Implant ślimakowy

Michael Chorost describes a fully implantable hearing aid which is in the stage of clinical trials in the US. The company which created the device, Otologics, is planning to make a cochlear implant with this technique too. Sure this is in the early stages of development and many problems need to be resolved, but it would be wonderful to have a fully implantable device, not having to worry about it getting wet or being eaten by the dog, to be able to sleep and swim with it (however, I think that some of us would have preferred to turn themselves off for the night ;-) ). One of the problems with the design of the device is that the microphone is under the skin. I wonder if the microphone could be placed in the ear, just like with natural hearing.

Nieukowiec sent this link:
Brain’s ‘Hearing Center’ May Reorganize After Implant Of Cochlear Device

I’ve always said that it’s all about brain reprogramming. I wonder what would my brain scans show since I’ve never had normal hearing. I am sure that there would be a difference between three months ago and now — I began to hear significantly more in May, two months after the switch-on.

There is nobody home. What is this strange sound?

Ah. It is me scratching my own back.

I sometimes feel like I hear everything in my environment. Pity that I can’t interpret most of it yet.

I have turned on my current programme a week before it was planned. Here goes the story.

Two months after the switch on I realized that I don’t have vertigo. It was gone. The visit to the implantation centre was due in short time, so I asked for reprogramming to make the low sounds louder. I got an intermediate programme, which was supposed to last me 2-3 weeks, and another one for longer (plus ADRO to try after 3-4 weeks of using the latter programme). I thought that I would have more time with one programme to get used to. No way. After a week, I went to the performance of Yamato. Japan drummers. They are great. I recommend the show. And I can hear the drums very well… with the hearing aid. With my CI only I could still recognize the rhytm, but it was just not the same. The low sounds sucked. So I turned on the next programme, two weeks ahead of schedule. The drums were much better after that. I hadn’t got tinnitus after this and I hadn’t felt like I had been hit on the head with a big, big sponge, like it had been at the beginning.

I listen to the low sounds for almost two weeks now. It is hard sometimes. The new coworker in my room is so loud. No, he is not misbehaving. I just hear every sound his chair makes, not to mention the keyboard and everything else. The chair is pretty loud. For a few days I could not concentrate on anything. I think I am getting used to it, though. But I see that the silent places are rare in this world. I wonder how will my audiogram look the next time.

I am trying to do some training by myself. I listen to music and to an audiobook. I got a CD with the “sounds of environment” and another with some recorded exercises. In short, there are the pairs of phrases differing only by one sound, for example t/d. I just listen to it and read the list.

I went to the speech therapist today for hearing exercises. The session lasted an hour and I felt like my brain was being kneaded. Listening, in passive mode, is something else. When I have to actually guess what I hear, some unused and rusty parts of my brain are forced to work. It can be exhausting. The results were not so bad as I had expected, but I have a long way to go.

Due to some problems in the family I am not much in the mood for blogging lately. For the same reasons, I am a bit behind with the training exercises.

What is new?
I have a new programme. As far as I understand, this programming consisted of making the low sounds louder. I don’t have vertigo anymore when I hear them, so there is time to begin the training in low sounds too. I like this programme. The rustling sounds don’t dominate speech so much anymore. I could see this domination on the audiogram made before the reprogramming. In most frequencies, I could hear the sounds of 35-50 dB. Only at the end of the chart, by 6 kHz, I could hear 10 dB. This is how a normal person hears. But I had heard only the very high sounds at this level. No wonder that everything had sounded so strange.

I am sure now that there is at least one person talking to whom is easier. We are speaking Italian and I can hear distinctly some consonants existence of which I have had to guess from lipreading before. It is hard to say if the communication with other people is easier, too. It is better when there is no noise around, then I can concentrate on the sounds of speech. It is easier when one doesn’t talk too loud. In a few weeks I will be trying the ADRO system. It is supposed to extract and reinforce speech in noisy environments. We don’t know how it works. The manufacturer does not give away the technical details easily. But it doesn’t hurt to try the programme.
I hear some of the whisper sounds now. I had no idea how it would sound.

The hearing aid still makes a difference, but I don’t feel especially confused now if its battery dies or I don’t wear it.

