Visited my surgeon today; he delivered powerful news.
Your ear drum is intact.
My surgeon believes I’m coming along well. He took the last of the packing out from my ear canal with a pick and vacuum. The sensations were both painful and gratifying, knowing that I’m hopefully moving forward.
Sounds are louder now. Unfortunately, they’re loud as they are unclear and unintelligible. I feel like there’s a reverb filter installed in my head.
This is okay, I’ve been told. The ear drum is still healing and there’s some left over packing behind the ear drum that my surgeon cannot remove himself. The ear drops I’ve been using several times a day should dissolve that packing over time.
Progress.
Richard, although it has been awhile since your surgery, my son, 18, had his 9 days ago. He has just graduated and expects to attend Cornell in august. He is also a sax player. Long and short of it is, he had horrible ear infections as a child, had 4 sets of tubes. Last set at age 5. These were “permanent”. One fell out along the way, and the right one stayed in. My mistake. This tube was left in for 12 years, never fell out, the ent left town and i just thought it required surgery to be removed, wanted it to fall out by itself. I am horrified at my failure to have it removed. The peds saw it annually during check ups and said nothing. Anyway, last summer son noticed hearing loss. Visited new ped ent, who removed tube in 1 minute. Did test, found hearing loss. Found hole. So, we waited until this summer after high school graduatin to fix it. Well, day 9, and son has no hearing at all in ear. Went for post op,had stitches removed behind ear. He pretended not to be worried, but I could tell this total loss was not expected. He said son still has 90 percent of packing in, and we begin drops in 2 days. Also, had to have unexpected reallignment of tiny ear drum bones , which is not uncommon, but was unexpected. So now both of these factors, the skin graph and reallignment of eardrum bones will factor into the healing process and loss or gain of hearing. So, my question is for anyone, was anyone totally deaf 1 week out? He had so so hearing before. Now I am praying. I have shifted my expectations to hoping it just goes back to the original hearing loss, forgetting about any hope for improved hearing. The other ear is normal . My son is upset, but dealing with it. I suppose time will tell, and maybe we will wait a year or 2 and have a redo in nyc with a major surgeon if need be. Thanks for allowing me to vent. Any responses about total hearing loss appreciated.
Sherri, I was *completely deaf* at this point, and just as scared as you are. Your son’s story sounds very similar to mine, and although I know it’s hard, you need to have patience. If you go back and read my story, you’ll see that I was very afraid at this point. Luckily, my hearing returned.
I hope this calms you a bit. You care very much about your son, and I think he’ll be okay. Please take care and feel free to come back and talk to us.