One week since the lap mapping and so far, no twitching….thank G_d! I am beginning to enjoy music again and have a renewed interest in Dave Brubeck who was also my father’s favorite jazz musician. Amazingly enough, even at the age of 86 the man is still going at it! He is suppose to be in Rochester in June so I am hoping I’ll be able to catch him at the Rochester International Jazz Festival. Right now I am listening to his The Great Concerts CD which includes three of his most famous songs (Take Five, Blue Rondo a la Turk, Pennies from Heaven) live at the Carnegie Hall in 1963. Only this time I am wearing my hearing aid in the left ear for that stereo sound effect. Oh and by the way, I have an appointment with Dr. Diaz-Ordaz for a “consultation” on May 31st. I want go bilateral and have it done in December, this year.

Ok…about the $60,000 in the title line. That is what the surgery cost. Geez…no wonder health care is so expensive. One line…$55,000.. is for the “Cochlear Implant” and on the last page, it said…”Implant Discount – $27,500. Now I am not exactly complaining since my share is “only” $75 but $60,000 total??? And this doesn’t include the post-op visits for mappings and therapy. But even still, I wouldn’t trade doing the procedure for the cost of 2 nice cars!

Next week is the first of 6 to 8 weeks of speech therapy, a half hour each. These are designed to help transition to hearing more and relying less on lip-reading with an ultimate goal of using the telephone.

Time to vamoose outta here and get the eggplant in the oven. Older son Mike is coming over for dinner of that and salmon since his “Miss Lovely” is in NYC for on-the-job training. And poor Mr. Lonely misses his mudda’s delicious home cooking.