Day16 ~ 30 Days of Thanks

I CAN HEAR!!!


You cannot know how thankful I am for this!


Since Sunday, Nov. 6, I've had limited to no hearing in my left ear.


I've had no pain, no fever, no symptoms ... just no hearing!


At first, it was just kind of odd.
As the days passed, it became more annoying.
And as of a couple days ago, I was convinced that I was suffering from a brain tumor
or something equally as life threatening.
After much prodding from family & friends, I decided to do something that I rarely do ...
& that was make an appointment to see the doctor.


The nurse entered all my info {I can't hear out of my ear!} into her laptop &
then took a look with the handy-dandy ear thingie with the light on the end of it.
She immediately said that I had a very small ear canal & very far back in the canal,
my ear was plugged.
She said it was so far back that there's no way I could've taken care of it at home.


I told her that several folks had shared stories of wax causing loss of hearing but
due to my love affair with Q-Tips, I was certain that wasn't my problem.
Plus, I had done all the home remedies to ensure that wasn't it.


Guess what she said?!
She said that using Q-Tips was most likely the problem!
Uuuh boy =/


When she came back into the room, she had this ginormous thing that looked like
a turkey baster that had a long plastic tip.
She said she was going to do an ear lavage ... an ear irrigation.
So, for the next 10-15 minutes, she forced an ocean full of warm water into my ear ...
HARD!
It didn't hurt, just uncomfortable.
She said the force of the water would clear out my ear.
And it did!!


My hearing came back almost instantly ...
& everything seemed SO loud that I thought I may need to put in earplugs
until I adjusted to it!
Uh-maz-ing!


I had her check the other ear, since this was my once-every-10-year-visit ...
& she said it looked perfectly fine.


By the time my doctor came in, his nurse had me completely fixed up.
All he did was look me over & tell me to STOP using Q-Tips!
After he gave me a thorough explanation of the ear, I was good to go.


Verrrrry thankful to having my hearing back!!!
It could've been something much worse & I am so glad it wasn't.