That appointment went oddly… Dr K cleaned out my ear again (I’ve decided I really hate having docs put anything in there). Then he looked in it for awhile.

He looked really puzzled when he was done. Apparently, I still have the dang yeast infection. Originally he’d said that some of them clear up really fast, while others take a long time. Since the ear drops didn’t take care of it in 10 days, Dr K said it’s going to take a while. And because it took more than the 10 days, now we’re going at it with two kinds of ear drops! Each one needs to be taken twice a day… sooooo eardrops four times a day now. Eardrop A and eardrop B taken ABAB and spread out. Now Dan will be giving me A first thing in the morning before he leaves for work, then I’ll be doing B after I wake up again (I wake up significantly later than he does), then drop A about dinner time, then drop B at bedtime. Don’t know when we’ll get to start drop B though, Dr K’s computer sent the wrong prescription to my pharmacy (potentially) so the pharmacist wants to verify the order with him before she fills it. I still have some of drop A left, so we’ll be doing just that until we get drop B filled. The dosing schedule has gotten really complicated now though, so I need to count out 20 doses of each and write it on a calendar… ugh.

The infection wasn’t why he looked confused though.

The two holes that were in my eardrum have healed up. Well, mostly. Dr K said he could definitely see the scar tissue like stuff where the holes were. So NO SURGERY! …for now… Since there had been excess skin behind my eardrum, they might open again (they won’t be able to heal all the way with it back there). Also found out that, apparently, the body will make holes in the eardrum from recurrent infections, like nature’s way of putting in tubes. The weird thing, to me, is that my ear infections have been outer, while tubes are used to treat middle… so I’m wondering if maybe they formed because the infection was lasting so long my body was kind of like, “Screw it! Try everything!!!” Oh well. Now I’m really hoping they stay closed because any surgery and recovery will definitely be during school.

Now we’re wondering if I’d had them before. When I’d mentioned the chronic infection to my rheumatologist (Dr S, just a fantastic doctor overall and extremely smart) he asked if he could look in my ear. He took a peak, and then asked if I’d had tubes as a kid because it looked like my eardrum had a scratch or scar on it. Dan and I thought it was odd, but that maybe it had happened from all the suctioning and cleaning. Then Dr R’s PA (physician’s assistant) took a look in my ear and said it looked like a giant scratch. She didn’t seem to know why it would be there, but Dr R didn’t say anything about it so I thought it was nothing. But when we mentioned all this to Dr K, he just looked at us really confused and didn’t really say anything. Dan and I are seriously wondering how many times I’ve developed holes in that ear during this infection, but they were always hidden behind goop. It’s also a little disconcerting that Dr K is shocked at how fast they have closed (I only saw him two weeks ago, and they were still there and exactly as they had been when he first saw them).

Have I mentioned how much I hate confusing specialists?