Ear troubles...
I know a few of you are aware I've had ear issues my entire life. Things got a little more bothersome today.
When I was two, I received tubes and lost my adenoids in the same operation - pretty standard stuff.
When I was four, I received tubes again since the problem didn't get resolved the first time. That's when they decided/discovered/etc my Eustachian tubes were constricted. They don't work right. (This is key, it comes into play again later.)
Six weeks after the second surgery, the tubes fell out. My folks decided it wasn't worth the expense to keep putting them back in since it wasn't helping anyway AND my ear infections tapered off at that point. Can't blame them.
Over the next 29 years, my hearing has slowly worsened. In the last 5-10 years or so, my left ear got noticeably worse - coworkers started calling it my deaf side. But since I had no infections, no other issues, AND it was so slow I didn't really notice it happening, it never occurred to me to go see an ontolaryngologist (ENT) about it.
This January, I had a nasty head cold. When I recovered from that, my left ear started draining. I figured it was related and my doc seemed to agree (this was the first week of Feb), so she put me on antihistamines and Amoxicillin for ten days. Told me to go see an ENT if it didn't clear up.
It didn't clear up completely but seemed to be getting better, so ... I didn't go see an ENT. For the next month I tolerated occasional drainage - until this past Thursday.
This past Thursday, as I was taking a Precal exam, my left ear began draining again. This time it was blood. A few of you probably recall arguing with me the next day whether it constituted an emergency. (ENT agreed with me, no, it wasn't an emergency, by the way, but only because it stopped.)
Friday morning I called the ENT and made an appointment for this afternoon at 4. So I head to his office and they give me a full hearing test (i didn't expect that!). Then they put me in the exam room and I waited for the doc.
He walked in a few minutes later (I was impressed with how efficient the office was, I think I only sat idle for 15m total of the hour and fifteen minutes I was there.
I have to say, when the doc looks in your "healthy" ear and the first word out of his mouth is "wow!" ... it leaves you with a very odd, cold feeling. I do not want docs saying "wow!" in regards to any part of my anatomy. I'm not there to impress, I'm there to bore them with how normal and non-procedure-creating I am. This time I failed.
To make an already long story shorter than it might other be, my left ear might have a cholesteatoma in it and the right one might develop one if I'm unlucky. A cholesteatoma forms when skin cells from the outer ear canal end up in the middle ear and start growing. Like a cancer without the cancer (no uncontrolled DNA growth or somesuch).
The trouble is, my left ear is SO inflamed, he can't see if it's a cholesteatoma or not, so he has me on drops for ten days with a CT scan scheduled for Monday. After that, he'll decide how to proceed - and it may very well require surgery. If that happens, he'll go in and put a tube in my right ear to ensure this doesn't happen to it.
All of this is caused by malfunctioning Eustachian tubes. Mine don't equalize the pressure properly, so my ear drums end up being pulled inward, which ultimately wraps them around the middle ear bones and creates a pocket for the skin cells to grow within. When that pocket ruptures and the skin cells end up inside my middle ear, the cholesteatoma begins to form. And that's where I stand today.
So I'm fretting the insurance situation ($2500 deductable) and the time off situation and .. oh yeah, I'm friggin' scared of needles and anesthesia.
So if I'm a little on edge for the next couple of weeks, you'll understand why. (And if you didn't click the cut and don't understand why, you'll need to click the cut and read it to understand! Hehe.)
Laters.
When I was two, I received tubes and lost my adenoids in the same operation - pretty standard stuff.
When I was four, I received tubes again since the problem didn't get resolved the first time. That's when they decided/discovered/etc my Eustachian tubes were constricted. They don't work right. (This is key, it comes into play again later.)
Six weeks after the second surgery, the tubes fell out. My folks decided it wasn't worth the expense to keep putting them back in since it wasn't helping anyway AND my ear infections tapered off at that point. Can't blame them.
Over the next 29 years, my hearing has slowly worsened. In the last 5-10 years or so, my left ear got noticeably worse - coworkers started calling it my deaf side. But since I had no infections, no other issues, AND it was so slow I didn't really notice it happening, it never occurred to me to go see an ontolaryngologist (ENT) about it.
This January, I had a nasty head cold. When I recovered from that, my left ear started draining. I figured it was related and my doc seemed to agree (this was the first week of Feb), so she put me on antihistamines and Amoxicillin for ten days. Told me to go see an ENT if it didn't clear up.
It didn't clear up completely but seemed to be getting better, so ... I didn't go see an ENT. For the next month I tolerated occasional drainage - until this past Thursday.
This past Thursday, as I was taking a Precal exam, my left ear began draining again. This time it was blood. A few of you probably recall arguing with me the next day whether it constituted an emergency. (ENT agreed with me, no, it wasn't an emergency, by the way, but only because it stopped.)
Friday morning I called the ENT and made an appointment for this afternoon at 4. So I head to his office and they give me a full hearing test (i didn't expect that!). Then they put me in the exam room and I waited for the doc.
He walked in a few minutes later (I was impressed with how efficient the office was, I think I only sat idle for 15m total of the hour and fifteen minutes I was there.
I have to say, when the doc looks in your "healthy" ear and the first word out of his mouth is "wow!" ... it leaves you with a very odd, cold feeling. I do not want docs saying "wow!" in regards to any part of my anatomy. I'm not there to impress, I'm there to bore them with how normal and non-procedure-creating I am. This time I failed.
To make an already long story shorter than it might other be, my left ear might have a cholesteatoma in it and the right one might develop one if I'm unlucky. A cholesteatoma forms when skin cells from the outer ear canal end up in the middle ear and start growing. Like a cancer without the cancer (no uncontrolled DNA growth or somesuch).
The trouble is, my left ear is SO inflamed, he can't see if it's a cholesteatoma or not, so he has me on drops for ten days with a CT scan scheduled for Monday. After that, he'll decide how to proceed - and it may very well require surgery. If that happens, he'll go in and put a tube in my right ear to ensure this doesn't happen to it.
All of this is caused by malfunctioning Eustachian tubes. Mine don't equalize the pressure properly, so my ear drums end up being pulled inward, which ultimately wraps them around the middle ear bones and creates a pocket for the skin cells to grow within. When that pocket ruptures and the skin cells end up inside my middle ear, the cholesteatoma begins to form. And that's where I stand today.
So I'm fretting the insurance situation ($2500 deductable) and the time off situation and .. oh yeah, I'm friggin' scared of needles and anesthesia.
So if I'm a little on edge for the next couple of weeks, you'll understand why. (And if you didn't click the cut and don't understand why, you'll need to click the cut and read it to understand! Hehe.)
Laters.