Hi Lotty Mac .....
It sounds like you are doing very well post-translab. Congratulations!!
Remember, I am not a doctor, but here are my answers to the questions you posed:
1) You will not be able to hear on the phone on your AN side ear. Translab surgery takes your whole inner ear and the auditory nerve is severed so it is essentially a "dead" ear. I have not actually tried it, but I suppose theoretically one could put the phone to a BAHA processor and hear, but you would not be able to talk into the phone at the same time.
2) Yes, the titanium abutment can be surgically removed but the skull would have to be covered again so it would be a more significant procedure than putting it in in the first place. Normally (and someone can correct me if I am wrong) if you no longer want the abutment there, the screw on the top is removed and the post is left in the skull and possibly the skin could grow over it.
3) Unfortunately a bone-anchored hearing device has little or no effect on tinnitus. The only advantage is with the ability to hear from both sides with a BAHA, it enables one to better focus attention to other normal sounds in the environment instead of on the tinnitus.
4) Technically, you will not have directionality with a BAHA because the sound coming through the processor is being transmitted to your only hearing ear, along with normal sounds from the hearing ear. However, in some situations, I truly can distinguish the slight difference in sound quality and have a sense that something is coming from my deaf side. It is a brain thing to be able to tell the difference.
5) There are some differences in the actual size of BAHA processors, depending on whether you go with the Oticon Medical Ponto systems or the Cochlear BAHA systems. Ponto systems come in four different colors so mine is totally hidden by my hair. I do not know what colors Cochlear has. I urge you to check out both web sites to see about the size on someone's head and for additional information. See:
http://www.oticonmedical.com/Medical/OurProducts/The%20Ponto%20System/Freedom%20of%20choice.aspx and http://www.cochlear.com/wps/wcm/connect/us/recipients/recipient-support/baha6) Not quite sure what you mean by your care/maintenance question. Once your abutment is fully osseointegrated and you are able to attach the processor, your audiologist will program it specifically to your hearing needs. In my case it took a couple of trips back to her for "tweaking" after I had worn it awhile in my normal routines. I have three settings in mine ..... normal use, music, and noisy environments. It is very easy to change between them. There is a volume setting on it, and there is a learning feature in the device that soon learned how I needed/wanted it. I rarely change the volume now. Other than that, you must make sure you keep the area around the abutment free from dry/flaking skin by regular shampooing and brushing with a soft brush (comes with your kit) as needed. As for the device itself, there has been no maintenance to mine, other than making sure I do not drop it.
7) Normally there is no pain with the implant once you have healed. Actually I never had any pain from day one with mine since it was put in at the time of my translab surgery (with which, of course, there was some pain). If it gets infected, there would be some discomfort, naturally. That is why it is important to keep it clean.
That's my attempt to answer. I will say that not everyone has good healing, like I do, so there are no guarantees with any surgical procedure. I put my processor on right after my shower/shampooing in the morning and leave it on until I go to bed at night and rarely think about it inbetween. In my case, it was the best decision I could possibly have made and I love my Oticon Medical Ponto Pro.
Feel free to PM me or ask any more questions.
Clarice
