Five years ago, I had a pretty major surgery on my left ear to repair a hole that never healed. Technically called a tympanoplasty, they took cadaver tissue and grafted it onto my eardrum, with the eventual goal of restoring function to my eardrum (and maybe my hearing in that ear.)

I documented my recovery from that surgery in this blog post and promptly forgot about it, but after looking at my Google Analytics for this site, realized that post is still my top performing post. The internet is a strange place that never ceases to amaze me.

So…five years later, where do things stand?

Well, by all the official measures, the surgery was a success. In the year after the surgery, I had a series of in-office follow ups with Dr. Sanchez and hearing tests with the audiology department to confirm healing and check for progress on the hearing, as it can take a while after the surgery for the full impacts to be realized.

After about a year, I was cleared to resume all normal activity, including swimming without an ear plug. I had honestly been dreaming about this day for years. Unfortunately, my joy was short lived as I was met with searing pain in my left ear as soon as my head entered the water on my first dive into a pool. Well, crap.

Since then, I’ve found that I can actually swim without earplugs as long as I don’t get water directly channeled into my ear canal - so no diving, jumping in, or rough housing unless I have an ear plug in. I think I can live with these compromises.

The other really big development is that I got a hearing aid for my left ear! About a year ago, so four years after the surgery, I found myself fed up with constantly asking people to repeat themselves, missing things in tv shows, and feeling like I just wasn’t hearing things out of my left ear anymore.

Hearing loss was the original reason we did the tympanoplasty, but because of the persistent hole in my eardrum, I was not a candidate for a hearing aid at the time. The surgery corrected the hole so I was finally a candidate for a hearing aid!!

I’ve had my hearing aid for a little over a year now, which has been interesting timing. To be completely honest, I don’t wear it nearly as much as I should. I was really good about wearing it when I first got it, but then COVID hit and I didn’t see anybody, so I didn’t have a reason to. Now that I’m venturing back into society, I’m finding myself needing to wear it but I forget to.

So yeah, life is basically back to normal for me. I’m really grateful I had the surgery and would recommend it to anyone who is considering it.