blind insight

I feel great.

Sometime during the course of the weekend, while we were hiking and climbing and camping and drinking and relaxing, my right ear finally stopped feeling congested and weird.

I was a little more wobbly than normal while navigating approaches and walk-offs, but I felt strong and competent on the rocks and had an awesome time pushing myself in the tough cracks at Turkey Rocks. I also did yoga this morning, and didn't have any more difficulty with the balancing poses than I usually do two-eared.

The great big scab behind and above my ear is almost entirely healed.

I'm all ready to start hearing with this thing tomorrow!

Much, MUCH better.

I have truly turned the corner in my recovery from surgery. I felt nearly normal all day yesterday, and even went for an easy swim with Michelle after work. Tonight I’m planning to climb at the gym, and I’m looking forward to a camping and climbing trip, and hopefully a day of triathlon training, over the upcoming holiday weekend. I am pretty sure that by next Wednesday, when the implant is activated, I will be done with the healing process and can focus on the hearing process.

I keep forgetting to mention that having only one working ear hasn’t been as difficult as I feared. It does make me a little nervous when I’m walking around alone, and it makes it hard for me to regulate my voice on the phone, when I have my hearing aid turned to the telecoil function and can’t hear anything outside the phone, but I’m not having much trouble hearing people in normal conversational settings. The biggest problem, and one I hadn’t anticipated, is that any loud-ish background noise completely overwhelms all other sound.

For example, if I’m in a loud restaurant, or outside in a high-traffic area, all I can hear is the conversational buzz or the roar of passing cars. Given that nothing is different about my left-ear hearing aid, and that I previously heard almost nothing in my right ear, this is a strange and interesting discovery. I guess that when I had two functioning ears, I was able to absorb a fair amount of background noise in my right ear, which couldn’t understand speech anyway, freeing my left to do more of the auditory heavy lifting. With the right ear out of commission, the left ear has to hear EVERYTHING, and it isn’t capable of filtering out much of the background noise on its own. This is fascinating, and it has me very curious to see (or, well, hear) how this phenomenon is affected by the initial activation.

Much better.

Today was much better. I’m still dizzy and queasy, and I spent most of the morning hacking up globs of blood again. But I had virtually no pain all day, despite taking only two Tylenol first thing this morning and nothing else for the rest of the day.

I returned to my office today, and was able to file a brief, catch up on correspondence, and make some progress in researching the next brief on my docket. It felt good to get back into my normal routine, and I appreciated how solicitous of my well-being everyone in the office was today.

Also, my doctor has cleared me to resume exercise as soon as I feel up to it, and has assured me that everything I’m experiencing is normal. I’m planning to climb on Wednesday night with my regular climbing crowd, which surely will do wonders for my mood. I’m starting to feel better about the whole CI experience already.

Two steps backwards.

I've had a rough couple of days. Yesterday, a glorious, sunny, Saturday, we went downtown to stroll around the Farmer's Market and the Pearl Street Mall. I wasn't feeling great when we left, but figured the fresh air would help. Alas, no. After an hour or two of feeling sharp, spasmodic pains around the implant every few seconds, I was dizzy and nauseated and fighting back tears. Steve got me home before I totally fell apart, and I spent the rest of the day on the couch.

By early evening, the pains were driving me so crazy that we called the on-call doctor. She said they were normal, and I should take pain-killers and, if necessary, a muscle relaxant. With the help of Vicodin, I eventually fell asleep, but the spasms awakened me at 7 this morning.

I tried Tylenol, stretching, massage, and a shower. For now, the pains have subsided (although I can almost feel one waiting to strike). Instead, they have been replaced by the worst nausea I've felt since the surgery, and another wave of dizziness.

I'm frustrated. I've had surgery before, and have always bounced back quickly. Yet here I am, nearly a week post-op, and I feel far worse than I did a day or two after the operation. I'm annoyed at the doctor, who didn't give me any information, written or otherwise, about what I might experience during this recovery period. I'm annoyed at my body, for not being able to do anything other than mope and sleep. And I'm annoyed at myself, for making this decision that so far has brought me only pain and discomfort.

I expect that in a few months, when I'm hearing more and better than I ever have, that I'll look back on these days as a mere blip on the screen. Right now, though, it sucks.

Operation Barbicide

Not to be outdone by my snazzy post-surgery look, Steve underwent an operation himself on Tuesday night.

Here's  the "before" shot, taken in March.

Scalpel Electric shaver in hand, he made the first cut:

Hearing unfavorable reactions from the gallery (my unequivocal "ewwww"), he continued cutting.

