I never thought that this ear surgery would knock me back like it has. It’s been nearly a week now and this is the first day that I really ventured out and interacted with the world. It wasn’t only the pain but also the oddness of dealing with total deafness in the right ear. Two days of pain med’s make me uncomfortable and disoriented, then after that a feeling of anxiety set in having something trapped in the ear and not being able to take it out. Had a couple of rough days dealing with that and having noises seeming to come from odd places. Someone would be talking on my right and I would perceive it as coming from the left. I gained a great lesson in empathy for my dad, Pete and others with less than 100% hearing. Really frustrating not understanding or even knowing when someone was speaking to me. Dad stepped up and drove me to Dr. appointments and that was the only time I left the house. I walked out in the back on a few days trying to recover more quickly. I even helped Dawn get close to 5000 steps walking down to the park!

Over the weekend, I did a longer hike out to the old pond where we used to fish, Natwick’s Lake we used to call it as kids. Seemed so big to us back then, it’s really just a puddle. We floated a raft out on it one day back in the 60s and I lost my horn rim glasses in the water. I remember Dad and the neighbor, George donning snorkel gear and trying to find them to no avail in the muddy, reed clogged pond bottom. It was cool to see a couple of youngsters out there fishing just like we did fifty years ago.

Monday, Dad drove me over to the ear Dr. In Poway and he changed out the stent in the ear canal. Still has to stay in until Thursday. Treated Pop to a grand slam breakfast on the ride home. He likes taking the back streets same as me.

Today, necessity drove me out of my languid cocoon. I had an appt. with the tax man to find some semblance of order in our chaotic tax year. Retirement accounts, rental income, stock sales, taxes on medical coverage, half year’s income – all new things for us. A big change from a fairly routine tax return filing. Martin over at Schwartz & Schwartz made smooth work of it. I was feeling a little uncomfortable going in but he was easy to work with and put me right at ease. It even looks like we might come out a little ahead this time. Just missing that one piece of paperwork. Isn’t it always the way? 

Drove over to the storage unit and got a few things out, then got Vince in the office to print me out a statement for storage costs for 2016. Just to get accurate numbers for the taxes. I grabbed some lunch at Pick up Stix. The noise in the restaurant with only one ear was really disconcerting. Couldn’t wait to get back out in the car. Went back to the house and paid some bills, shuffled a bunch of paperwork, then ran over to AAA to add PJ onto the pink slip for the Honda in case we decide to bring it down to Bucerias sometime in the future. Ran a couple more errands then came home to plan out the next few days. The time got away doing the recovery thing. So many people I had planned to visit & crap I wanted to get done. I apologize to all the friends I’m going to miss seeing this time around. I’d apologize to all the crap that isn’t going to get done, but I don’t think it cares. Auntie Dawn cooked up a big batch of her famous Italian spaghetti, then we sat down and tried to out answer each other on Jeopardy. Gotta get up early and head over to Big Red’s to install the power steering line. Ear hurts more now than at the beginning. Another naproxen and off to bed.