A week ago, along with the reprogramming, I had the word recognition test. We all know that not much can be expected at this stage. It was just to give it a try. I had expected, however, that the number recognition would be better. There is a great difference between my mother reading the numbers, and a male voice from a CD, and I didn’t have enough time between the numbers to think about the answer.

I am able to follow the text listening and reading it simultaneously, even when my hearing aid is off. I have one book in audio and in print, and it is a good exercise. The book is read by the author. He speaks rather fast, but I am able to catch the most of it if I have the text before my eyes. Even when I get lost, I can sometimes find the text back after some distinctive phrase.
There is a problem with these exercises: the level of sound. If something is comfortable for the left, implanted ear, it is too soft for the right. If I hear well with the hearing aid, it is a bit too loud for the other ear.

K. told me once that after approximately two months one reaches the same level of hearing abilities with the implant as before with the hearing aids. I can agree with this. I have just begun to hear low sounds with the CI. They are strange, difficult to distinguish, “colorless”, but they are there. I don’t have vertigo anymore, too. I suspect that it will be back after the next reprogramming for a few hours or days. But at the moment there are no sounds in my environment which would cause it.

It is three months after the surgery. I still have a small area on my tongue which does not feel taste. At the moment it is a bit less than the half of the upper surface. The feeling in my left earlobe is slowly returning. The stitches’ endings itch sometimes. I am forgetting that there was a surgery.

The batteries’ ‘calendar’ has been moved to another site.

As you may have noticed from the growing number of posts in Polish, there is a new author on the blog. Bartosz is 22, has got his CI a year ago and he is a good writer. He is prelingually deaf like me, and he has good results with his CI. Unfortunately, I can’t translate all his stories, lacking the time and abilities to do this. I am going to keep translating mine, so please check this website sometimes.

A friend of mine told me yesterday that my speech is clearer now. I pronounce some consonants more distinctly. She was the third person to tell me this (without being asked). Interesting. I haven’t tried to speak more clearly than usual.

I’ve tried these “cochlear implant batteries” of Rayovac. They are supposed to last longer than the usual hearing aid ones and they cost more, of course. I was dissappointed, because the CI special batteries didn’t last three full days, while the normal ones with the same programme lasted up to five days. One of my readers points out that the expiry date of the batteries may be important. New batteries expire in 2011. If I have a battery which expiration date is 2009, it means that this battery has been stored two years in some magazine and its life may be significantly shorter. The general opinion among the CI users I have asked is that the CI batteries are a waste of money anyway.

I observe some interesting effects of the speech/hearing therapy.

First, I can discriminate vowels. I still confuse some of them, but there is definitely some progress.

However, I’ve noticed a strange problem with something I could do before the CI, namely, the recognition of numbers. In Polish, the numbers (from 1 to 99) are quite distinctive and easy to discriminate. Even with my hearing aids, I could recognize most of the numbers without lipreading. I haven’t done this exercise for a while, but my Mother has decided to try it on our last session. Surprise: I couldn’t understand anything at first. When I concentrated a bit on listening, it was better and after a while I could recognize a lot of numbers (but not all of them) again.

I think that it is easy to explain. I now hear all these sounds of speech I couldn’t before, mostly rustling sounds (there is plenty of them in Polish). These sounds are quite loud for me now. And the numbers’ names sound completely different. I had to learn them again.

I was on holidays this week. One day I haven’t put my hearing aid on because of an earlobe irritation. And it was not this bad. I knew when someone was calling me and I knew more or less what was going on around. The low sounds were still strange, but they were sounds at least. Talking was more difficult, though. During the dinner I had turned my hearing aid on again.

I have escaped from the big city for a few days. Here I can concentrate on sounds - no cars, no people everywhere. I hear birds. They are so loud! I had imagined this sound quite differently. I wouldn’t know myself what it is, I must be informed what can be heard at the moment. I can hear frogs, wind, fire, steps on various surfaces and what have you in the countryside. Dogs barking, of course. It is a low sound, but I am aware of it. I know when someone is speaking. I listen to the sounds from far away.

Batteries: April 29th. P4 programme: 30th. The echo is terrible at first and it drowns all the speech, but I’ve noticed that if I talk to someone for a few minutes, I get used to it.

