2 Weeks to Surgery

[Guest guest]

HiI have been visiting this group for sometime and have read with interest but also some sadness, especially with some of the stories about the children at such a young age with cholosteotoma.The overwhelming theme though is of encouragement, kindness and above all a sense of not being on your own.I am 43 years of age and I was diagnosed with a cholosteotoma in February of this year. I am scheduled for surgery in two weeks time.I have suffered from the odd ear infection over the years and had grommets implanted when I was 10 because I was suffering from glue ears. Otherwise I have had generally good health until June last year.After arriving back from a Holiday in Spain I suffered a severe ear infection, extreme pain, fullness of the ear, very little hearing and vertigo to bootJ. A couple of visits to the doctor and I was eventually prescribed anti-biotic tablets which helped a little except for the fullness of the ear, poor hearing, Tinnitus, and trouble equalizing pressures, which also caused problems with my left ear as well. I also suffered from some smelly discharge from the ear, but this cleared up very quickly with drops. This went on for another 3 months as well as more anti-biotic's, with very little improvement. Eventually I was referred to An ENT Consultant at my local hospital in February this year. (Although we have a relatively good health care system in the UK, it's unfortunately not that fast.). He examined my ear with a scope and suspected there and then what it might be, and a cholosteotoma was confirmed later with a scan.I met my surgeon last week, who explained the procedure, but to be honest I knew by reading the posts on this group what to expect.So there you go, that's my story. Some days are better that others, sometimes I don't even notice there is a problem, but it soon reminds me, especially at night, or in a car!So thanks to everybody who has contributed to this group it has been, as I said at the beginning, extremely encouraging………Kind RegardsMark, UK