Another day of being oh so glad that next door’s still vacant and that I’m not in that damn duplex listening to the door-slamming, the barking, the TV blaring.

The bad news is that my ear still acts up. Our current guess is that it’s dead skin way deep in the canal. How I wish I never had the surgery or braces! Tom said there’s a slight chance I could’ve developed a condition some people get after having orthodontic work done. We’re going to have me try oiling it twice a day which does seem to help and see what happens. I’d still like to hold off on seeing a doctor who could check it out till we get to California so we don’t have to go all the way to Medford. I’m sure there’s not a doctor in this town who’s even heard of such a thing as congenital atresia. Meanwhile, I’d still like to deal with my teeth. There’s a female dentist we could walk to. I’m willing to cut my $250 a month of spending money down in order to take care of them once and for all.

There is some good news and that’s that the tooth on the side of the good ear has definitely died for sure. Thank God! That tooth drove me crazy for nearly a year and a half. It hit me that it had been a while since it bothered me, so as a test, I went and swished cold water around in my mouth, something that would’ve been excruciating in the past, yet I never felt a thing. And so now I’ve moved on to the ear. Why must I always have something going on with me? As soon as we moved to Oregon and my lungs got better, my tooth took over, and now that it’s dead, the ear’s getting worse.