I have found a toy on a Macbook: virtual piano! It is something just for me. I am sitting without my hearig aid on (because of the earlobe irritation) and playing like a child who sneaked to the room where the piano is. It is fascinating. I sometimes get an impression that my scale of sounds got reversed: the high sounds are low for me, and the low ones are higher. I have an idea why. At the moment, with my CI I hear the high sounds much better than the low ones. With the hearing aids, though, if I heard something loud and clear, it was low.
I have to ask someone to test me for relative sound frequency some time.
Maybe this “frequency reversal” is the cause of my difficulties with synchronizing the sounds from the hearing aids and the CI, this echo I wrote about? I have no idea. Just a hypothesis.
After several minutes of playing the virtual piano in the range I hear best with my CI I think that the sounds seem to be returning to their right places. I can hear/feel the sounds in the lower range a bit, but they are less clear.
Good hearing exercise.
There is a frequency range I can hear bilaterally now. I have missed it for over two months. As I have already mentioned, my hearing in the left ear isn’t worse than before the surgery, but I don’t wear the hearing aid there anyway. There is no place for it with the processor on, and I wear the latter all the time.

Yesterday I have changed the programme to P3, which is louder. At my workplace the window is open and I hear sometimes a sound similar to the ambulance sirens. But my window isn’t facing the street. Is it possible that I hear the ambulances from the next street, a few hundreds meters from here, behind the trees? I know that the ambulances frequently pass that way.
I hear the fingers rubbing crude paper. The sound of blowing the nose scared me.

The hearing exercises are frustrating. It is not so bad with the hearing aid. But without it… I think that I haven’t learned to interpret the high sounds yet, and I don’t hear the low ones well with the CI (I feel them mainly). I hear the consonants like f, sh, s. It is true that I haven’t heard them with the hearing aids.

Batteries: Tuesday.

The visit to the centre after one month — tests and reprogramming of the processor. We are asked about our impressions from this first month and we fill in numerous questionnaires. Then there is a meeting with a speech therapist, the examination during which I am to say how loud the sounds are, processor programming and an appointment with the otolaryngologist.

It seems that this was the last meeting of our little Nucleus Freedom group. In July we all come to the centre again for standard tests, but we have separate appointments.
W. says that she understands speech better than before, she knows what her children are talking about when they are playing, but she hears ringing all the time. It turns out that her programming has been too loud.
The speech therapist gives me some different ideas about my hearing exercises. I am to listen more, following the text which I see. I can use both hearing aid and CI or CI only for the training. We don’t test my word recognition, because for me it is too early. I see some progress: a lot of the sounds during the tests I can hear normally. It turns out that I hear the high sounds, and feel the low ones. In theory, it should complement my hearing with a hearing aid. In practice, things are more complicated.
I feel the low sounds in my teeth.

During the reprogramming I get stronger signals on all electrodes. The signal should be above the response threshold of the auditory nerve. The said threshold is determined without the need of my interaction, by some measurement. I am to tell only if something is too loud.

For some time after the reprogramming I feel like at the beginning, a bit dizzy, as if someone was hitting me in the head with a big soft sponge. It passes after short time. The surroundings become noisy. I get much more sounds in the places which were always silent for me.

I have three programs which I should change in 5-7 days, each one a bit louder. My previous program is there too, as a backup, but it seems that I will not be needing it. I feel OK with the new one. However, the first two-three evenings I am very tired. It passes quickly too, my brain is getting used to processing more data.

With the new programme, the “echo” from the CI seems to drown the sounds I get from the hearing aid. I am anxious if I would be able to talk to people.

On Thursday I pass the first real-life test: long talk with a person I know well, but in a foreign language. Moderately noisy environment. It goes better than expected. I get sounds I didn’t before, like “s”, “sh”, maybe even “k” and “t”. Anyway, the talk was not more difficult than before, maybe even a bit easier.

Next day, in the doctor’s waiting room, I hear the heels tapping behind closed door and I know that it is my turn.

I begin to get information from the environment. I need exercises for hearing and understanding speech.

