So, I went through the tests, I got the go ahead for surgery, and then I had the wait.
The wait, to start with, was just a case of getting on with life as well as I could. Knowing that in a few months I would be getting my left side fixed. But as the date gets closer, it plays on your mind so much more. I am now two days away from surgery, my mind has been in overdrive, so I have been keeping as busy as I can to distract myself!!
One of the recurring worries is, how well I will be able to recover from this, in the knowledge that I will need the other side fixing too before I will be truly "fixed". One thing that has really helped me is watching the Olympics. I know, a weird connection, but all of those athletes have had to work so hard, push though so many set backs, or pain, yet they did it, and achieved their goal of competing in the prestigious games. So I am going to see this in the same context. It is going to be hard work, but without putting in that hard work, tackling the challenges, retraining my brain, I am not going to get to my goal.
So, surgery, what does it entail? The surgeon, Mr Irving, is one of the top SCDS surgeons in the country. He will be drilling through the mastoid bone behind my ear, and using some of the bone chippings to create a plug for the superior semi circular canal. The idea is that thiswill render the canal inactive, and therefore stop the symptoms. The posterior semicircular canal on the other side of my head is in the same plane as the superior semicircular canal on the operated side, so will take over the function of the inactive canal.
As I am bilateral, there is a chance that this will make me feel worse until the second side is done, but then there is a chance that it won't, and that I will feel more stable and less noisy. The not knowing how I will be is difficult to contend with. When you undergo any operation you expect there to be a period of recouperation, but not knowing how long that will be is playing on my mind a bit. But the wait is nearly over, soon I will know, soon I will start the journey to a more stable, less noisy head, and I will be able to start to reclaim my life.
