Saturday, August 23, 2008

Lefty

I woke up yesterday morning and felt the need to clean my ears. Well...stupid left ear had to start bleeding. I tried to keep calm. It's not another tumor. It's not a polyp which would indicate another tumor. These are the things I was telling myself. A few tears fell, but I tried to retain my composure. By the time I got to work I was hysterical. I couldn't even tell my supervisor what was wrong, only pointing to my ear. She then guessed..."Is it you ear?". Shake my head yes. "Is is bleeding?" Yes. I called my ENT and made an appointment at 3:15. The day seemed to drag on and I just kept thinking "what if it's another one?".

Background. When I was around 7 yrs old I had my first tumor in my right ear. I think I was about 7...I can't remember. Anyway...this one effected my eardrum and middle ear. Oh...
it's called a cholesteatoma. So that one was removed. Then skip forward to early teens...yes another in the left ear. This one could have damaged my facial nerves. Again this was removed. Then sometime around 22ish a third, this time in the right ear again. This one was found the first morning of my honeymoon. I woke up and found blood on my pillow. I later found out that it was a polyp that was in my ear canal that was bleeding (polyp being a sign that there was a tumor). I was later told that this one could have killed me. Yeah...can you believe it? So this one was also removed and left me with a large ear canal.
So back to Friday. Bleeding ear freaked me out. Well I went to the ENT (the one that has done all my ear surgeries and fixed a broken nose). He explained that it was not a tumor. Sigh of relief. It is actually something like a bone spur in my ear that is covered by a very thin layer of skin. So when I was cleaning my ears it irritated the skin causing it to bleed. Stupid bone spur thingy. I felt like a real fool.

4 comments:

RobynR said...

I'm glad to hear you're ok. You're not a fool at all Julie. Your medical history has given you good reason to fear the worst. Particularly when the symptoms this time were seemingly exactly the same as previous major issues. Don't beat yourself up.

Julie Lynn Paper co. said...

Thanks. Thats pretty much what my ENT told me also.

Brianna said...

Better a fool with a bone spur, though, right? *hug* Glad to hear you're okay.

Julie Lynn Paper co. said...

Thats right.