I know, I know... it took me a while to sit down and actually type this up, I guess its the lazy summer days.

I got the activation date.....September 4th. Killer part about the date is... the fact is just before the weekend. And I have plans to go to the beach for the weekend. I am sure I am going to be turning heads a lot there and trying to figure out this stuff.

20 more days til surgery. I'm ready to go under the knife and get this over with.

See ya all next time!

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Yeap! I am already posting my surgery date! I got a call this morning from Dr.Limb's office and its been 24 hours since my appointment with Steve...

Drumroll please!

August 4, 2009 at 730am. Means that I have to be at JHH at 530am!

Almost a month away!

I called my mom and she was like thats so soon! Uhhh... yea! Exactly what I wanted. I wanted the surgery before September so I don't miss classes.

I am hoping to get my activation date , 2nd day follow up, 1 week follow up and the 1 month follow up dates within two weeks. I already got in touch with Shawntell, this lovely lady that makes my appointments via e-mail.

I will post an advice list that I gotten from my friend Denise Portis, a fellow blogger and CI'er. Had some great tips that you wouldn't even thought of...

This is not my first sugery, the last one was in August of 2007 for a bone spur in my shoulder. Painful as heck during recovery. Every time I laughed, coughed, sneezed, hic-cupped, or whatever, hurt like heck! I kinda of know what to expect post-operatively since this one was almost sorta of recent.

Keep an eye out for the next post with the activation date!

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Yup. You heard it loud and clear! Last appointment was with Steve Bowditch. He did an aided auditory testing also speech perception test. The aided part, the right ear (which will be the implanted side) shows a drop around 2000Hz from 60-80db.

The speech perception....well I felt that I did terrible cuz I really didn't recognize the words. Only a few of them. CID was at 14% and HINT score was at 18%.

Hopefully within 2 weeks, I'll have my surgery date. Tee-hee! I can't wait!!!

While I was there, I also picked out my processor, color choice and cap color choice. All of ya probably already know by now that I picked Advanced Bionics. Signed and dated my device selection papers. Ordered 2 Silver Processors with Sophista Color caps.

See ya all later! Will post again with surgery date!!!

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Yup, 6 more days til that LAST appointment before surgery! This appointment is with my audiologist, Steve for a new hearing test. This will let me know if my hearing is stable or has declined more since March.

Wish me luck!

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Sorry for not posting... I finally had my appointment with Dr. Limb. Quite a remarkable guy with a great academic background from Harvard and Yale. My parents were pretty impressed with him. He asked a bunch of questions about how I grew up, how I became deaf, etc.

I was almost 3 months premature baby which gave me a few health problems. My hearing loss and diabetes. The doctors (back in 1977) believes that I have a nerve damage (Nerve Deafness).

On the other hand, today...I am trying to find out the real cause of my deafness. I am so curious but there isn't any answers now. Maybe in the sometime future, I will know. The technology and the science is so much better today than 32 years ago.

Back to Dr. Limb; he answered my parents questions and mine too. He said that JHH has never damaged anyone's facial nerve up to this point. He also said that he will shave hair on the implanted side, not much... but he will shave a tiny amount on the non implanted side that way they can keep in track of my facial nerves and make sure they aren't damaged thru the surgery. At the end, he feels comfortable doing my surgery and will see me next time in the operating room....

Surgery date? He said that it can be end of July or sometime in August... I was like REALLY??? I am looking forward to getting this done and hear the trick and treaters for halloween.. one of my favorite holidays. But... it all depends on my last appointment at the end of the month with my audiologist, Steve Bowditch for the auditory testing.

So far, its been going well and smoothly.

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Here is the article on John Hopkins Magazine on Dr. Charles Limb.  Click to read article.

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It was a blast!  I got to meet a lot of people and finally Elizabeth McDonald from AB.  It was so nice to meet someone with a face!

I was right about the burgers, but not CI shaped... But they did have burgers.. wished they had the cheese to go with it...

I got a few freebies, some freebies for Echo and Kaitu, drawstring bags, bubbles.

There was a mixture of age groups, the most common I saw were either kids or senior citizens.  I was told that seniors are the most popular group of CI's.

It was worth going and meeting other people.... but I did get lost.  I deleted my email that had the specific directions to Centennial Park.  I thought it was the main entrance but it was in the East Entrance in a private area for large groups.

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