Admission

A bit of a surprise announcement: I will be going in for ear surgery on Tuesday. My left eardrum is almost totally gone, the bones in the middle ear are damaged, and the mastoid bone surrounding the ear is filled with material left over from a series of massive infections. The surgery will replace the eardrum, examine the ossicles and possibly replace them with prosthetics, and drill out the infected mastoid bones. This will, in turn, help stop the repeated infections I’ve had over the past few years, and is the first step towards regaining my hearing.

The backstory on this is long and somewhat painful — literally, since it involves having one’s eardrum ripped out — so I will save it for later. Suffice it to say, if you ever wondered why I am a very active listener, yet can’t hear you when other people are talking … well, now you know.

I have mixed feelings about this surgery. I am very nervous about addressing a problem that has lingered for two decades; every time we poke and prod at the problem, the news gets a little worse. Until they open up the middle ear, there’s no way to gauge the extent of the damage. The reconstruction has a chance of making my hearing worse instead of better.

But I’m also a little excited, because I’m finally doing something about these problems. The problems are there. Ignorance of them doesn’t change anything.