Hey you kids - what the hell's going on up there?

It's hard to believe that it's been only four months since my implant surgery and three months since activation. Other than the loss of bilateral sound (and only having hearing on one side now), I don't remember sound before the deafness being any different than the way I hear now - which is kind of astonishing. Sometimes sound is a little distorted - motorcycles going by, for example, are quite hard to identify at first - but other than that, listening to the television, radio, or other people sounds pretty much exactly as I remember it. The biggest change since activation continues to be my understanding of music. It has improved exponentially, an explosion of improvement over the past three months. I can even understand, and enjoy, music I've never heard before.

Physically, there's been a lot going on "up there". When the swelling went down after the surgery, I thought it was kind of weird because I couldn't feel anything underneath my skin. When I started wearing the external unit, I'd have to move the headpiece all over the side of my head looking for the magnet under the skin for it to attach to. That isn't the case anymore. There's been a hell of a lot of "settling" up there. A lot of... "architecture" appearing. Lumps and bumps under the skin that didn't exist two months ago are a mystery and a wonder today.

I can feel the implant clearly under the skin, the oval shape of its silicone body sitting in the little nest in my skull Dr. B. created for it. I can feel the magnet, a small, hard disc, in the middle of it. I can feel interesting ridges where, I suppose, the plates of my skull are re-aligning themselves in response to all the activity up there. Queasy yet? It's quite painless, cool and interesting, trust me. Finally and most mysteriously, I have a thumbprint-sized indentation directly behind my left ear, quite a significant little concave spot. "Perhaps," I suggested to Husband, "he's left a little hatch in case he needs to get back in."

At any rate, I see both "Helen" and Dr. B. (the surgeon) next week back in Halifax for my three-month post-activation checkup. I'll check with Dr. B. at that time to see if I should be concerned about my post-auricular thumb notch. I haven't been worrying too much about it because, well, first of all, pressing it doesn't cause me to see coloured lights or hear tubas ("Doctor - Doctor - I smell burnt toast!"), and second of all, if it's trouble, it's only going to be fixed with surgery anyway, and we can wait for that, can't we?

The Halifax appointment coincides with Husband and my much-deserved vacations which take place over the next two weeks. We'll be traveling some and chilling at home some. After the year we've had, Lord, we need it.

ronnie