I have a hero!

I went back to the ENT today for my follow-up appointment. The good news is that the ringing finally went away over a week ago and today they ran some hearing tests to make sure that everything is completely fine with my ear. It turns out that my ear canal is smaller than normal (just an odd random fact I thought I'd throw out there) and that my hearing is fantastic! :-) He was actually very impressed with my hearing (go me!). :-) He said my OER's (or MRQ's or some junk that has to do with something with your hearing - ironically, I wasn't really listening to him) is comparable to that of a teenagers. The conversation went like this:

Dr: How old are you?
Me: What is wrong with you??
Dr: I know, I'm not supposed to ask that of a woman
Me: Silence (I refused to answer the question...I just let him look at my chart and do the math!) :-)
Dr: Well, your hearing is fantastic. It's comparable to that of a teenager!
Me: Well, that's how old I tell people that I am so that works for me.
Dr: Yes, the next time someone asks your age you can tell them you have the ears of a teenager. In fact, I'm about your age and I'm far worse than you are. I'm impressed with your hearing.
Me: Yes, I'm pretty amazing. (Except I didn't say that last part out loud) :-)

When he first walked in the room he asked how the ringing was in my ear. I told him it was all better and then I said, "You fixed me! You are my new hero!" and he responded with "Ok." At first I thought, "Dang, you don't have to be so arrogant!" but then I thought, "Wait, he's a miracle worker - he can be as arrogant as he wants!" :-)

Girls weekend!

Last weekend I had a chance to get out of town with three very lovely ladies for our summer Girls Weekend. It was terribly hot but we still managed to enjoy ourselves. :-) We started the weekend by having Karen, Debs, and Jan come spend the night at my house Friday night and Ryan cooked us dinner. After dinner we watched the movie The Hangover and by the end of the movie it was getting late and we were leaving early the next morning so we headed to bed. Saturday morning we left bright and early on our way to Ybor City. We started off with tea at 11:00am which was wonderful. The tea room was absolutely beautiful, the food was amazing and the service was outstanding. I have a new favorite tea room! Unfortunately, it’s over 2 hours away. :-( But it was wonderful while we were there.

Karen wanted to wear hats for her birthday tea so we were in our dresses and hats for tea but once we were finished we got our clothes out of the car so that we weren’t walking around Ybor City like that. :-) We went walking around in search of a few shops that we ended up not finding. It was blistering hot and not much shade as we were walking around (for probably a good hour and a half) and I was afraid that we’d literally melt into puddles right there on the street. Luckily, we didn’t. :-) We got back to the car and went to Ikea which was amazing simply because it was air-conditioned! :-) We spent probably two hours in Ikea looking at everything and each of us finding a few things that we just had to have. We also took a short break in some very relaxing chairs!:-)

By the time we left Ikea it was time to head to the hotel to check in and continue cooling off. We got ready for dinner and went out to find a restaurant for dinner – except that the restaurant that we were trying to find apparently no longer existed. :-( We tried to find a second restaurant that, again, did not exist so we finally gave up and turned around and headed back to a Carrabba’s that we had passed earlier. We enjoyed our dinner but it wasn’t exactly comfortable…the air conditioner in the restaurant wasn’t working so it was quite hot! Ugh. After dinner we went to the mall across the street for a while before heading back to the hotel. The hotel that we were staying in had a lounge area that we went to check out when we got back to the hotel. It was an “interesting” experience. :-) We didn’t stay there too long before we headed back to the room for the night.

Sunday morning we headed back over to the mall where we were the night before because there was a movie theater there and the girls wanted to see the Twilight movie. I’m not a Twilight fan –at all!- and am actually sick of the Twilight-mania everywhere so I never, ever, ever imagined I’d be going to see one of the movies but it was something that they wanted to do (and it was an air-conditioned activity) so I agreed. We went to the 10:30am showing and it was packed! I watched the movie and I’m a little embarrassed to say I actually enjoyed it. (Actually, once we got home on Sunday I saw on tv that the first Twilight movie was on this week and I tried to secretly set the DVR to record it. Unfortunately, Ryan saw me and asked me what I was doing and I told him I wanted to see it so that the third movie that I just saw might make more sense to me. Hee hee, I think I actually like the movie/series now. Noooo, say it’s not so!! I’m a closet Twilight fan. Aahhhh!!) :-) After the movie we went and had lunch and then picked up some Starbucks before getting back on the road and getting back to my house where we arrived at about 4:00pm on Sunday. It was fun and as always the weekend flew by way too fast. But not to worry, I’ve already booked our room for our November girls weekend! :-)

New hero?

I was hoping to have a new hero today in the form of the Ear, Nose, & Throat specialist I went to see to take care of this incessant ringing I've had in my left ear since the end of April. He talked to me for a bit and took a look in my ear. Apparently because the doctor I was previously going to see had me on antibiotic ear drops for 30 days that caused one heck of a build up in my left ear and the specialist was hoping that was what was still causing the ringing (he said there was a complete and total block of my ear canal). He got all the junk out which took a while but the machine that he used was incredibly loud in my ear so when he was done I had no idea if my ear was still ringing or not because I was half-deaf in my left ear at that point. The funny part was that while he had that contraption in my ear he kept talking to me...like I could freaking hear him! :-) I go back at the end of this month for a follow-up appointment and he wants to check my hearing to make sure I haven't suffered hearing loss and to hopefully rule out having a tumor that could be causing the ringing. Oh thanks. That really put me at ease.
So, I don't have an ear infection any longer: YAY!!
I still have ringing in my ear: BOO!
I have someone who seems to know what he's doing taking care of my ear now: YAY!
The co-pay for this wonderful (hopeful) hero-to-be is $100 each visit: BOO!!

However, all worries are gone because tomorrow starts my bi-annual Girls Weekend with some wonderful and very lovely ladies!!! Debs, Karen, and Jan are all coming to spend the night at my house tomorrow night and we are leaving bright and early Saturday morning to head down to Ybor City. We'll have tea Saturday afernoon to celebrate Karen's birthday that was last week and then we'll have a wonderful rest of the weekend hanging out in Ybor. YAY!!!!