Somewhat Silent

Bilateral BAHAs here I come

12 Responses to “Bilateral BAHAs here I come”

1. hohprof (User Verified) :
   April 12th, 2006 at 9:08 am

   This is great news Natalya I’m amazed and impressed at the speed it’s all started to happen and yes, symmetrical holes-in-the-head would definitely be a good idea.

2. lette :
   April 12th, 2006 at 9:49 am

   Ah yes, best of luck dearie, Im sure they will help greatly

3. Sara :
   April 12th, 2006 at 2:04 pm

   Congrats on the aids. Hope you get everything sorted out, and that they don’t give you issues about making them symmetrical.

4. barakta (User Verified) :
   April 12th, 2006 at 4:26 pm

   I’m don’t anticipate any issues with Mr R making them symmetrical - I’m sure he’s more retentive about such things than I am. He’s using an older more cosmetically/healing approved procedure which takes longer over the new swanky gadget which does it all for you (he hates it). We had a heated agreement about the relative merits of surgical options last time we met!

   I’m boggling at the speed of completion, I wonder how he’s got such a short waiting list. I will definitely ask how he manages it, as some PCTs have a one year pre waiting list for the waiting list. Or one year assessment waiting list. I guess I skip the assessment cos they already know it’ll benefit me, cos I’ve got one.

5. Alli (User Verified) :
   April 12th, 2006 at 11:07 pm

   I hope everything goes great!

   (Completely unrelated question from across the pond): 4 months is fast? That seems…. frightening to me.

   /republican…. obvioiusly.

6. barakta (User Verified) :
   April 13th, 2006 at 1:43 am

   Alli: I’m supposed to be going to bed, but I couldn’t resist replying to this before I do so…

   4 months is fast for a non-urgent elective procedure - absolutely. The NHS is fantastic for emergencies, heart attacks, accidents, things needing surgery now now or cancer… For the less acute things it can be a little on the slow side but generally gets there eventually - especially if you know who to be polite to, and who to persistently annoy . The problem is the money put into the NHS isn’t being spent well and lots of money is spent on paperchasing, and not on actual medicine. It is a very hot political potato at the moment, with various different views.

   I expected to wait more like 6-12 months to get BAHA#2 because I already have one BAHA, I’m not ‘without hearing aid’ and because my doctor is likely to have people in 1) more need than me, 2)people who have been waiting longer than me, 3)Arguments about funding cos I live in a different area from the hospital which will be doing the surgery, etc etc. I don’t know how my doctor did it, I’ll ask - he’s a bit of a maverick, which because he is on my side is absolutely fine by me. This is one of the few doctors I do actually trust with my life without question.

   We don’t have insurance funding issues here, but we do have primary-care-trusts(PCT) fighting over who pays (or doesn’t pay) for what. On the other hand that is not usually the patients problem unless their treatment is not approved for whatever reason - or delayed for silly amount of time to suit finances.

   One of the BAHA support groups I am involved with has successfully campaigned to get surgery funded and carried out when the PCTs have been playing silly buggers. Hell my yahoo list (BAHA_PPL) has some feisty US/Canadian folk fighting to get BAHA aids covered by various insurance providers. I regularly piss them off by calling it a ‘hearing aid’, they are trying to use the ’sound processor’ aka ‘prosthesis’ argument to get insurance companies to pay for the BAHA aid itself. These babies are 1-2000 dollars US each - some people need/do much better with two. On the other hand if you have no ear canals, or can’t wear standard aids they were until recently the only option.

   I have been very lucky with the NHS, having had over 45 general anaesthetics and approx 6 local ones. I rarely waited long for planned procedures and several ‘urgent’ ones were treated ‘on that day’. I was the kid turning up to the ward ready-starved and ready to go cos yet another orthopaedic wossname needed redoing.

   How does insurance work if you have a load of obscure pre-existing conditions which may or maynot need treatment in the future? Do insurance companies have the right to exclude them as private insurance does here?

   If I got private medical insurance it’d do bugger all for me, as they could blame everything on my medical history. Whereas in Germany you would pay 2-300 US dollars a month on a 30,000 USD a year salary for federal insurance which would cover everything.

7. Alli (User Verified) :
   April 13th, 2006 at 3:04 am

   haha. i never remember the time difference, go to bed!

   And thanks for the crash course in UK Health Care.

   I really do hope your surgery goes well, I don’t know much about BAHA but I’ll be googling and praying for you (remind us as it gets closer!).

8. Alli (User Verified) :
   April 13th, 2006 at 3:07 am

   BTW: Sara think it’d be possible to get a subscribtion thingy on this blog? (I know you’re crazy super busy, but I’m NEEDY!!!) No rush or anything, just an idea….

   /begs
   //i like slashies…
   ///a lot.

9. barakta (User Verified) :
   April 13th, 2006 at 5:15 am

   Alli: I’m horribly nocturnal these days (as in go to sleep at 9am, wake up at 9pm! not good for anything but being nerdy on the Interweb)… I gave up on sleep as not happening.

   One thing I forgot to say in the above was that UK healthcare is funded by National Insurance which is taken from your salary like some taxes. When I was at college NI payments kicked in once you started earnig over £55 a week (about $100) and went up as salary increased…

   BAHA is basically ‘bone anchored hearing aid’ where they drill a small hole in your mastoid process (behind the ear) and put a ‘washer’ in into which an abutment (wee screw) is connected. After 3 months the ‘washer’ should have bonded with bone (funky titanium biochemistry happens!) and a hearing aid - the BAHA is clipped on. This works using bone conduction, using the skull bones to bypass the middle ear and stimulate the cochlae. Same principle as what makes the dentists drill sound so loud - the sound is conducting through your teeth. Wikipedia has a reasonable page as Internet folk have improved the original that I wrote a few months back.

   I’ll definitely be posting here nearer the time of my surgery, I want all the sympathy and TLC that I can get!

10. Alli (User Verified) :
    April 13th, 2006 at 11:21 pm

    ’m horribly nocturnal these days (as in go to sleep at 9am, wake up at 9pm! not good for anything but being nerdy on the Interweb)… I gave up on sleep as not happening.

    this sounds disturbingly familiar… except i ususally pass out at about 4 or 5 am and get up at 10 or 11 (unless i have early class then i get up at 6!)

    That (the bone drilling) sounds (heh) interesting… I hope it works, and keep me posted.

11. Sara (User Verified) :
    April 13th, 2006 at 11:54 pm

    Alli, I’ll do the subscription thingy. I have to update this blog to a slightly newer version first, so I’ll have to do it over the weekend.

12. Alli (User Verified) :
    April 14th, 2006 at 2:04 am

    sara i love you… seriously… *hugs*

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