I am getting addicted to the processor. When I don’t have neither the hearing aid nor the processor on, it is all right, just like in the morning or in the bath. But if I wear the hearing aid alone, I miss something. The auditory environment is getting one-dimensional.

Batteries: Wednesday the 18th, with the new programme. I expect them to die in a while.

It is 4 weeks with the processor on.
I begin to hear some environmental sounds. Not the loudest ones. Rustling is pretty loud. But I still don’t hear the majority of speech sounds. I am aware of speech, though.

Some time ago, at work, I took off my hearing aid because of some irritation of the earlobe. I heard/felt when the girl who is sitting behind me was doing something, moving her chair, reaching to her backsack. I wouldn’t have paid attention to these sounds if I had my hearing aid on.

Just a moment ago, I have heard the buzz of my entry phone, reinforced by the feeling from the left side.

Apart from rustling, things I hear best are various “metallic” sounds — spoons, coins, keys.

Wednesdaythe 18th: new programming.

I have changed the batteries on Friday the 13th, that is, they lasted almost a week. Perhaps it is because of the holidays. the environment was less loud.

I hear the vacuum cleaner (this post probably means that I don’t clean my room very often). This sound is much softer when heard through the CI than through the hearing aid. Rustling sounds, on the contrary, I hear much better through my CI.

New batteries today.

Yesterday I wrote that I heard the clicking of my heels. Today I hear the sound my soft shoes make when I walk on the linoleum. It is a strange sound-sensation.

Velcro ripping.
Some music.
Howling of the brakes in the old bus. Opening and closing its door.
My own heels’ patter. In this case I am not sure if I hear or feel this. Maybe it is how it’s supposed to be. I begin to be aware of the speech rhytm, even if I don’t hear the vowels, only feel them.

When I describe sounds, I only want to indicate that I hear them with my CI. I don’t yet attempt to discriminate them. I hope this will come later.

Here is a very interesting video about CI experience. I was asked if the moment of turning the processor on is really so grating on the nerves like it is shown in the video. No, it is not, even during the first two weeks (and it is the third week for me after the switch-on). But there is something to this picture. Turning the CI on is not painful, but I get a kind of kick inside the head. I agree with Michael Chorost here:

I’ve been asked by several parents whether putting on my CI in the morning is really as intense and disorienting as the video suggests. My answer is, No, it’s not. There’s just a rushing sound as the device boots up, and then I can hear as the auditory world emerges around me. It’s not painful in any way. I think the video is really referring to what it’s like in the first week or two after activation, when the sounds and sensations are very unfamiliar indeed. But even then, I never found it painful. Just strange. Very, very strange.

Bolero, the favourite music of Lucyna and Michael Chorost… When I listen to the version I have with my hearing aid on, I don’t hear much at all in the first five minutes. Then it probably moves to the lower frequencies and I begin to hear. I think I feel (and partly hear) it with my CI all the time. I turn the hearing aid off to listen to it once more.
It turns out that with the CI I don’t hear the first five minutes too. I only feel something. I still hear more of the music with my hearing aid. I wonder if it is more the matter of programming of the processor, which will be changed again in two weeks, or of the brain.

Sounds: I hear breathing. I hear some sounds of speech, I think there is a bit more of them. When someone is speaking, I hear a kind of echo. It actually makes understanding the speech more difficult, but I think this is just my brain learning to use the device. I feel odd when the batteries suddenly run out and I don’t have the stimulation.

Batteries: changed today. It makes five days with one set of Rayovac Acoustic Special and my current programme.

When I write that I begin to hear something, I mean that I perceive this as a sound, not “feel” them as something like vertigo. I feel a lot of sounds this way.

It is not that I hear these sounds for the first time in my life. Most of them I have heard using hearing aids before, if they were loud enough.

New sounds: yesterday I have listened implant-only to half of the melodies from my cell phone. Some of them I have heard, some I have felt. Obviously I perceive the frequencies selectively. I think that the range is widening slowly. As a practise, I am listening to the radio at home.

Vertigo.

It is good that I’ve just received new supply. It has been the second set of batteries only. I will be testing the Rayovac Acoustic Special now (the hearing aids kind, not the special CI ones). And I switch to the fourth programme today. I should have done it yesterday or on Monday, but after the switch to the 3rd I prefer to give myself more time to get used to it.

