And Another Bump in the Road

Well I really should have known at this point but another stumbling block has come up.  I saw my doctor last Saturday and he took a look and what he saw is not that I have calcifications and fluid that can be cleared up by a tube but rather that I have no fluid (meaning it has healed) but I do likely have scar tissue that has formed over the device preventing it from functioning fully and causing feedback thus limiting volume level.  So I am heading back to California on Thursday to have surgery Friday morning to remove the scar tissue and hopefully this time it will heal without scar tissue.  The device will have to be turned off again and I'll have to wait another 1-2 months to turn it on again.  For those of you who don't know, on August 29th I am heading off to graduate school in Israel so there is a bit of a deadline in trying to get as much done as quickly as possible, hence the rush to get me to California so that some adjustments can be done before I leave.

My doctor completely warned me that this could happen and what it would mean and I think I've reached the point where I'm more annoyed by these things than upset.  At least we're flying Jet Blue, they have Terra blue chips which makes me happy, though my jaw may hurt too much for them on the way back.  The surgery will be going through the same incision and everything and the healing process should be equivalent to what it was in December though with me, who knows right?  Whatever, I'll get through it and even though lately I have been very frustrated it's more because I can sense with what small benefit I have gotten that this will be good, one day, I just wish that one day was a bit sooner than it seems to be for me.  But at this point I am still looking forward to what the Esteem promises.  If I can have as much hearing as a hearing aid but not the hassle of a hearing aid (or I guess 2 since I still have the right aid) then that would be good, I would feel good about that.  We'll see though, it seems to be a waiting game for me, I am certainly learning patience which is not something I've been good at in the past.  I do have one quick story that I want to share about an element that I think I was less concerned about than I should have been in what I'm looking to get out of the device but that I found out the hard way is important:

This actually happened maybe 2 months ago but I've been very hesitant to share it because I am going to live on my own again in the future and I don't want people to worry about me, or at least more than necessary.  Anyway, what happened was that one night I came home from dinner and was just going to take a quick shower and go to sleep.  Now I couldn't hear the fire alarms in my apartment building at school at all, ever, I have literally been in my apartment watching TV through a fire drill before and because of that I had a thing in my bedroom that was supposed to be able to pick up on any fires or alarms and flash a strobe light in case I was asleep.  But when I was in the shower with my Esteem turned on I heard like a faint banging noise.  At first I ignored it because the walls in my building were incredibly thin so I was always hearing neighbors and music and such through the walls but it persisted and it sounded close so I decided to check and I found my friend hysterically banging on the door and I could see that the fire alarm was going off and once I was in the hallway I could hear it as well.  It turned out not to be a big fire, but there was a fire and the only reason I heard my friend knocking was because of the Esteem.

It was interesting, on our way out I grabbed my hearing aid and put it in, and when we were in the hallway I could hear the alarm.  But, when we stood in the lobby, next to the hallway without any barrier between the two or anything, I remarked that I was glad they had turned the alarm off and my friend told me that it was actually still going, so even with my hearing aid in, standing next to the hallway, I couldn't hear it.  So, yes, as I go forward in life and as I will be moving around and such and I won't be carrying a fire alarm notifier around with me (especially since it didn't even work) I will feel better having backup.