NALANI HAS TO HAVE SURGERY AND MY HEARING AID AT LAST

29th and 30th July 2010

Today was a splendiferous day, one that I had been waiting for - the day I was fitted with my totally trendy, fashionable and fabulous hot pink hearing aid. I had pain and felt unwell but nothing was going to spoil such a auspicious occasion, the day that I could hear not one hundred percent better but my world became so much clearer with the help of this marvellous invention.

I will share more about it later but first I have to go back one day and tell you the events of Thursday. Although not a cold morning, it was miserably wet and inclement, however if you look on the positive side, rain helps our dams and gives our Earth life. I tried to also look on the positive side as I woke again in severe and constant pain, I can live with it even though it is so draining and debilitating because I am grateful that I am alive. After playing a game of Happily Ever After with Nalani, we had to take her to see the Sports Orthopaedic Surgeon, to hear what the outcome of all her recent tests were. The doctor was located in the same place that I go to see my Paediatrician, he was so friendly and after examining Nalani and looking at all her scans he told us that her left knee cap is sitting in a sub laxed position, there is only one option for her and that is surgery. She has to have an arthroscope and a knee stabilisation, the stabilisation will be done either through repair or she may have to have a reconstruction, the doctor will not know until he goes in for a look. She has to have surgery on 17th September, it is normally just day surgery but he has booked her in overnight in case of complications. After the surgery she will have to wear a brace for six weeks, in the first three weeks she can only bend her knee up to 45 degrees then in the next three weeks she can build up to 90 degrees. It will then be another two to three months and she will be able to fully participate in any sport she would like. He said there is only a five per cent chance of recurrence of the injury and she will feel like a new person. This means that she will be running again next year which she is so excited about, before her surgery she has to see Rhiannon to help her build up before surgery and then she will recover much more quickly from the surgery. When she has the surgery Mum and I will be there for her, it will be so strange to be by a bedside rather than the one lying in the bed in hospital.

When we came home I felt so exhausted, my pain had increased and I also felt nauseous again, even though I was supposed to go to school for the afternoon I was not able to, I just did not have the energy or feel well enough to go. It was running training in the afternoon and we had to take Jarrett, so I did some knitting in the car and rested my weary body. I played my Tinkerbell DS Game and practised answers for my interview with Asho on the weekend. The tape on my right foot became so itchy I could not bear to have it on any longer, so we had to remove it, the time before I had tolerated it longer and it did help but my skin had other ideas this time obviously. This makes it difficult as taping has given me relief, it is a vicious circle really. I did my exercises that Rhiannon had shown me at physiotherapy the other day, I am determined and today I pushed through the discomfort but think I over did it, I guess I have to learn how to judge when to stop. Rhiannon will be kept busy seeing both Nalani and I , she is a very special person in my life because she is doing everything she can to help me.

Today was a day of celebration because of my hearing aid and even though I had the worst possible nights sleep with pain, cracking and my knee getting stuck and not been able to bend it, I just shrugged my shoulders and concentrated on this wonderful positive that was going to happen. A game of Upwords, some knitting and a lovely visit from our friend Manda helped the day slip by ever so rapidly and the time came to drive to a new horizon in my life, my hearing aid fitting.

My marvellous, extraordinary and miraculous hearing aid is a hot pink Siemens Explorer hearing aid, it is state of the art and quite a fashion statement. It has a computer chip in it and it was all set up with a special program on the computer. It fits so beautifully, it is like it was meant to be there, it is light weight and very comfortable but best of all, I can hear more clearly, I did not realise how severe my hearing loss had been until I was able to hear so much more clearly with it turned on. I will never have one hundred per cent hearing in that ear but who cares, at least I can appreciate conversation and the magnificent sounds around me and hey if I ever feel a little cheeky I can always turn it off to block out people I don't particularly want to listen to! The sound I get in my hearing aid is not quite like normal speech, it is slightly tinny but the audiologist said as long as it did not sound like I had my head in a bucket then that was terrific. I learnt how to change batteries in it, they last for approximately two weeks and when they are running low you hear a tune in your hearing aid and this tells you that the battery is running low, it will last for another half and hour before running out totally. I also learnt how to care for my hearing aid, by putting it in a special container with a drying capsule that helps take out moisture because that can damage the hearing aid, the capsule is put into the drying tub and then you place the hearing aid in there overnight. I was shown how to clean wax out of the ear piece with a specially designed tool, because wax can block the hearing aid and stop it from working properly, so it is extremely important to clean it regularly. I got a special little pack and it included stickers that I can actually put on the outside of the hearing aid, that is the part that sits snugly behind my ear, there are butterflies, fairies, love hearts, sea creatures and a special little creature called a hearing aid worm. I have to go for a follow up appointment on 2nd September to see how it is working, their main concern is that I still may have difficulty hearing in a noisy classroom situation and that an FM transmitter may have to used as well as my hearing aid so that I can hear. The volume is automatically adjusted so I don't have to do anything with that, what an amazing device it is though and one that I truly appreciate having and hope that it will help make my everyday life just that little bit easier. I again think that until you have gone through difficult journey's you really don't appreciate what life has to offer you in the way of miracles. Today getting my hearing aid has been a momentous event and as we left Australian Hearing I had a smile that stretched from ear to ear and sparkled like a gigantic diamond.

I am still smiling as I enjoy the new found wonder of clearer sound and not even the most terrible pain that is coming from my knee is going to put a cloud in what inside my heart has been a day of sunshine.

'When you listen to the sounds around you, enjoy and appreciate them for the gift of hearing should never be taken for granted'