Day 6

The sounds are emerging slowly. Today I heard the clanking of a big hairpin.
Like planned, I have switched to the 3rd program today and I feel like returning to the 2nd. I have tinnitus (like a fan in my head) and it keeps going on for some time after I switch all the electronics off. But I don’t have this much of vertigo anymore. I think it is a matter of time. I will probably survive the fourth program too. It is going to remain until the next setup session. The moment of turning the processor off is very strange — I have vertigo again. It probably means that I am getting used to the signal.
This morning I have changed the batteries for the first time. It probably means that the signal level in my processor is still pretty low.

Day 7 — Shadows of sounds

Today I have heard a bit of music in the cafeteria. When someone is talking, and I switch my hearing aid off, I hear the faint memory of sound. When I type, too. Not everything is vertigo anymore, though I still feel it sometimes. I have smoothed my switch to the 3rd programme: I turned on the 2nd in the morning and the 3rd some hour and a half later. The switch was way less shocking than yesterday. I think I am not going to switch to the 4th programme before Tuesday. No point in forcing things too much.

A week after the switch on

I hear the spoon clicking in the cup of tea. Ping ping. I wonder when someone tells me to stop it.
I hear the water running.
I hear some fragments of my boss’s voice. The louder ones or is it a specific frequency I pick up?
I hear the keyboard clicking.
I hear a pencil falling on a desk. I have vertigo after repeating it several times.

People talk to me and I switch off my hearing aid for a moment to vcheck what I hear by the implant. I do it only if I understand them anyway.

Monday, March 19th

I come to the centre in the morning, but it turns out that the speech processor programming — the first time my implant is going to be switched on — is at 2 pm. There is a group of new Nucleus Freedom users, three grown-ups and some children with their parents. Before the switch-on we have various examinations and meetings. First we get the big boxes with our new toys. I am the only person who wants to a black processor. We are to make ourselves familiar with the device and all its accessories, and to read the manual. I can’t wait for the switch on. In the meantime I meet the speech therapist, the doctor (I can go swimming, finally!) and I learn one very important fact: I have not lost anything. My audiogram for the left ear is pretty much the same as before the surgery. Praise to Professor Skarżyński.

Finally the appointment with the engineer W. He turns out to be a young, easy going person. He explains what he is doing and answers all my questions. He tests the device. Everything is OK. So - we switch on the signal.

At first — nothing. Nothing?
Suddenly I say:
‘I have vertigo’
‘Right at this moment?’
‘Yes.’
‘How about now?’
‘No.’
‘And now?’
‘Yes, I feel it again’.

This way I realize that this is my new sensation from the implant. It has nothing in common with the sound. It is as if someone was hitting me in the head with something big and soft every time there is a sound. It is not unpleasant, just very, very strange.

During the following tests I ‘hear’ some sounds as sounds, though. Surprisingly, these are pretty high sounds, not the low ones which should be expected. The engineer says that in the cases of a profound hearing loss since birth it can happen that the part of the brain responsible for hearing starts doing something else. He tells me about a 18-years-old girl who during the first months after the implantation felt the sounds as twinges. She started to hear sounds after a few months.

For the initial adaptation I get four programs, every one a bit “louder” than the previous one, and I am to change them every hour. I get used to every setting quite fast and the vertigo diminishes slowly. Anyway, I feel that this vertigo is a kind of illusion, because I don’t seem to have balance problems. I am to wear my hearing aid on the other ear. I switch it off from time to time to concentrate on my new sensations. I react to various sounds. It is very strange when I knock the table with a pencil and I have vertigo. This is really an illusion, because I don’t have any problems with my balance. I feel dizzy and confused anyway. W. is hearing clanks and squeaks, the same as the majority of the newly implanted. I think I would like to hear squeaks. All in due time, I think.

At 6.42 pm I notice that when I rub the microfone with my finger, I hear this as a sound. It is soft, but a sound for sure. The first one I hear with the implant, apart from the tests. I rub the microphone all the evening to check if this is not an illusion.

