Surgery For Me Tomorrow

[Guest guest]

Well - I've been quiet, I know. A lot has happened over the last

few months. One of which was a move to Savannah, GA. Among those

was the need to locate a new CI implant center capable of taking

care of my needs. I had my first appointment at MUSC in ton

the second week of October. My history had been explained via e

mail to them. A representative of the implant company was there

when I arrived. Their intent was to get the right side (newest) CI

working for me. Testing was performed and to my surprise (after

being told that my auditory nerve was dead in the past on that side)

we found that I got sound from one specific electrode. This

prompted additional testing and it was found that only 3 of my

electrodes were working. There are a total of 24 - two of which are

ground electrodes. When only 3 work, the implant is not

functional.

Tomorrow morning, I will have yet another CI surgery to replace the

implant on the right making a total of 4 now. As a reminder - the

left was implanted incorrectly in 1999 and I only get residual

hearing from it. This causes vibration of the semi circular canal

which is believed to be the reason I have such difficulty with

equilibrium and visual distortion.

I never dreamed that I would be going in to do this again. Surgery

is tough on me as it is on all of us but the other issues are

worse. I long to have some normalcy of balance and visual issues.

The loss of these are truly life altering.

Cindy is here so I'll leave it to her to update you after the

surgery. In the meantime, I'm still here for all of you with as

much as I can offer at this time.

Alice