The Out Patient

Here's bandage-head boy :) As you can see, he's not feeling 100%---though he's doing pretty well, considering. No purple bandage this time. I guess by the fourth surgery they figure you're not royalty anymore.

Everything went well---Dr. Joe just went in and performed a brief bit of magic, getting the magnet back where it belongs. No damage to any part of the implant, so all is well. The bandage has to be kept on for hopefully one more day (we'll see if that happens) to keep internal swelling down and minimize the possibility of fluid building up in that area. He can't wear his processor on that side for a week and no rough-housing for two weeks! Yeah, right! That also means no hockey for two weeks, which he'll be quite sad about. I'm not sure that I will be, though.

Here's hoping this is the last time!

Of Magnets, Surgery and Tinnitus

We did a psuedo-ultrafast-pre-op yesterday so that we can get squeezed into a surgery slot on Monday. Surgery is at 9:00 at Stanford, but we have to be there at 7:00 (just in case waiting around during an 1 1/2 long surgery isn't enough sitting--not to mention the hour to two hours of recovery time). Around 10:30 Dr. Joe should be able to come out and give us the details. They'll have a new implant on hand just in case he gets in there and discovers there was actually damage done to the implant and not just a magnet that got dislodged. Apparently he's only seen this happen one other time. When his assistant heard it was one of our boys, she said it didn't surprise her that it would be one of them charting new territory. They'll videotape it for training purposes, just like they did when we had to go through the re-implantation---another "can't-and-won't-happen" that did.

Since the fall, my son has been complaining of extreme tinnitus--head noise, ringing in the head, etc. Call it what you will. It seems to mostly be a problem at night---coincidentally at bedtime. However, it doesn't seem to be just a ploy but an actual aggravation to which there's not much that can be done. I don't remember him talking about this before he hit his head, and it seems like it must be connected. Could the magnet not in place be causing some sort of interference? Could it be creating this condition of tinnitus? And if so, will it go away after surgery? It'll be interesting to find out and to ask the surgeon if he thinks there's a connection. Since he left for a conference in Vienna minutes after examining my son yesterday, there isn't much chance to chat with him now about it.

So that's the latest. I'll post a picture of bandage-head boy after surgery.

School Of Hard Knocks

As most of you know, my two youngest sons are deaf and have cochlear implants. They both were implanted on the right side initially (one surgery apiece) when they were very young; a couple years later the oldest of the two got hit in the head and the implant had to be replaced (another surgery for him); a couple years later, they both got implants on the left side (another surgery apiece). They're rough-and-tumble boys, not inclined to just sit for long periods, and I'm constantly wincing as they hit their heads and knock into things--I'm immediately seeing hospital beds and tubes and big bandages on heads as they have to get yet another implant replaced. We-l-l-l-l-l....two days ago the oldest one (again!) was wrestling around with the younger, playing some sort of tackle football in the living room--naturally--and he cracked his head on the bottom shelf of a bookshelf in the room. I could tell it really really hurt and it was, of course, right by where his implant is (always my fear: hit your head anywhere but by that spot, okay??). At the same time this happened, the phone rang and someone was at the door so I couldn't really give it much attention. I just figured, well he hit his head again, moving on now.

Two days later, still hurts, still a fair-sized bump. My husband took him to the ear institute this morning to ask about a different problem with his processor, and the audiologist checks out this bump on his head and the fact that it still hurts too much to wear the processor (which is, by the way, attached via a magnet under the skin). She calls in the surgeon who has done all their surgeries---an amazing hero, Dr. Joe Roberson--and he checks it out. Conclusion: the magnet in his head has been displaced and is no longer in the "slot" where it's supposed to be. He hit his head just right and just hard enough to dislodge it. How is this possible?? So Monday he has to go back under and get the magnet put back in the right spot. For now, there's the possibility of it "migrating". It kind of strikes me comically now and then when I picture it traveling about inside his head, checking out warmer spots. Is east warmer than west? south? north?

Seriously, though, I don't look forward to this new surgery or whatever it's going to be. For sure it will be nothing like getting a new implant---very minor compared to that. But it's always scary when someone's messing with your kid's head. I think that maybe kids should have to wear helmets until they're about 18.

