I'll be CI-ing you, but not so soon.

I apologize for the recent disappearing act. Believing I had reached a brief lull in my case load, I volunteered to take on an extra appeal. My case load immediately took insult, and let me know quite forcefully that it had no intention of lulling. The extra case, however, turned out to be quite fascinating, and gave me an opportunity at last to explore the intricacies of federal sentencing in the post-Booker* universe.

In the midst of this un-lull, I have also been trying to figure out what coverage my insurance company will offer for the cochlear implant surgery, and what my out-of-pocket exposure might be. I wasted hours of time going around and around in incomprehensible circles with customer service reps and hospital lackeys, and had to break down in tears in order to get concrete answers to my very simple questions. Ultimately, the answers to those questions turned out to be equally simple: my share of the surgery will be quite a chunk of change.

Steve and I have weighed pros and cons, examined the budget, and compared options, and we’ve concluded that the potential benefits of the CI are well worth the expense. The question thus becomes, when to go under the knife. I have Tenth Circuit arguments scheduled for early March and early May, and don’t relish the prospect of facing oral argument while still adjusting to a new mode of hearing. Nor am I eager to undergo the surgery during the summer. Although my CI-veteran friends assure me that the surgery-related downtime is minimal, I hate the thought of losing any climbing, triathlon, or other outside adventure time to recovery.

That takes us to autumn, or possibly early ‘07. I had anticipated having a significant schedule conflict this fall, but it now appears that has been eliminated. As eager as I am to proceed, I think Steve and I both will have more time to focus on the post-surgery learning process a few more months down the road. Because success with a CI depends in substantial part on the user's commitment to doing hearing exercises and undergoing regular mapping sessions during the months after surgery, it seems wiser to do the procedure during a slightly less chaotic stretch of time.

In the meantime, I return to the clinic on March 1, for a final round of testing and an initial consultation with the surgeon. I also have to undergo a CAT scan, so that the surgeon has an accurate map of my inner ear. Once those steps are accomplished, I hope we’ll be able to schedule the surgery.

I’ll keep you posted!

*United States v. Booker, 543 U.S. 220 (2006) (finding mandatory federal sentencing guidelines unconstitutional and excising certain provisions of the Federal Sentencing Act).

Comments

[michelle]

Mad, I'll be having my next surgery in Oct/Nov because I too don't want to miss any climbing or other summer fun stuff. We can make our boys wait on us and foot while "recovering" (i.e. watching DVDs of Lost or something we never have time for otherwise). I'm not supposed to climb for 6 weeks but I'll be lucky if I can wait 4 weeks.