(Cholesteatoma: Benign growth of skin behind the eardrum which can lead to hearing loss and deterioration of the hearing bones)
I’ve had ear tubes in and out, in and out over the course of my life. A few years back, the doctors realizes I had had my tubes in for 9 years. No good. Normal time before they’re supposed to fall out is 6 months or so. So they went in to take the tubes out, and patch up my ear drums. My right ear patched up just fine, but the doctor discovered a choleseatoma in my left ear. So another doctor went in, took it out, and grafted over my eardrum. Well, in the whole scheme of things, it’s not a horrible surgery, but I think it sucks. He made an incision behind my ear, top to bottom, and fixed me all up. It took me forever to heal. I should have been done with it then, but the graft didn’t take. So, 3 years later, he sees that my eardrum is perforated and collapsing, and I may have a recurring cholesteatoma, so he scheduled surgery. He said that the recurring choleteatoma was unlikely, but my eardrum needed repairing, and when he went to do that, he’d check. If he could fix my eardrum without going behind my ear, he would. I was thankful for that, because I really didn’t want to recover from this again.
So I went in for surgery today. I woke up, had a bandage wrapped all the way around my head. He had to go behind my ear. Apparently I had another friggin cholesteatoma. Dammit people. If my ears would just not SUCK, life would be so much easier. So now I’m sitting here, mostly coherent, with a three-inch bandage over my left ear, and in pain. Also, I can’t taste anything on the left side of my tongue. Pfft on that, thank you very much.
On the other hand, I got to watch The Emperor’s New Groove with my dad because the surgeon was running late.
<end whining>