Thursday, July 17, 2008

If I was a horse, they would have shot me

Ahh the words of wisdom from a great friend ring so true.

Why is it that I can't even have a medical issue like a normal person? Everything seems to be blown into some kind of drama.

After my last post about having this great new super hearing, it's all gone pear shaped. My right ear (my so-called bad ear) got infected and was bleeding (hmm lovely yeah). After a trip to the GP and a phone call to the hospital I was booked in for an "emergency consultation". I was having a bit of a laugh that they call it an "emergency consultation" since I had to wait over a week for it. In the meantime I had antibiotics to take and I had to see my GP on Monday if it got worse.

Well by Sunday night that whole side of my face was hurting, so back to the GP again. This time I was put on antibiotic eardrops. Interesting fact though - instructions say not for perforated ear drums but I was told to ignore that.

So I had my "emergency consultation" today. It was the head surgeon that I saw. In a nutshell he told me I'm a freak. When they cut my ear drums there was no fluid at all in there, which he admits is really strange considering all my test results done prior to surgery. They put the tubes in anyway based on those previous results. My right ear has some pretty bad scarring from previous surgery (I had grommets as a child - twice I think) and he thinks that may be what is affecting my hearing.

So after all that, I have to go back again next week when the infection is fully cleared for more hearing tests. He just said he'll have to play it by ear (and gave a nice little chuckle at his own humour) after my next appointment.

Bring on next week so I can just get this all over and done with.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

My wannabe photographer

As per usual, if I'm silly enough to leave my camera anywhere that it can be accessed (and by accessed I mean climbing the kitchen stool if need be) Liam will be running around snapping at anything he can.

Daddy playing with Lego.......................Mummy & Imogen.............................Nan & Grandad




Jack..............................................Imogen..............................Imogen, Daddy & Grandad

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Hmmm, what an interesting collection

Hopefully it's one I won't be needing to be adding to for a long, long time.


Well I must say that the Victorian public health system certainly works in my favour.
For those that don't know, I've had problems my right ear since about half way through my pregnancy. I had constant ear infections and fluid build up that couldn't be cleared. By the time I had Imogen I'd ended up with glue ear and I couldn't hear anything. I couldn't even hear my baby crying if there was background noise. It has gotten to the point where it was really affecting my daily life because my hearing was so bad.
I saw a specialist on June 18th. He determined that my hearing was severely reduced in both ears. I was really shocked to find out that my hearing was actually worse in my left ear even though I hadn't had any problems with it. I thought my left ear was fine. Turns out that because my right ear is blocked, my hearing is muffled from that ear thus making my brain think it's worse. Weird hey?
So I was put into the public system for bilateral grommets (tubes in both ears) as a category 2 patient (which means the surgery should be done in 90 days). Last Tuesday I got a phone call from Footscray Hospital telling me that although I'm meant to be having surgery at Sunshine, they've got a vacancy for Monday the 7th and would I like it? Umm, yeah - of course.
So on Monday I was admitted at 12, whipped in for surgery (first cab off the rank, what a bargain) and was discharged by 3pm. Admittedly I was still feeling quite groggy and like I wanted to spew, but that was fixed by a 2 hour sleep once I got home.

So now it's 2 days post op and I can't get over how different my hearing is. Is kind of scary to realise how much I couldn't actually hear before. I'm pretty excited though.

Ask me how excited I am in about a week though - I'm sure my tornado kids will change my mind.