At first, I didn't think that 10 days would be that bad. How dirty could my hair get if I would be sleeping and not very active? However, the day of my post-op appointment, when they took the helmet off, is when I realized just how bad my hair situation was going to be. In order to avoid shaving large amounts of hair, Dr. Murray slicked back my hair with a glue like substance to keep it away from the incision. While this is good in theory, as I would rather have gross hair than no hair at all, it was definitely no treat for the eyes to see.
The post-op instructions from Dr. Murray's office provided some suggestions for how to meet these insane guidelines. The only way to remove the glue was to massage hand sanitizer into the hair. So, I decided to start with this as a first step. I carefully brushed my hair to make a very stylish 80's side ponytail, leaving the crunchy portions of my hair flowing free. For about 20 minutes, I repeated the following two steps over and over again: massaging in hand sanitizer and brushing out the crunchiness; massaging in hand sanitizer and brushing out the crunchiness. Once I had gotten most of that out, it was time for the hard part.
In order to avoid water getting in my ear, the post-op instructions suggested placing a cotton ball in the ear canal then covering with Vaseline. In theory, this seemed so simple and getting the actually cotton ball inside my ear was, but every time I tried to smear Vaseline on the cotton ball, the cotton ball would come right out. When I would put it back in, the Vaseline on the cotton ball, as well as the remains on my fingers, would make the areas around my ear all oily. I thought the point of showering was to get the oil out and here I was making things seemingly worse. Once the cotton ball was in and greased up, we placed a plastic bag around my ear like a cocoon so my ear canal was now safe from water.
Now we had to find a way to keep the incision dry. The post-op instructions did not provide any suggestions for how to do this. What? Did they really just assume that people would go 10 days without washing their hair? That is absurd! I wasn't sure how to go about doing this, so I posed this question on the Envoy Esteem Patients Group on facebook (i.e., an online support group for current and potential Esteem recipients - a place to share experiences, to ask questions, and to gain more information about the implant). Other patients suggested simply holding a thick towel over my ear while having someone else take care of washing my hair. Since I couldn't think of anything better, we decided on this method. 
While I kneeled in front of the bath tub with my head hanging over the edge, I held a towel over my ear while my mom washed and rinsed my hair. After about 20 minutes and 3 shampoo coats later, my hair was clean at last! My "freshness" was complete. I finally had the herbal essence moment I was looking for! Ahhhh Yessssss!
While it felt great to finally have my hair clean, OH MY GOODNESS! What a process that was! I couldn't believe I would have to go through this every time I wanted to shower. In a moments time, I felt helpless and I hated the idea of not being able to do something on my own. I quickly abandoned these thoughts because, in reality, it is only 10 days. For some people this is a lifestyle. Just as many people take their hearing for granted, I had taken my independence for granted. It made me realize just how easy it is to feel sorry for ourselves and to take all of Gods gifts for granted. At the end of the day, it is up to you to find the beauty of the storm.
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