Sadly, it’s true.

I have been missing my blog and intending to get back to it, so here I am. I learned this week that my cholesteatoma has returned and I need to have a fourth and final surgery: a modified radical mastoidectomy. As my friend Brad so aptly put it, it is another round of suckitude.

I suspected something might be amiss in my ear, because I’d had some ear pain a month ago and I could tell my hearing had worsened. Well, the reason for that was an enormous ball of hard wax. It took my ear surgeon 15 minutes of extremely painful digging around in my ear, followed by a strong sucking machine, to get that sucker out. And once it was out, he saw that the cholesteatoma had come back with a vengeance and was infected. Just lovely.

Even though I’d tried to brace myself for bad news, I teared up in his office, much to my embarrassment. The surgeon had planned to do a modified radical at my last surgery three years ago, but decided at the last minute to take a less invasive approach. I asked him, again, why he had decided not to go full bore, and he said my anatomy is complicated. Isn’t that reassuring?

I was feeling very low and emotional after hearing this news first thing on a Tuesday morning, especially on the heels of news the previous day about our company’s financial performance and my uncle having a stroke. I returned to my office and couldn’t keep myself from crying. Suckitude.

The bad news forced me off to the gym–I figured I needed to work off the stress. That helped a bit. And then in the afternoon, I received this beautiful pick-me-up from Mike and the boys:

“There must be quite a few things a hot bath won’t cure, but I don’t know many of them. Whenever I’m sad I’m going to die, or so nervous I can’t sleep, or in love with somebody I won’t be seeing for a week, I slump down just so far and then I say: “I’ll go take a hot bath.”

 A brief visit with close friends filled with laughter, combined with messages of amazing support from friends and family, and I feel encircled with love and courage.