At this point, I was giggling too hard to hold the instruments camera steady. Still, Steve snipped away.

Steve was totally rocking the soul-patch, but he decided the hipster look didn't suit his down-to-earth style.

And so, with a few more strokes of the blade, he bared it all, from his swarthy cheeks to his adorable chin dimple.

Operation over, he scrubbed out, and gave me my first smooth-cheeked kiss of 2006.

Report from the recovery room.

My ear, both in the interior and around the incision behind it, hurts. I've been spitting up bloody phlegm since yesterday morning. And every time I cough, sneeze, or move my head quickly, I feel and hear an almost unbearable buzzing behind my right ear.

The nurse tells me that all of this is to be expected. The pain is mostly controlled by Vicodin, although it has woken me up around 3:00 a.m. each of the past two nights. The blood in my mouth is draining out of my ear, and also coming up from my ventilator-abraded throat, and should go away soon. And the buzzing, apparently, is caused by blood moving around the implant.

Aside from these annoyances, I'm feeling fine. I've been relaxing at home, getting a fair amount of work done, and watching a lot of Veronica Mars on DVD. Because it is so difficult for me to find a comfortable position for sleeping, I'm a little tired and draggy today, so I may take it easier than I did yesterday, when I went out for a walk with my parents in the afternoon.

I am so appreciative of all the cards, flowers, cookies, and blog comments I've received from thoughtful friends and family. My wonderful imaginary internet friends even managed to replicate my bridal bouquet, bringing bountiful color to the house and a great big smile to my face. I'm not a pray-er, myself, but I do believe in the power of good wishes, and I feel very lucky to be receiving such an abundance of those.

All is well.

The surgery went beautifully. I'm home, resting, and generally fine. The anesthesia withdrawal and the 4:00 a.m. wake-up are catching up with me, and the Vicodin is wearing off, so I'm feeling a bit of discomfort and dizziness, but mostly, I feel pretty normal.

I worked myself into a bit of panic last night, wondering whether I was making the right decision, after all. The same set of doubts reared their little heads this morning, as Steve and I rode along the silent early-morning highway. Why was I doing this? Why undergo a surgical procedure that would destroy my residual hearing and put me out of the office for a week during this crazy-busy stretch? Why set myself up for a long and uncertain relearning process, complete with frequent schlepping out to Aurora? Why take myself out of athletic commission for at least a week or two in the middle of the climbing and tri-training season? For what benefit? When would it come? Why, why, why? Could we still turn around and go home, and back to sleep?

But Steve reminded me that neither the surgery nor the recovery would be so terrible, and that hearing more, and better, has the potential to significantly improve my life. Plus, he said, how cool would it be to tell people he was married to a Bionic Woman?

I took some deep breaths, wiped my eyes, and did my best to let go of the fear. By the time I was lying in the pre-op bed, IV in my hand, goofy-looking shower cap over my curls, and a crew of nurses and doctors bustling in and out of my curtained space, I really was ready.

I don't remember the rest of it, of course. Perhaps 3 hours later, I realized I was floating on the edge of consciousness. I wanted to dream a bit longer - I was in Sardinia, rock climbing with Steve, and I hated to leave that idyll. When I did surface, my head was fuzzy and my throat raw. The nurse had remembered my request to return my left hearing aid after the surgery, so at least I could hear. I babbled something about rock climbing, and then I started to cry.

I tried to tell the nurse that it was "stress crying," residual tears left over from my pre-surgery anxiety. I don't know if my words were coherent, but she was patient and kind and brought me a box of tissues. Another nurse came over and chatted with me about climbing in Eldo. I'm not sure whether he was genuinely interested, or just trying to help me relax, but the conversation cleared my head.

Dr. Cass arrived, beaming and energetic. He said everything had gone perfectly. I tried to ask him questions, but started to cry again, and again apologized incoherently for my tears. The doctor bounced away, heading back to the OR for another surgery.

The nurse wheeled me back into the pre-op room. Another nurse, a guy with just the kind of sarcastic sense of humor I needed, finally allowed me to drink some ice water, which soothed my parched and tube-ravaged throat and, more than anything else had, helped calm me. My head was hurting quite a lot around the incision, so the nurse gave me Vicodin (and some graham crackers), which eventually eased the discomfort.

Then Steve and my mom were there, smiling and obviously relieved. We got instructions and a prescription. I dressed, the nurse wheeled me to the car, and home we went.

I spent the afternoon playing Settlers of Catan with Steve and my parents. They didn't let me win, so I must be OK.

