The Ear

As some of you may know, about three years ago I had a couple of operations on my left ear to remove a cholesteatoma , a nasty little bugger that had decided to take up residence in my ear. I had a 'second look' operation a year later, and since having left Peace Corps I have had virtually no one touch it whatsoever.

So right around my birthday I start to feel as though I couldn't hear as well out of my left ear as usual. I made a big mistake of trying to clean it myself, with the help of Scientist, who insisted that if I used hydrogen peroxide to clean it out I'd feel much better (he was shown how to do this by a doctor after he had a nasty infection in his ear awhile ago). I basically dumped a bunch of hydrogen peroxide on my ear, and upon tasting it and feeling it slide down the back of my throat, decided this was not such a good idea. After that, my sinus started to bother me.

Finally, after a couple months of on and off sinus and hearing problems, I made an appointment with Otolarongolgy (Head and Neck Surgery) at the University of Iowa. I pretty nervous, seeing as how I want someone cutting into my head again about as much as I want to be thrown off a cliff (did I mention I don't have insurance until, at the earliest next month when I can get on UI Grad Care, which, apparently, rocks the house as far as coverage is concerned).

After waiting an hour and a half (remind me to be late next time) and sweating my ass off out of nervousness, a resident came in, took a medical history and proceeded to spend about 10 seconds trying to examine the inside of my ear before announcing we were going to another room with an ear microscope. Once inside the room the real fun began.

Apparently my ear was full of crap--not just ear wax (I know this is gross guys, but bare with me), but hard, bloody, glued to my ear drum ear wax. As the resident was extracting it I was squirming and gripping the sides of the chair. At one point he was like, "Um, I'm going to take out a tube....I'm not sure why that was there....It was just hanging out in your ear canal...Did you have tubes in your ears?" He had to stop half way through because I was in some pain and was about to fall of the chair (it literally felt like he was dragging a rake across my eardrum, which was not only painful, it was super loud). Then, about 5 minutes later he said, "Uh, here's another tube. Why do you have another tube." I said something about just being operated on and the surgeon in D.C. who did my surgery last while I was still in Peace Corps just operating on me and not telling me much about what he was doing (I don't think he could be bothered to explain, say, why the fuck he was putting two tubes in my ear).

You wouldn't believe the crap they pulled out of such as small canal. It was nasty. I think the resident was a little surprised as well.

After I was tortured and examined by the resident, the head doc came in. He told me he was amazed at what was in there, and in all the many years he had been doing this he had never pulled two tubes out of one ear (he told me I could take pride in breaking a new record). He then looked in my ear, and announced he saw two things: a) no problem with my middle ear, and thus, no recurrence in of my little friend cholesteatoma, and b) a "gaping hole" in my eardrum. The gaping hole is what, apparently, is causing the hearing loss.

So, in about 6 weeks, after I've officially started grad school and officially gotten health insurance, I will be going in for an audiogram (hearing test) and a consultation with an ear specialist about how to fix my hearing in my left ear. Should be interesting....