Noah's Cochlear Implant Surgery

We got to the Cleveland Clinic at 6:30 on Tuesday, August 19th.

He was trying so hard to be brave. He only got a little bit junky sounding.

They finally called us back around 8:30. Makes you really wonder why they ask you to be there so gosh darn early.....

They gave him a dose of  Versed to help  him relax.

He had one last ditch effort and tried to lunge himself off the bed and then was out cold.

While sitting in the waiting room for 5 hours, I found these pictures on Facebook. It sure was nice seeing all the support. Thank you so much, it sure made the time go a bit easier knowing we had so many praying for us and Noah.

After 4 hours of waiting the surgeon told us everything went well. They tested the implant and initial results were encouraging.We waited another hour before we were able to see him. It was so good to see him awake when the time came.

They kept  him overnight even though this is normally an outpatient procedure. They were saving us a trip back up the next day to check his surgical site.

They assured us the turban that they put on Noah's head to protect the implant would stay on. Obviously they don't know Noah......

We tried all kinds of ways to see if it would stay. Even putting the strap that across his forehead under his chin. It still didn't work. Mister Houdini himself had no problem getting it off.

It wasn't happy until we finally gave up and let him be without it. After he finally got it off for the last time he rested but he never really slept. The doctor came in at 7am the next morning and wasn't very happy that his bandage was already off. I assured him that he hadn't bumped his head on anything.

By 9am we were out of there. We got him in the van and probably 5 miles done the road and his protective bandage was off again . The little booger.

He was so glad to finally get home and so were we.

 Where the bandage is behind his ear is where they opened him up to do the implant. The dark spot above is where they ground a "cup" in his skull so the processor would eventually have a place to rest. There's a magnet inside his skull there for the processor to stick to.
The bottom picture is his incision site. Everything is healing pretty nicely. We go back to the Clinic on Monday for his preop appt. and then  on Sept 23rd his implant will be activated. I can't wait..... It's going to be a whole new world  and I can't wait to share it with him.