Hello everyone,
A million thanks for all best wishes and incredible support from all of you
I can't say how grateful I am!
As one of my collegues at work , who was visiting the forum to follow what Mats was writing, said "You have so many great friends and a lot of support out there. I can't believe that people who don't know you can be so kind och generous". That is also what is amazing me every time I log in to meet all of you. You are like a second lovely, big family of mine. Love you all a lot!
Today it's ten days since surgery and I'm feeling much better than I thought I would. I'm still quite dizzy and a have a very big wonky head on my shoulders. It feels like my head weights 30 kilos and that it is not correctly connected to the rest of the body. I'm also SSD, I think. It's a bit tricky to know if you hear something on the bad ear or if the sounds around you are picked up by the good ear, but when I put the telephone to the AN ear I hear nothing, so I'm no among the SSDs I suppose.
I was a bit shocked to notice that all sounds become so much louder now than when I was hearing perfectly with both my ears. Everything also sounds differently than before, even my own voice doesn't sound that it used to, but I suppose that the brain adjust sooner or later. But right now it is exhausting with all common sounds. My brain and body are still in some kind of ALARM level and it feels like every movement and sound that's coming to my awareness is threathening. I have to convince myself that I won't die if I take a walk with Mats althought there are a lot of movements and sounds/noices everywhere.
The tinnitus is just about as it was before the surgery and I'm very thankful about that. I've understand that it can be much worse after surgery than before for some people. I hope it will stay the way it is right now and not becoming worse. The two days following surgery day I heard some music and some bumble bees in the ear, but thank God, they are gone now.
I am also very, very grateful about that the double vision is more or less gone by now. It slowly disappeared the day I went home from hospital. I don't know if it was all the eye exercises I had to do when I met the eye expert before going home that corrected the double vision. In the afternoon I could quit being a pirate and I put my pirate patch away. I was so happy about that!
I have noticed that it is a bit difficult to keep the eye lubricated when I'm outside. Today, it was no problem, but it was hot here today, but yesterday evening it was a bit cold when Mats and I went for a half hour walk and then it was difficult to blink with the eye because it felt very dry. Hope this will correct itself by time and meantime I maybe need some kind of eye drops when I'm outside and it's windy.
What I am most impressed by is the incredible work made by the surgeons Dr Siesjö and Dr ... during and after surgery. Althought my AN was located at the end of the IAC and was very, very sticky, they could get it all outside and they could preserve the facial nerve. I have no facial issues at all!! I can smile and I can whistle and blow up my cheeks with air and everything!! I didn't count on that when I got informed about the location of the AN the day before surgery. I was sure I would get total paralysis after surgery because it was located so far away in the IAC canal. I can't describe how grateful I am to both the surgeons but also the rest of the staff that took care of me at the hospital. Without them I feel like I wouldn't be alive today. If you ever read this THANK YOU!!!
As a summary I can say that there are a lot of things to be grateful for. Of course I mustn't forget to be grateful to my dear, dear hubby Mats who has been (and is) an incredible support to me and he is also so good at computers and reporting on the forum. I think he does it much better than I do. I have been reading some of the threads about my post-op but I haven't finished them all yet, so maybe I'm repeating the same things that Mats told you about, but I hope you can cope with that.
Now, I'm beginning to get tired, I had better take a little cat nap again!
Best wishes from Sweden and from Helene, Mats, our teenagers and of cours our cat Stickan,
Love you all!
