Surgery

When I was eight years old I had surgery on my right ear. The most I remember of the planning stages was the doctor asking me if I wanted to only wear one hearing aid after surgery. I got all excited that I wouldn’t have to wear my left hearing aid anymore. However this was not the case. Even though I didn’t fully understand the reason why the hearing aid they were hoping to remove was my right one.

I was born with better hearing in my left ear. This is something I have always known. I listen with my left ear, use the phone with my left ear, and turn my left ear towards a sound I am having trouble hearing. It’s instinctual, natural, a part of me. However it was my right ear that qualified for surgery. To this day the idea of my right ear hearing better is a very strange one for me.

My left ear has primarily nerve damage to it, which to the best of my knowledge is not something that can be operated on. My right ear has primarily bone damage. It was this bone damage, in the middle ear, that the doctor’s hoped to improve my hearing by fixing.

The day of the surgery I remember being in a crowded children’s room, reading a book while I was prepped for surgery. I had to have some medicine put into my rear end that I did not find very enjoyable. When it was time for surgery I wasn’t wheeled down to the room. In exchange I was given a piggy back while I held onto my two stuffed animals that accompanied me on the trip: Chip and Dale. In the operating room I watched my heart rate on the monitor before drifting off to sleep.

The surgery consisted of removing the two smallest bones in the body, the Incus and Malleus, from my head. The Malleus was reshaped and put back in, the Incus I was given in an old eye drop container filled with liquid. This was supposed to help my hearing. In order for my ear to heal properly I had to limit my physical activity for 8 weeks after surgery. Keep in mind that I was eight years old and this was August.

(1=Malleus, 2=Incus)

After the surgery my mother waited for me to wake up in recovery. She saw other people wake up very slowly and groggily. Not me, I woke up and sat straight up with a fast movement, something I wasn’t supposed to do! After being brought to my room for the night I was told that I could eat in an hour if I hadn’t thrown up. An hour passed and my mother left to get the nurse to get me some food. As soon as she left I threw up. My father called the nurses station for assistance.

The next hour passed and I was doing well. My mother left once again to get me some food. Once again I threw up before she could return and my father had to call the nurses station. This continued all afternoon. Finally at nighttime the nurses felt sorry for me and gave me a Popsicle. I remember thoroughly enjoying it.

After one night in the hospital, with my mother by my side and my Chip and Dale dolls’ right ear bandaged up just like mine, I was sent home. When we got home I walked up to the living room, twirled around, and plopped down on the couch. My parents told me I wasn’t supposed to do that! I must have been a real handful for that period as my activity was limited. Once I got back to school I had the physical fitness tests going on. Each class my teacher would ask me if I could do something, for example walk the balance beam. I didn’t know any better and would go across the balance beam. Once home I would ask my mother if I was allowed to do that. She would tell me no. I never told her that I had already done it!

A few weeks after surgery I was so tired of the bandages that I took Chip and Dale’s off.

When we finally went back to the doctor it was discovered that my hearing hadn’t changed much and the surgery was essentially a failure. It didn’t faze me much since my left ear was what I used to hear with. However a year later my hearing would plummet in my right. But that’s a story for another day.

I still have my Incus bone. As a kid I used to bring it into school for show and tell. Eventually the liquid evaporated and I was worried. At the age of 21 I brought it with me to see my ear doctor’s successor, someone who had interned during my surgery. I showed him the bone and said it needed more liquid. He was absolutely shocked that I still had the bone and told me it was now a fossil. For 14 years I would strain into the eye drop bottle to see my bone, not realizing I could take it out. On my way home I stopped by a store and bought a shadow box. Using the Internet I printed out a picture of what the middle ear is supposed to look like. I then glued my Incus to where it was supposed to be and put it in the shadow box. This is a conversation piece in my living room now.

The only thing I am certain that the surgery did for me is tintinitus. I remember thinking that the ringing in my right ear really increased after surgery. While it didn’t do anything for me at the time it did give me a tool to understand hearing loss more. But that is part of the next story.