My ear Surgery...

Ok - so in my last blog, I mentioned that I had an ear surgery done.

I had to have a "Tympanoplasty" and a "Mastoidechtomy" done to my right ear.

What does this have to do with my diet/exercise?

Well - the healing process will take about 6 - 8 weeks from the surgery and then about 4 months total for my hearing to get back to "normal"...at least this is the timeline my doctor has given me.

What sucks is I am SO looking forward to getting back to working out - but I honestly don't know if I'm going to be allowed to for a while. :(

My first post-op appointment will be this upcoming Thursday and I will talk to the doc about working out when I see him.

Now - about the surgery itself...basically I have had ear issues since I was 7 years old. I was 7 when they first put the first set of tubes in my ears - and my mom SWEARS that having done that helped me in school tremendously, as before I had this done, I was having troubles hearing the teachers and participating in class...but once I had it done - things changed and I was pretty much always an A & B student.

So - for the past 23 years, I have lived with A. not being able to get water in my ears - meaning earplugs every single time I would take a bath/shower - go swimming - even if I wanted to have a water balloon fight and B. if I WAS to get water in my ear...instant ear infection. It just became second nature to me as it was a part of my life.

Now - because of my ear issues, I've always had a little bit of trouble hearing people - but no real "hearing loss" to speak of until really this past year...

Last August - on my 29th birthday, actually ... I remember my left ear popping and thinking "oh great, another ear infection"...but this time it wasn't a 'normal' infection like I was always used to.

Along with the actual hearing loss - I also developed incredible Tinitus (ringing in the ears) - which will never go away, even with surgery. :(

So I found the most FANTASTIC ear doctor here in Indianapolis and after he looked at my ears and history - we decided that in that left ear the best plan of action was to take the tube out.

I knew that my RIGHT ear didn't have a tube in it anymore - and knew that it had a small hole where the tube had usually been placed - but no longer was there as there was the hole.

So anyways - I had that tube removed from the left ear and it healed nicely (according to the doc... :))

BUT once I had it removed - the hearing really started to go. In fact it got so bad last year that my fiance started to think I didn't like hanging out with his friends and it was straining our relationship until I myself realized that the REASON I was becoming "anti-social" was because of my hearing loss. I HATED trying to carry on conversations with people when I was CONSTANTLY turning my head to get them to talk directly to my ear and constantly saying, "what? can you please repeat yourself? what?"...so instead I didn't realize it - but I just started to decline to be in situations where I'd have to worry about BEING in a social setting. :(

Not only that - but my job started to suffer too. I started to really look anti-social at work and was even turned down for a promotion because I came off as "not a people person"...when I now know that it was BECAUSE of my hearing loss!

quick FYI - once I realized that, I started working on this issue with my supervisor, as far as communication goes - and I DID finally get a promotion I deserved - and I start this monday!!

So my surgery. Once the tube was removed from my left year last year - the doc really started to concentrate on my right ear. He told me of what needed to be done and what was actually WRONG with the ear drum (half of it was literally gone - the other half was all scar tissue from the YEARS of infections and needed to be removed...)

So we scheduled my surgery for July 21st. It is now July 24th. It's been 4 days since I had the surgery and I will be on a long road to recovery. I know this was absolutely NEEDED and I'm not wishing I hadn't had it done or anything like that - but I'm just going to put this out there - IT SUCKS!!!!! lol

so yeah. that's where I'm at right now. As for exercising - HOPEFULLY I'll be able to go back to the gym this year - but we shall see. I know I don't want to do anything to harm my healing - and I may end up having to cancel the membership all together until next year. :(

So anyways - I will post more later!