The next day I showed up at the hospital hungry, tired and a little nervous at 7 in the morning. Luckily I had my good friend Kim with me who’d stay until after surgery so I didn’t have to go through everything alone. After a good amount of waiting we were brought into my room which I was to share with another girl also getting a CI today. She was already on her way to surgery when we entered the room and I was next.

The nurse wanted to immidiately shave my head – an area of two inches behind and two inches above the ear. I first realized I was actually getting a CI surgery when I saw my shaved area in the mirror. Not much later I changed into a (not very sexy) pajama provided by the hospital and lay in the hospital bed. One hour before rolling into surgery I was given painkillers and calming medicine by the nurse. It didn’t take long before I fell asleep, and was awoken by the nurse who told me it was my turn. What happened after that I don’t really remember, I was so drowsy. The next thing I remember is being rolled into a room with a flat bed in the middle and a lot of people around it. I remember that some nurses tried to take my quilt and I wasn’t all to excited about it, and then asked me to jostle over to the operation bed. Immidiately I got a mask over my nose and mouth and I felt someone anaesthetize my arm. After a few seconds I was totally gone.

I woke up at the awakening room and felt quite comfortable. I had no pains and was drowsy and happy like after a good night’s sleep. All the nurses was aware I couldn’t hear them, so all communication happened through writing on notes. The surgery went fine and all electrodes were functioning. An audio technician are always present during a CI-surgery to check all the electrodes and whether the implant responds. After about an hour in the awakening room I was rolled back into my room.

It’s unusual for someone CI-operated to experience pains after the surgery, with the exception of some hoarseness in the throat because of the tube you’ve had during surgery. Many people are not experiencing any pain in the days after the surgery. I strongly recommend fixing leave from work or studies – especially the first weeks after surgery, and maybe the first weeks after activation as well. I myself had arranged leave for six months from my studies. My timing was excellent as it fit right in the beginning of the spring term giving me a leave for at least three months after CI activation.

Unfortunately I was unlucky and experienced some pain later after surgery and was told I was bleeding from behind the ear. The nurses changed the wrappings and gave me morphine for the pain. I was asleep most of the day, slept at the hospital and early the next day I got visited by my surgeon. My contact from the CI team also dropped by and gave me some papers, such as an ID-card for my implant and a starter kit for CI. A while later I went home, even though you do have the opportunity to stay at the hospital another night.

I also discovered that I had lost my sense of taste on my left half of my tongue and I think the smell in the left nostril as well (I was operated on the left ear). The hearing nerve is positioned between two other nerves, the nerve of taste and the nerve that controls half your face. Of course are the doctors trying to avoid touching the facial nerve, so temporarily loss of taste and smell on your operated side is common. However it was unsure whether it was permanent.

You don’t receive your CI apparatus or get to active it before at least 5-6 weeks after surgery. The implant and the wound have to heal properly before you can apply a magnet on it. During the period before CI activation you are dependent on using your other ear, the operated ear is completely deaf. I heard some people actually benefit from using their hearing aid on the operated ear, but when I tried it I only heard very low annoying noise. It was about time to put away the left hearing aid for good.

The scar 1 week after surgery

The first week after surgery I was practically eating painkillers and was pretty much confined to my bed because of pains. Luckily I felt much better the next week. You can not remove the wrapping behind your ear until after 5 days after surgery, so taking a shower was always an interesting project as you have to keep it dry. The stitches disappears by themself so luckily you don’t need to pull them out yourself.

I was not getting activated until March 25, two months after surgery, because of Easter holidays.Next phase: Getting CI: Activation.