Richard's Ramblings

Back from post-op sign-off by my ENT surgeon. Everything is fine, the wound has healed, stitches are self-dissolving, inside the ear canal is clear. Switch-on and activation of the external sound processor is tomorrow, Friday. Then my brain will receive sound from the left side for the first time for more than 25 years. It just has to learn how to understand it. That’s a 6 to 12 month job. But the best news from Dr Anderson was nothing directly to do with audiology, it was that I can wash my hair in the shower! I’ve been plugging the implanted ear with a wax plug and sporting a shower cap. 2½ weeks of unwashed hair. Eew. Meanwhile, my hearing-aid-assisted ear has been clogged up with wax. It’s a problem for hearing aid wearers, many of you will know. Although wax is a nuisance, it’s produced for all the right reasons, to protect the ear from a foreign intruder, in this case, the in-ear bit of the hearing aid. So I’ve been squirting anti-wax stuff into my ear for the past week, to loose

I shouldn’t be sitting here at my Mac, promised the surgeon that I’d take it easy for a couple of weeks. But here I am, resplendent in a turban bandage covering Tuesday’s op wound, and unresplendent without a shirt so that my coronary artery bypass “zipper” is displayed for all to see. Except there’s only Leisa and the dog to see it. No pics, this is a family pew sheet. Ah, the dog. Yannie is our German Shepherd and she had a tumour cut out on Tuesday, the same day as my cochlear implant surgery. Poor Leisa had to toggle between the Mater, JCU Vet and working from home. Yannie is at my feet sporting a “cone of shame” to prevent her from licking her wound, and a couple of Leisa’s socks to prevent her from scratching it. We make a fine pair. I know why I look like a knife sharpening block, but Yannie doesn’t know why bits of her do. She just knows that her supposed carers took her to a disinfectant-smelling place where she gets jabbed every few months, but this time they went to town on

The Mater told me today what time I have to roll up on Tuesday (8am). The usual stuff about not eating after midnight (do I splurge on a big dinner on Monday, or a light supper?), only water after 6am. No alcohol for 24 hours before the op or 24 hours after an anaesthetic. Bring an overnight bag. Which in the old days (in this context, I’m not sure when the old days ended) for me would have included a bible. I have lots of bibles on my shelves and scattered around the house. Do you know, I don’t read any of them. Nor do I take one of them with me when I go to church or to hospital or visiting. But I always have a bible with me, something which didn’t even happen in the old days. That’s because I use a bible app on my phone and iPad, and on my iMac and laptop. More versions than Harry Potter, Greek and Hebrew side-by-side, listen to Hebrew pronunciation, spoiled for choice for commentary at the swipe of a screen or click of a mouse. “Ah”, you say, “but you can’t scribble in the margin o