My Fears

Surgery is quickly coming up.  2 more days.  I'm 80% excited and 20% freaking out.  Well, I'm not really freaking out.  But my thoughts are definitely consumed by what is coming.  I really feel that the implants will be able to help me hear better than how I am hearing today.  I don't expect to ever hear like a "normal" person does.  But I welcome anything that's better.  Even if I could hear more effectively again with my assistive listening devices.  I do not feel they help very much anymore though I continue to use them.  Sounds are just become less and less distinguished.  I can hear sound, I just often can't make sense of them.

This last week was my turn to teach Joy School, my daughter's preschool group.  There are 5 kids in the group.  I'll be totally honest.  I didn't hear any of them for the entire 2.5 hours.  Except my daughter.  I have trained her on how to speak to me.  The other kids, bless their hearts, just couldn't make sense in my head when they spoke.  I used my contego and it amplified their voices and amplified noise, but it did not make it clearer.  All of a sudden, I felt afraid that getting implants would just make everything louder, not clearer.  My device always gives me a headache in group situations.  The amplification of the noise is painful.  But usually, the benefits outweigh the headaches.  I've had a headache ever since it feels like!  I'm so needing my ibuprofen (my drug of choice :) but I can't take it the week before surgery.  I think I might give in today though and take a couple anyways. 

I attended church this morning with my sister and her kids.  Her kids were all baptized yesterday and it was wonderful!  My sister's ward (the local congregation) had their Christmas program today with several musical numbers.  I hate musical numbers!  No offense to the musicians of the world, but music is not pretty to me, even spiritual music.  Music is painful to me.  Since I already had a headache, listening to those screeching voices and piano just magnified my head pain.  Why didn't I think to just turn off my hearing aids????

On the way home, I asked my mom, whose hearing is worse than  mine, what she thought of the musical numbers.  She says she's always loved music but choirs don't do much for her as she can't understand the music.  I asked her if it annoyed her or just felt like noise.  She said that never has a musical number bothered her.  She was shocked it gives me headaches.  I don't understand why it's different for us.  Music sounds like screeching to me.  In no way does it sound nice or even neutral.  I can tolerate the kids cd's for a time but they are simple songs.  Twinkle Twinkle Little Star does not give me a headache.  I guess if you add any depth to the music or lyrics, it just becomes noise to me and noise is not pleasant!

Another fear I have is that because I haven't trained my brain to understand music, that I won't be able to understand music with implants.  Music is very important to my husband and I feel like my distaste of it has lessened music on his priority list.  That makes me sad.  I very much want to train myself to appreciate music so that it can become important to him again.

I also fear the actual surgery.  It's kind of a big deal.  But again, the benefits are going to outweigh the risks so it's going to be worth the discomfort for a couple of weeks.  I can do this!