Tuesday, March 20th
I get four new programs for the processor in the morning. This time I am to change them every two days. The engineer says that the next set-up is in a month and that I shouldn’t expect too much in my case. I know this all: that I am no more three years old, that the effects are hard to predict. Nevertheless, I am going to make out of my implant what I can.
The speech therapist gives me a set of exercises I am to do at home with someone. Just like 25 years ago, when my mother practised with me a lot and I was trying to avoid it in every way. But now these first months are very important. I should practise using both my implant and my hearing aid on the other ear. It seems that at this stage this is conditioning, like with Pavlov’s dogs.

This evening, after leaving the hospital, I clearly hear the rustling of foil behind my ear. I hear also - very softly - when my mother says “shhhhhhhhh” and other rustling consonants.

Note: something happens inside. When I have my processor turned on, I actually hear worse with my other, aided ear. Something like an interference. This is fascinating.

Wednesday, 21st March
I have vertigo from typing. When I drive, I turn the hearing aid off and I listen to the sounds from the implant. I hear some noise, and a little bit of my own voice when it is really loud (alone in the car on the road I can shout all I want), from time to time I hear the sound of the passing vehicle. I think I have heard the sound of coins clicking on the table in the grocery store.

I notice all this with my hearing aid switched off. When it is on, I hear most of these sounds as usual and I hope that my subconsciousness is doing its job to tell the corresponding parts of my brain that there is a sound.

When I take off the processor for the night, I have a bit of vertigo after losing contact with the magnet.

My friends ask me how it is going:

[yacoob] I hope that it will meet your expectations, I cross my fingers for it :))
[cyborg] I will need it ;-)
[yacoob] is there some critical thing more to do?
[cyborg] brain reprogramming.
[yacoob] our technology does not allow for this yet…
[cyborg] no, this should be the effect of stimulation.
[yacoob] sure it will, but wouldn’t it be more convenient to load a patch?
[cyborg] yeah ;-)

K. had the switch-on day yesterday. I have asked him about his first experiences some 4 hours later and he texted me:

The processor was switched on, but I don’t hear much besides the sounds typical for the interference noises. It is supposed to change with time. The magnet part does not hold well, despite some magnets added. Now, after a few hours, I start to understand a bit (but not much) of speech, but the interference noises make wearing the processor quite difficult. In general, the clanks, cracks and squeaks confuse one completely.

Good luck! I wonder how it will be going and if my impressions would be similar.

10 days to the switch-on date. Yawn. Nothing happens. The veins in my right hand gradually cease to hurt, without any medical intervention. I only switched the mouse to my left hand and it would stay this way for some time. My hair are growing back and the scab is disappearing. I wear my glasses as usual, behind the ear and not on it, since a week ago. I have enough of wearing one hearing aid only. In some situations I feel less confident this way. But to be honest, with my way of life the difference is not so big. Is it the calm before the storm?

It has been two weeks since the surgery and I am still having some problems with the veins in my hand after an IV drip. I am not sure if I should worry about it, or if it is just the way things are and I should wait till it passes. I wrote an e-mail to the centre with the description of the problem. I asked them to forward my questions to a doctor or to give me another e-mail address to contact them.

I got an answer. They gave me two telephone numbers I can call.

Sigh. I have been through this before. I don’t feel like a ping-pong game “I don’t talk to the phone, please answer me by e-mail” again. Here is what I had written about this then and had not translated to English yet:

November 17th, 2006. I have asked the people at the centre to contact me by e-mail several times. In case of fire or something I gave them a telephone number to my mother. She has texted me a moment ago: “The lady from the centre calls and asks if you have a hepatitis vaccination”.
Sigh. I understand that the majority of the implant patients are children. But I am not a child anymore and I really prefer to take care of my affairs by myself. I don’t live with my parents and it takes a lot of time for my mother to text everything to me. This question didn’t seem this urgent.

If I were able to talk to the phone, I wouldn’t have decided for this surgery at all.

Then after some exchange of e-mail messages they learned to write me, but as it has turned out, not for long.

The procedure of contacting the hard-of-hearing grown-ups is necessary, we live in an era of Internet and text messages.

I posted this grumbling here in Polish on February 27th and for once a blog grumbling seemed to have some effect! Thanks, siwa. Not only have I got the addresses I have needed, but it seems that the centre is creating some contact procedures at last. We will see.

