After 277 days of flawless power, there was an interruption of service at my house. For 75.9% of a year, my little PowerMac G4 Cube dutifully served files and routed traffic. This post is in memory of its record uptime, cut short by a lack of electricity.
This is the landing page to the story of my tympanoplasty. However, it’s just a slice in the middle of a larger story, which you can find in the tympanoplasty category of my blog. More importantly, this post and the others contain useful and inspiring stories from people at different parts in the healing process. Always be sure to read the comments, and don’t be afraid to contribute.
Earlier this year, I wrote about an elective surgery I undertook to recover hearing in my right ear. From the time I was little, my right ear drum had a hole in it, a perforation. I went for several procedures as a child to repair the hole, but none of them were successful.
Having that hole in my ear drum had always been a part of me. I learned to turn my head to hear people better, and I adapted to wearing an ear plug whenever around water, including and especially while showering.
Fast-forwarding eighteen years, this last February, my family and I decided it was time to take another shot. Consulting Dr. Lawrence Meiteles, we were introduced to and studied a procedure called a Tympanoplasty.
The idea of recovering any hearing was truly amazing to me – thinking about it made me instantly emotional.
As a student, I’d always refused to take any time off, unless I was particularly sick. In this case, for this reason, I was willing to take any amount of time off, even in the midst of a busy senior year of high school.
I retell this story now because it’s time to wrap it up. It’s been six months since the procedure and everything is well. I can bathe and swim without an ear plug and my hearing is much better, although not perfect. Although recovery was painful and tedious at times, I regret nothing… not even wearing this setup immediately after the surgery:
At this juncture, I’m renaming the category of the blog that tells this story of my life from “ear surgery” to “tympanoplasty”. Hopefully, that’ll make it easier for Googlers to find my experience. I entirely and without reservation recommend the surgical services of Dr. Lawrence Meiteles to anyone with an ear drum perforation. I couldn’t be more appreciative to have something I thought I’d never have – decent hearing.
There’s a little tradition at Dover High School – graduating seniors can elect to paint a mural on the high school’s driveway. It’s a great way to leave a mark until it’s paved over sometime in the next year. With the help of a few friends, I painted what I consider to be an awesome driveway mural. I did it a few weeks back; in fact, I was up there the night before graduation.
That’s right, folks. With this post, I’m officially (on the blog) declaring my support for Barack Obama in the presidential election of 2008.
If you’d like to see more photos, check out this public facebook album.