minutes to subside. I laid back on the table and the technician propped my feet up and added cold compresses to my forehead and to the back of my neck. I felt a bit on the queasy side for much of the rest of the day (yesterday).
Early on in this process, shortly after I requested to download a document from the Cochlear™ web page, a Cochlear representative sent me an introductory email, asking about any questions I may have. Her name is Jessica Eggleston and she signs her messages with the title ‘Concierge.’ I’ve only responded briefly to her messages – and have never mentioned her to any of the folks at Hearts for Hearing. Her first email came July 1st; thankfully, they come only periodically and not on a regular schedule. Yesterday, mid-morning (about an hour after I got home from the CAT scan), I had another message from her, the first since the latter part of September, kind of a ‘checking in’ note. I responded that I am scheduled for surgery and gave her the date for surgery and for the activation date and the related follow-up sessions.
I was surprised today to get another note from her, introducing one Kasey Urbina, whose will be my Cochlear™ Recipient Solutions Manager. She said that Kasey “is here to educate and empower you to get the most out of your Cochlear equipment and achieve your hearing goals. Kayse will be your new personal point of contact once your surgery is complete and you have joined our Cochlear Family of implant recipients.” Evidently, Cochlear™ has regional managers like this; Kasey is the manager for the Texas-Oklahoma region. The email continues: “Kayse teaches small group educational sessions and also meets one-on-one, all in a virtual setting with captions available. She is very helpful, and is a great resource!”
This is the exact sort of thing that I am expecting to receive from Hearts for Hearing. At this stage of the process, nobody has ever mentioned any sort of representative from the company being available for anything like this. I guess I’m pleased that they offer the service, but it was a complete surprise. I will definitely mention it to my audiologists (HA and CI) at Hearts for Hearing and see if they are aware of it and, if so, if they recommend it. Come to think of it, I will also check with members of a couple of the Facebook support groups I belong to. They will all have opinions to share, I am certain. J
I plan to make a ‘Hearing Update’ on my Facebook page sometime this week, ahead of surgery. It won’t be much, just a note to let friends know of the surgery, the activation, the follow-ups, and what I expect to be doing between the date of surgery and the date of activation. Those four weeks will be really weird, with one ear heavily bandaged, for a few days at least, and the use of a hearing aid in the other. I already have major problems understanding much of anything when I am using both hearing aids; I am certain that the use of only one will not be very helpful – not at all! At this moment, my plan is to ‘lay low’ for those four weeks and avoid going out much. I plan a four-week vacation from church, but will return as soon as my CI is activated, so I can begin trying to make sense of the sounds it will generate in my brain.
What I’ve learned about living with a CI, especially for senior citizens, is that we will be working every day, during our waking hours, with audio rehabilitation, always listening and always trying to improve our ability to understand what it going on around us. I suppose that there is a point at which improvement weakens, or stops altogether, which is common with some other types of surgeries. In all the reading I’ve done about it, though, nobody has suggested that the rehab efforts ever end.
