Ear Update

I cannot say that I have never been an anxious/stressed out person, but I can say this is the first time that I have physically felt that way. There are just so many things going on that I feel like I am out of control. I am trying hard to get this in check because sleepless nights/racing heart are killing my work days and mood.

I went to get a second opinion from a doctor at UVA. At first I thought it was unnecessary as I really like my doctor in Winchester. The more I thought about it though the more I wanted to make sure that I made the right choice. On Friday I went to see Dr. Kesser at UVA. He is one of the top doctors of otolaryngology  at the hospital and he specializes in hearing restoration. On the way to the appointment I really expected him to say that she made a bigger deal out of my ear than necessary. UVA has all of the great equipment so I really thought I would be told this was no big deal and an easy fix. Well I set myself up for quite a shock. When I went in we started by going over my history of chronic ear infections, tubes, surgeries and what Dr. Smith planned to do. He started the exam and got very quiet (BAD THING) and then said, "So she says you have an ear drum?" to which I replied yes and that she planned to put a tube through my remaining eardrum. He then informed me that I have NO, yes I said NO, ear drum at all. Apparently I have a "tiny scab" of an eardrum. Less than 5%. He also went on to tell me that I had erosion of the first bone in my ear (you have 3 to conduct the sound) and that he could see back to my second bone but he couldn't tell if that one was ok or not. I was completely blown away. Luckily he stepped out to look for my audiology report because I lost it. Here I was thinking that I had a hole no bigger than 40% and perfectly healthy ear bones. She told me that was my bright spot! Well I pulled myself together and my dad looked just as shocked as I was. Him being upset made me even more upset. I just couldn't understand how she could be THAT wrong. That I had trusted her for the past 4 years to treat me and here I am with a problem way worse than I ever expected. But anyway, the doctor came back in and said my hearing test came back as he expected, terrible. 

We went over my options which were pretty much the same as before except the surgery was a bit more complicated. The surgery cannot be done through my ear canal, it must be opened from behind (I made him promise to put it back in the right spot, ha-ha). The skin graft would need to be much larger making for a bigger bald spot/incision on my head. Luckily Lisa doesn't mind me looking like the Bride of Frankenstein at her wedding in September. It should be an outpatient surgery unless something would go wrong. He would make me a new ear drum and check out the other ear bones while he is in there. He informed me that if something is wrong with my 3rd ear bone it would require a separate surgery in 6 months. It would need to wait because doing both operations would put me at too high of a risk for infection which could travel to my cochlea and I would be permanently deaf in that ear. That bone would also be replaced with a prosthetic ear bone. We will not know what bones 2 and 3 look like until he performs the operation. I've decided not to worry about that and will deal with it if and when the time comes.

Overall I am very confident in Dr. Kesser. He seems like a great doctor and really knows what he is talking about. Also, I feel much better about having it done at UVA as my experience with Winchester Hospital hasn't always been the greatest. Hopefully Grant will be able to come up for a day or two, then I will have something to look forward to even if I do look like a mummy! 

I am trying hard to just forget about it and look forward to my beach vacation that is coming up. Between this, work, job hunting, helping my grandparents, my brothers issues and other family things I am just stressed to the max. I need to learn to just relax and let it be. I'm trying hard to get ahead at work so that I do not fall behind when I have to take 2 weeks off in July. In 2 weeks I have worked 100+ hours, but hey, the paycheck will be worth it right!

Lets end this novel of a blog with one of my favorite StoryPeople quotes:

Make sure you got clean underwear, she always said, in case you get in an accident & 

I always figured that'd be the least of my worries, 

but now I'm older & I see there's a lot you can't control & 

some you can control & clean underwear is one of those you can. 

For the most part.

The silly thing is that my Mamaw always mentioned the importance of wearing clean undies when you go out. Ha-ha.