I had my stitches removed on Thursday, 10 days after the surgery. It hurts a bit, but is also a relief. I have WASHED MY HAIR for the first time and I feel civilised.
The switch on day is set to March 19th. I can’t wait. It will be a two-day visit to the centre. W. is scheduled for the same day so I will meet her. K. has a different device and he will have a switch-on a week earlier.

I am wearing one hearing aid all this time, on my right ear. It is a bit upsetting. Talking to my family or people I know well is no problem. In noisy places or in social situations the communication is a little more difficult though. I was told not to try the hearing aid on my left ear yet since it is still healing.

Zoe asked me to write in English too. This was unavoidable I think :-). I am going to post in two languages, though the English versions may appear a bit later and may be shorter. Feel free to point out any errors.
Here is a translation of my post from Saturday, February 17th.

I arrive early, about 7.30 am. I get a card for opening the doors and an ID with my name fastened to my hand, similar to the one they give to the newborn infants. I share the room with W. She is 34 years old, has some useful hearing in one ear, the other is to be implanted today. The nurse tells us to unpack, change into pajamas and wait. The rooms looks just like a hotel but for the devices like oxygen valves and a rack for IV drips. We are unpacking and talking. Suddenly the nurse enters and tells us to hurry up, wear pajamas, jewellery and glasses off, and go to the operation ward right now. *Aaaa!*
Fortunately this leaves me only a few minutes to panic, during the waiting at the entrance to the operation ward and then on a table, while they are connecting me to various devices. The anesthesiologist lets me to go to sleep with my glasses on, for which I am grateful because I feel more confident. I can’t very well lipread without them.

I wake up about 11.40 am from some dream in a room I don’t know, all painted blue, covered in blue sheets with clouds and rainbows. Check: head bandaged, some cable fastened to my hand — it seems like it is all over. The nurse comes, yes, it is all right. Pain. They give me an injection at once. I get these painkiller injections for the next twenty four hours — quite a nice high, although I don’t know what it was. After fifteen minutes they have me walk to my room where I am told to get some sleep. Then I can get up and haunt the centre walking around with my head bandaged, the mess of hair above and the drainage tube filling slowly with blood.

The supper is difficult because my jaw aches with every bite and I have to eat a fresh good roll. This pain goes away slowly, I can eat almost normally a few days after the surgery. I have taste disturbances though — I still feel tastes with the right half of my tongue only. They say this is normal after this operation and should pass. I hope so.

W. is afraid. When she woke up from anaesthesia, she didn’t hear anything with her second, better ear for a while and she panicked. Now, a day or two after the surgery, she feels that she hears a bit worse than before. Everyone is consoling her and persuasing that it is impossible, that nothing was done to this ear, inventing impromptu theories why it may be worse at the moment. She gets Encorton. I get the antibiotics only.

On Tuesday, a day after the operation, they move us to the so-called hotel part of the centre. Only the buttons for calling the nurse remind us there that this is still a hospital. On Wednesday our drains are removed and on Thursday we go home. K., a man of our age, who had a surgery on Monday too, has his drain removed on Thursday and is to go home on Friday. These 4-5 days of stay in the hospital are standard here.

W. and I received the Nucleus Freedom devices of Cochlear, and K. is supposed to have Pulsar of Med-El. I don’t know why this choice has been made — we were not asked — but I think it was good. I like what I read about my implant.

I have a stitch behind my ear which looks like someone was trying to cut it off. I have an area of my head shaved. Seems a lot, but the remaining hair cover it quite well.

I go home on Thursday. I am to take off my bandage and rinse the stitch twice a day with salicylic spirit. Avoid physical strain for 14 days, avoid water in the ear for 30 days (I am going to wash my hair somehow), eat antibiotics for 5 days. Stitches removal in a week, on February 22nd. Then they tell me the switch-on day. It is usually about a month after the surgery.

They were all very professional and nice in the centre. I got the painkillers when I asked.

I sleep well the first night at home, no painkillers. Saturday, 6th day after the surgery: my veins still ache a bit after an IV drip. I can move my head normally without feeling pain.