Me and my ruptured ear drum

I've gotten lots of questions about this so here's the information that I can share about my experience with it.

1. It sucks, a lot. Not because I'm in pain. I actually only have pain in the ear if it is infected. Currently, it is not. It sucks because I have lost over half of my hearing until it is repaired.

2. I can't hear people clearly when there is more than 1 person talking. It really makes family gatherings / work / anything involving people difficult. Restaurants are very difficult for me because I can't follow conversations right now. The theme park will be impossible unless the ear is repaired before then.

3. When it is repaired, the doctor is going to graft skin over the damaged ear drum to replace what is missing. This should restore most if not all of my hearing. however, it will involve at least a week off of work and lots and lots of antibiotics to keep the ear from getting infected and causing the graft to fail. In this case, failure is really bad and puts me below square 1 on the ear.

4. I now turn the TV up really loud because overall, I am now missing a measured 50% of my total hearing.

5. I now can ignore my husband by turning a deaf ear to him. I tell him it's revenge for all of the years of selective hearing I've dealt with from him.

6. I also have tinitus in the ear constantly. So my ear is ringing constantly and it can be distracting when it gets very loud.

7. If it isn't fixed before Disney, the good news is that it won't affect my ability to fly. Since I have no ear drum, there is no worry about the pressure equalizing.

So that is the story of my ear, my need for surgery, and the biggest reason we are currently on a break. Though Disney is a very close second.