I'll keep you posted. Literally.

a therapeutic rambling

What do you do when you so badly want to just drive away into the sunset? Or maybe not the sunset, since it's the morning and you don't even want to wait until evening and a sunset....just drive away into the now, the next town, the unknown---as long as it's away from the dark that you feel and the hurt. You ignore it, I think. You work out and work off the tears that you cried, sitting in your car in the morning, and you temporarily feel better and determined, even, to smooth over the fissures, the pieces that are showing cracks, and to act normal. You determine to find a place of calm, of numbness if that's what it takes to be able to hug your young children who still need you and love you and depend on you to be there; to be able to speak in calmness to them, nothing betraying the storm brewing within, continuing to help them find their clothes in the morning, help them get to school, help them with their homework, put some sort of supper together, drive them to practice....all the things that keep life normal. You determine to cling to that place of calm, or of numbness, in order to be polite and unemotional when dealing with your teenager who has told you several times--in direct and indirect ways--that he doesn't like you, that your rules are stupid, that you're basically ineffectual as a parent. If it didn't echo your own worst fears, maybe you would be able to separate yourself from this obvious teenage angst, shelve it in the round file, and move on. But the echoes are loud. And after months and months and maybe even years of battling passive aggression, not-so-passive aggression, rudeness, scorn, disgust, dislike, disrespect from someone who you've spent untold, countless hours and years serving, helping, grieving over, stressing over, lying awake at night wondering the best next possible move---all with his ultimate happiness in mind---you start to notice the cracking in the facade. You finally can't stem the tears that come unexpected at all times of the day. You hear the echoes that confirm your worst fears: you never parented him well or even right--in his youngest, most formative years, alone and inexperienced and self-absorbed, you did it all wrong. And this, this, is the consequence. Payback. Justice.

Add this to the recent disappointments in your life, the other losses, and you feel like you can almost hear normal giving way to grief, you can hear the cracks as they form. And you wish you could drive and drive, be alone to regroup and to remember all the good: the wonderful, smart, handsome, unfailingly loving husband you have; bright and lively young children who tell you daily in some way or another that you're the greatest mom in the world---an assertion that hurts, almost, because you know it not to be true but you're indebted to them for their belief in that; faithful parents who you now understand you probably and likely hurt as deeply as your own child does you; an unshakable faith in the creator of all things that will ultimately shore you up and keep you on your feet when every instinct is to lay down and never move again; a life that most people in this world would gladly live if only given the chance; a life better and easier than what so many are living. And even, finally, remembering that the good includes a son on the cusp of adulthood, battling demons and unhappiness within himself, who has many many wonderful qualities....and just hoping that time will mature what needs to grow, heal what is broken, and refine the gold that's there.

What you do when you can't just drive away is you cry and get it out, at least some of it, remember all you have to be thankful for and move on. It's life, right? The good and the bad, the tears and the laughter----and those trite things we know to be true. Just life.

Talk about IRONY

Is this poetic justice or what?

Amendment

So I said that 2008 hasn't been that exciting. While that's mostly true, it's not to say that it's been uneventful:

We had Ed A. and his nephew Joe A. at our house for three nights. It was awesome.

My wonderful husband--bless his still*gasp*beating heart--turned 41. He had the MOST boring birthday in birthday history.

My father-in-law scared us all by feeling more and more awful as the days went by, to the point where he had to crawl from the kitchen into the living room because he was too dizzy and weak to walk the distance. Like a true man, he didn't think it was time yet to get to the doctor (hel-looo). He was convinced differently and wound up in the emergency room, where they promptly admitted him. He stayed in the hospital for three+ days and discovered he has a bleeding ulcer. He lost so much blood that he was in a danger zone there for awhile. There are more details to his medical situation, but the long story short is that he's home now, feeling great and on the mend. Scary stuff. These old people.....I tell ya.

Hockey has started and now it's the hockey express--up and down Highway 101 (hey--that's an old country singing group) countless times a week. Good thing gas is so cheap. Good thing hockey is so cheap. Good thing we have three boys and not ten.

So....not so exciting but not without a few little bursts of life interjected here and there.

Yawn

Well, 2008 hasn't been a whirlwind of excitement yet. Good thing that wasn't my expectation.

And as far as yawning goes, let's talk sleep apnea for just a minute. Already you're dozing off. Lucky you. Actually, dozing off isn't the problem for me; it's getting quality sleep--any sleep really--once I've dozed off. My lovely and most wonderful father-in-law found a potentially miraculous chin strap to use in conjunction with my sleep mask. It's a sight to behold, I assure you. At any rate, beauty secrets aside, it was seeming to indeed be a miracle. It was apparently keeping my mouth closed while I slept so that the air I was taking in wasn't immediately escaping through my mouth. Boring details. The last two times I used it, however, I woke up with the feeling that I was blowing out like a dragon or something. It was also incorporated into my dreams, though, so I'm not sure if it was reality or not. Which brings me to my next point:

When I use the sleep machine and actually get air to my brain in the night and actually get some minutes of sleep, I have the most bizarre, crazy, colorful, constant dreams. It's very bizarre. I conclude that maybe air/oxygen is the greatest drug around.

So....hopefully the apparati will continue to work (like "octopi", if you see what I mean). I'll keep you posted. Posted----get it? Anyway, stay tuned. I know you can hardly wait to hear the next update.

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