How it feels to TURN ME ON

Today was the magical day!  I got my Vagus Nerve Stimulator turned on.  Wait…. that title… of course I was referring to my VNS.  Get your mind out of the gutter!

I was really excited, and a little bit nervous, for my appointment.  I did a ton of research prior to getting my VNS and I knew about all of the possibilities when it was turned on.  I knew about the many things that people reported, but it’s not the same for everyone.  Even though I knew that it would likely impact my voice, I had no idea how it would actually feel or what the impact would be.

 

We went in for my appointment, and it was probably the fastest Doctor’s appointment I’ve ever had.  And for once I didn’t leave in tears!  Programming the device is so easy.  They simply just put a wand over your chest and then once the wand detects the device they can then use a program on an iPad to set the timing and frequency of the device.  That took like 30 seconds.  The longest part of the appointment was when we made small talk long enough for the device to go off 3 times to ensure I was going to be ok with it.  Mine is set currently at a really low entry level.  It goes off every 5 minutes for 30 seconds at a .25 frequency.  We will increase the levels and the increments every two weeks until we find a therapeutic level.

So how does it feel?  Really weird mostly.  When we were in the office I actually could barely tell the times that it went off.  My throat has been feeling rather swollen from the surgery and mostly I just felt tightening or pressure in my throat.  When we left and got in the car, I got out my magnet to make sure that it was working.  The magnet is what you swipe across your chest if you feel a seizure coming on or someone else can swipe it across if you are having a seizure and it will trigger the device to go off.  As soon as I swiped it across I must have had a look of sheer terror in my eyes because Damion and Caty looked really freaked out.  I was a little freaked out because as soon as I swiped it my whole throat began to close in.  I don’t actually think that I attempted to speak at that time as I was just too spooked.  After about 30 seconds the rope around my throat let go and I saw that everything was ok.  When I got home I did it again except that time I knew what to expect.  When I tried to speak during the “event” nothing would really come out. If I tried to speak even louder there was a tickle in my throat and my voice did this tiny little vibrato thing.  I wouldn’t call it raspy, I wouldn’t call it hoarse… I think I would just call it weird.

I look forward to seeing how this does.  It is certainly manageable right now as I can barely feel when it goes off when not provoked by the magnet.  Ideally we would like to get it to around 2.5-3 at 3 minute intervals for 1 minute each.  That can take quite awhile to get there.  I’m fine taking baby steps for something that could potentially change my life as I currently know it.

 For those wondering how I am healing, it is definitely getting much better!  The incision on my neck is understandably still quite swollen and isn’t healing as well as the one on my chest.  I am happy with the progress, however.  I looks WAY better than it did two weeks ago.  It feels actually like it’s been much longer than two weeks since I had my surgery!  I was really worried about scarring, so I’ve been doing my part to try to prevent them as much as I can.  A few things that have worked well for me….

COCONUT OIL!!! I use Coconut Oil for my skin, hair, and cooking. It worked wonders to help me get all the surgical glue off of my body and keeps my skin nourished so it can heal.

I love these SCAR AWAY SHEETS. I’ve used these quite a bit on other scars in the past too from skin cancer removal and they are great.

MEDERMA PM. I’ve used Mederma before as well and was quite pleased. I bought this PM version this time and it has been working well.

And finally, I haven’t tried this SCAR GEL but I have gotten some great recommendations from people who battle keloids. It’s in my Amazon wish list JUST IN CASE!