- Logtar's Blog -

It has been rough, not just because of the nausea and the dizziness, not being able to concentrate, but mostly because of the fear than a simple infection can leave me deaf in one ear.

I have been feeling some noise, but nothing more than what I had heard prior to the operation… however, my hearing is now officially coming back. I have been reading laying down to keep the dizziness at bay and today after answering one of Bea’s question I started to hear a weird echo of my own voice.

I had been hearing gargling and bubbling sounds, but nothing really clear… now though I do hear something, almost like a radio that is too loud and not quite tuned, but officially it seems my hearing in the operated ear is coming back.

Well, the first day after the surgery it looked up. I seemed to be getting nicely off the anestesia and while I was being very careful I felt tons better. I did not feel dizzy and the soreness and oozing of my ear felt normal. Then next day I felt even more sore all over, but I decided I was well enough for a shower and that was not a good idea.

Not sure if it was the overconfidence and the movement, but I have been dizzy ever since. My balance is all out of whack and sudden movements can make me dizzy, also the pain came back. I dislike taking medicines for those symptoms, but for now I have to. So far this day has been the worse because I felt like crap since I woke up, but from what I know it should start getting better from now on… just no sudden movements and I should be ok.

The hearing is not all gone, but not coming back either. I hear some things, but its almost like it goes in and out… from what I’ve been told it should get better soon but not stabilize for a while. The other side effect is my tongue is numb on one side and I cannot taste much on it either. It was a known thing, but it still weird. Other than that I am alive and happy that this will start getting better soon.

So I have finally totally woken up from the anesthesia but feel like I was hit by a truck. I mean I was awake an hour and a half after the operation but since then it has only been short periods of time of staying awake and then the anesthesia seems to kick back in and knock me out.

It was kind of funny before the operation the nurses and the doctor were all like, this is no big deal, you will be fine… but then the post up nurses when I was waking up started telling me how I would really feel and how I was going to be in pain and narcotics for the next couple of days!!! LIARS I TELL YA.

The pain in the ear was pretty bad, started as a 4 on their scale but quickly went to 7, but whatever they gave me worked after like 30 minutes and it has been ok since.

Yesterday was pretty miserable, the nausea sucks specially when you still feel hungry at the same time… hard to explain.

Anyway, it feels that now at 3:00 AM I have gotten rid of all the anesthesia and can finally stay awake for more than a couple of minutes. Since I could not get back to sleep again, probably too many hours of sleep by now, I checked on a project at work and decided to post. I wanted to thank everyone for all of their good wishes and my wife for being awesome taking care of me yesterday. I hope I can stay awake now and I don’t get too dizzy… so far so good.

The anxiety had been building for a while now; the questions in my head had been trying to defeat my optimism on the drive to the appointment, but I kept on saying to myself, have faith, it will be ok. As I approached the waiting room I begin to get a little calmer and held the door open for an elderly couple that was lagging behind he on the way there. When I entered a guy in an auto shop uniform was staring at me, but I smiled and waited to see if the elderly couple wanted to talk to the receptionist first.

They sat down without talking to the lady and I went in to speak with her. She asked my name and all of my information in a now familiar tone of voice. I am at a place where most people are hard of hearing so everyone speaks a little louder with perfect enunciation. I filled in the paper work and waited while reading about how Sarah Palin has actually made enemies on her rise to political stardom. It was a welcomed distraction until my name was called.

The consultation took longer than an hour and a lot of instruments both high and low tech were used. The prognosis of the audiologist was correct, I have Otosclerosis which is going to be treated with an Stapedectomy. (See Picture here)

In very simple terms, a laser is going to blast away my stapes which will then be replaced by a state of the art piston that is made of some special memory polymer that will be attached to the existing long process of the anvil. Sounds kind of cool… unless its your head that is going to have lasers inside of it.

Overall its just a simple ambulatory procedure that the doctor seem to think it was no big deal. The potential complications are serious, but very low percentage. It is very possible that I will be going under the knife for the first ear (they cannot do both at once) next week. Recuperation time is about a month for the operation, about 4 moths to evaluate hearing results. So that is all I have at the moment.