Ears and planes and stuff

I finally had my long awaited ENT apt today. I found out I have pretty significant hearing loss in my right ear (considered moderate). This is really not a surprise to me. The good news is that some or maybe a lot of the hearing loss is reversible if we can get fluid out of my ears and keep it out. So for the next 3 weeks I have to blow up a balloon with my nose, hold the air in the balloon and swallow (otovent). I have to do this 3 times a day. It opens up my Eustachian tubes and will hopefully allow the fluid to drain out of my ears. It hurts though :(. The negative pressure makes my ears pop like crazy and it is not a good feeling. I hope I can get used to it to do it for the next 3 weeks. Sadly this is an OTC thing so my insurance didn't cover it. It was not an expense that I needed but I had to get it in order to ultimately figure out what is going on with my ears. I had a tympanogram done along with my hearing test and, as I already knew, I def have fluid behind my eardrum in my right ear. Normal tympanogram is a bell curve and mine is a flat line which means my ear drum doesn't move... at all. This is because there is fluid pushing against it. No matter what has been done in the past, the fluid comes back so while I hope this helps and gets me to a point where we can tell what my actual hearing is (unhindered by the fluid), I know it is no long term solution. The idea is to get a good, factual, non fluid filled hearing test and to try and figure out how to control my allergies (thinking allergy shots since nothing else has worked) and ear infections so that I no longer get fluid behind my ears. The tinnitus and other odd sensations I have in my ears are put on hold until we hopefully, at the very least, partially correct my hearing and get my allergies under control. Not sure if that makes sense but... that is the plan anyway.

In other news, we sent Daddy off to Germany for 2 weeks today. It was sad. I miss him already. SM misses him already too. I don't think the baby has noticed his absence yet though. He is gone through the 14 of December. He will be hanging out in the beautiful city of Heidelberg and doing research at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (its up in the forest and overlooks the city... he is a lucky boy). Anyway... he is working in Astroparticle Physics there... doing fancy research. He will be boarding his plane in about 40 min or so for the 9 hour flight across the ocean. I hope he does well with the time change. He is going to be dragging for a couple of days probably but they do have a couple of days before the real work begins. Anyway, 2 weeks alone with the boys is kind of scary for me. I have done many weeks with just the big kid and a week with both but this seems extra hard. I pray I am pleasantly surprised by how it goes. If you want to get together with us... let me know. I think the main thing I will need to do is keep Super Muscles busy busy so he is well behaved and sleeps well every night.

My Aunt is having her baby... RIGHT NOW. Well shes in labor at the hospital. Maybe she isn't pushing the baby out just yet... Can't wait to meet him or her (yes its a surprise :))