A week is too long when you’re waiting to be switched on

OK, just over a week to go. I’m battling with a mix of emotions, including excitement, trepidation and frustration.

The frustration comes out of the increasing feeling that my life is kind of on hold, partly because I only have one ear together with a hearing aid that is providing, at best, 20% hearing. I haven’t much work on and I haven’t talked to friends or family that much since the op. It’s only thanks to her indoors and two young girls that the daily wheels of life are moving at all….

I worry about things going wrong. For example, I worry about making sharp movements in case my electrode ‘slips’ out. This is probably a very irrational, as this type of thing doesn’t happen very often. I haven’t been warned not to over-exert myself beyond the advice to take it easy and no flying for six weeks post-op.

I still feel the thing in there, and my ear is still numb, but at least i can forsee a point in the not too distant future when i will forget it’s there, judging by the gradual but steady dimunition of the soreness and numbness.

On another level, I’m battling against my instinct to be highly optimistic about all this, as everyone keeps warning me not to set them too high. Even if my hearing history suggests I should benefit well from a cochlear implant, outcomes can apparently be very disappointing, even for those who are expected to do well. Sometimes there is just no way of knowing.