Post Op

Here I am, post surgery. On Wednesday I underwent a tympanoplasty to repair damage to my eardrum back in October when I was mugged. It was clear that I had some hearing loss, but even I was surprised when tests showed a 35% loss on my right side, so there were things I was not hearing AND there were things I wasn't even aware I wasn't hearing. The overall effect was one of receding a little further back from the world. I think we've all been in a room with an older person who seems to not be listening or not care that they aren't hearing the conversation around them. That was me--although I wasn't entirely aware of it until the tests came back.

So Wednesday morning they put me under and cut an incision along the back of my ear, removed some muscle tissue and inserted it between my ear canal and my inner ear to make up for the membrane that was broken when I was attacked. Essentially, this is a skin graft. And now I have to be patient while we wait to see if my body accepts it.