Despite some intermittent dizziness, the incision-area pain that is reminding me now to take another pain pill, and my still-raw throat, I feel good. So far, I'm not having any problems moving around or communicating. It's harder for me to hear with just the left ear in business, but not so much harder that I can't interact with people.

Tomorrow, I can remove the giant bandage from around my head and take a shower, which should go a long way towards helping me heal. For now, I'm rocking the Cindi Lauper Circa 1984 Look:

Into the void.

In less than 12 hours, at the ungodly hour of 5:45 a.m., I will check in at the hospital. The hospital is located far, far away from home, making for a ridiculously early wake-up time that will be much harder on my husband and chauffeur than it will be on me. After all, I get to sleep through the whole thing, while he has to sit around for hours and hours waiting for me. Nevertheless, by mid-day tomorrow, we should be heading back home.

I'm ready for the procedure itself. But as for what comes next, it still feels like the Great Unknown. I simply have no idea how I'm going to feel, and how I'm going to hear and function, starting in less than a day.

People keep asking me how quickly I will be able to hear with the implant. This is a simple question with a more complicated answer than you might realize. I won't hear anything with the implant until May 31, when it is activated. That's two whole weeks with only one functioning ear, and those two weeks scare me the most right now. I know, logically, that I'll be fine, and I've warned friends, family, and co-workers that I may not be feeling up to a great deal of interaction during that stretch, but it's unnerving to anticipate.

Once I receive my external processor and have the device switched on, I will almost certainly be able to "hear" with it immediately. What will take time is to understand what I'm hearing - to separate and distinguish and comprehend the sounds as speech, music, traffic, computer keyboard, cell-phone ring, doorbell, and kitty cat. I can't predict how long that process will take, and neither my doctor nor my audiologist has hazarded a projection. They say "quickly," because I hear most of those sounds to some degree now, and I already understand what speech sounds like, but attaching a specific duration to "quickly" would likely cause me impatience, frustration, and self-doubt.

And so, I don't know. But I'll keep you posted.

What a week!

I slept until nine this morning, taking advantage of Steve's weekend absence to splay my tired body diagonally across the sheets. Although I'm technically awake now, my head feels heavy and fuzzy and dazed. Between early mornings for court appearances, evening obligations nightly, the adrenaline rush of preparing for and presenting arguments, and the effort of trying to finish at least one more brief and to organize my docket for a week away from the office, I'm wiped. But it was a great week, energizing and satisfying and fun.

My argument on Thursday turned out to be a highlight of my career to date. I felt composed and confident, and I knew my two cases (which I'd consolidated for argument) cold. My opposing counsel was very professional and well-prepared. Best of all, the judges were SO ready for us. They knew the cases, had no confusion between the two, and engaged us both with smart, probing questions. I am very attached to these two cases, so it was gratifying to have the judges demonstrate that they, too, recognized the importance of the issues involved.

At the end of the argument, the presiding judge asked everyone to wait for a moment. He then lavished praise on my opponent and me for the quality of our briefs and arguments in these cases. He thanked us, at some length, for our excellent advocacy, and said how much the judges appreciate that when they get it. The other judges nodded and smiled in agreement. Perhaps the judge realized that my parents and other supporters were in attendance, but whatever his motivation, he made my year.

Alas, the court is finished with its regular argument sessions until the fall. After four arguments in just two months, I feel like I'm on a roll. Hopefully I'll have something set for September or November (and hopefully my skills won't get rusty by then).

Very appealing.

Lots of appellate happenings this week!

I learned late on Friday that I won one of the cases I argued in Salt Lake City in March. This was a hugely satisfying result, and makes me 2 for 2 in cases out of Kansas (3 for 3 if you count the case I successfully remanded back to the district court for further proceedings, without getting to any appellate consideration of the issues).

Tuesday's argument went smoothly, both in terms of audio accommodations and in terms of getting my points made, despite some procedural wackiness that limited my available argument time. And now I am so, so ready for my Great Big Argument tomorrow morning. It turns out that I will have quite the fan club rooting for me in the peanut gallery - my parents, my best friend, a posse from the office, one of my clients' state-court attorneys, and assorted groupies. Needless to say, I can't flop.

Surgery looms on Tuesday. I find myself thinking:  "The next time I [go to court/rock climb/attend an ADL board meeting/do laundry/whatever], I'll have a computer chip in my head." Strange feeling, this. In the anticipation, this feels like such a HUGE, life-changing event. I hope that the actual experience turns out to be rather more nuanced.