Yes! I’m going to hear out of two ears! I’m so psyched and I have so much to write on the subject. The doctor (Dr. Nielsen) didn’t at all look like I expected. He wasn’t an older, gray-haired guy. He was of middle age. Tom made a good point saying he was old enough to have experience but young enough to have a steady hand.

The first thing he said to me was that if he had to choose from a number of people to do this surgery on, it’d be me. We haven’t gotten a date yet, but they’ll be calling soon. We think and hope it’ll be before the year’s out. Maybe even before Thanksgiving, which is on the 24th.

The CT scan looks really good and he’s going to do the skin graft under my arm. He’s almost positive I’ll be able to hear and the risks are only 3% - 5%. He’s going to go in right where the canal’s supposed to be, then find the bone and follow it till he comes across the facial nerve. That he’ll steer clear away from that, naturally.

He even told us why I was born with no ear. He says that when you’re an embryo, your ear canal forms, then closes, then reforms. Mine never reformed. The inner ear did, but not the outer ear.

The operation should only last 3 hours and I should be able to go home that day. There’s only a 10% chance that I’ll have to stay overnight. There’s a 60% chance I’ll have to have another operation in 6 months to a year. Instead of having bandages all over my head, I’ll only have like a huge cotton ball in that area.

The other reason I’m having this operation is just as important as getting hearing and that’s due to the sensitivity I’ve had. He has two theories about why it’s been so sensitive since around 1988. One’s cuz of lots of skin. Your skin on your hand, for example, sheds and regrows. Same with the inner ear, but there’s no place it can shed. He said this commonly takes years after surgery to slowly build up. His other theory is cuz of nerves being cut due to so many surgeries, they grow nodules on the ends of them, causing pain. This also takes years of slowly building up.

It’ll be here in Phoenix next to the regular doctor’s offices at Good Samaritan Hospital. No having to drive 3 hours in the snow like we would to Boston in the mid-70s. Also, no big bandages that go around most of my head where I look like a mummy. For two weeks after surgery, I’ll have to lay really low, then go back to be sure the skin graft took well and that there are no infections. Speaking of infections, he says there could be and could’ve been a low-grade infection going on for quite a while. It made us wonder about that cuz almost all my medical reports tell me I have a high white blood cell count. Surely there are plenty of smokers who don’t get all the infections I did. Especially back east. Plus, I do get dizzy, sluggish, and feverish feeling. Not a lot but enough of the time.

He will have to shave just a really tiny amount of my hair by the frame. That’s OK. They did that in Boston and it was no big deal and didn’t look funny. Not with all this long thick hair.

While I’m so flattered and honored to have Tom be so excited too, it really makes me hate the government even more. Cuz I was on Medicaid and Medicare, and if it were infected, it could’ve eventually killed me as doctors of low-income people could really care less for the most part. Dr. Nielsen said it will no doubt get worse, too.

When we came home, I called my parents who were very happy for me.

Tammy’s really pissed and depressed now, so I typed her a letter so she can read it at her own leisure. I also typed to Mom and Dad and Kim and Bob.

Tom called his mom, as well as Mary. I left Andy a message, but I haven’t heard from him for several days now, so who knows what he’s been up to? I do have more to write about, but it’s been a long day and I’m exhausted.