Catch Up!

It has been a week since I found out that I could fly back to the States. Let me just tell you, if I were to be awarded with a Super Hero Cape... I will sure know how to wear one of those. Jeez.... it has been nuts, I have done so much over the last few days that I don't even think any super hero could do so many things!

Here is the following joke, and how I felt during these last few days:

"What did Daddy Tomato say to Baby Tomato???...

'Come On.... Catch Up!' (Ketchup)...

That is exactly what I have been doing over these last few days, CATCHING UP! I have soooooo much to do that it is not even funny. Oh well... One step at a time right? Eventually I know I will get it all done, but missing a whole week of school (specially for my department) was not a good idea at all.

Here is my latest UPDATE: I feel great, lets start off with that. I feel absolutely fantastic "Triple MUY bueno" as some of you may say it. I went to see the Dr. on Friday in Chicago and she provided me with a Hearing Device. This hearing device allows me to hear a little better from my right side. The main reason why I wanted to get a hearing aid was because I am OK having a conversation ONE on ONE, however, when there is more people in the room I really have a hard time comprehending everything they are saying, thus, I decided it will be best to have it specially in the classrooms.

Speaking of classrooms, I had my first class yesterday Face to Face with a professor... YIKES!!! it did not go well at all..... And this is the reason why (I think) I don't know if it was because it was Statistical Analysis and I had noooo idea what was going on hahaha or.... if I can just blame it on my ears. What do you think?..... yeah I think so too, it was BOTH OF THEM!

GREAT NEWS was that my LEFT ear that was temporarily "DEAD" like one Dr. had said...(here is the thing this is my Analogy:) How can an ear be dead? I mean isn't it when somebody dies and they are dead dead dead... well you can't rescue them anymore right? So how can my ear be temporarily dead? get my sarcasm?... Anyway, yes my left ear is responding to noises now, I am so blessed for this news and I feel even more motivated and enthusiastic that this WILL BE a TEMPORARILY loss.

I will see the Dr. again this Friday. This time it will be a Dr. that we have here at Western Illinois University. Apparently we have a great Audiology department and they are gonna follow up my hearing tests here so I do not need to travel all the way back to Chicago. It is a 4 hour drive for me, and in winter season can be even longer. This is a great thing that I have this resource on campus!

I will let you guys know how everything goes after I see them on Friday, until ten I hope you all have an excellent and beautiful rest of the week!

"Say what???"

"Wooofta...." let me just tell you all this is exactly how I feel right now. I have so much to tell you guys, that I do not even know where to start or how to make such a LONG FAST story be so SHORT... but I will try my best.

So, what is going on? IT IS ALL GREAT NEWS!!!!!! I went to see another Dr. Tuesday night. We have heard some recommendations about him, so my family and I thought it would not hurt to go hear a different opinion. Turns out this DR. became my hero so far. He was awesome, super patient, super nice, and very willing to hear my case and explain my situation like if we were playing Apples to Apples. He agreed with all the treatment that I had received and thought I had been doing exactly what he initially would have said too, however, he said to me that he did not see the reason why I could not fly back to the States!... I swear as soon as he said this, I WAS NO LONGER DEFT (haha kidding) but I was like "Say whaaaat?!" He mainly said that the time period that my body needed to be in absolute rest (12 days I had been in bed) had been more than enough. For now on, it did not matter if I spent another week in bed or even month. Time is the KEY to get better he said, but your ear is strong enough for you to be able to travel and be back in the States. He mainly said "If you were my daughter, I would much rather have you go back to the States and follow up your treatment there, than stay here. We can only do so much for you, and we have already done it. Now it is time for you to continue it over there."

Well with this said, I left the Drs. office thinking and wondering what to do next! I talked about it with my parents and discussed some ideas, then we talked about it with my grandpa on Wednesday morning and by Wednesday afternoon I was buying my ticket to come back to the States. There really was no reason why I should remain in bed doing nothing, when I can be doing so much here. I JUST GOT TO CHICAGO today. My friend Kendra picked me up from the Airport and she will be taking me to see a Dr. tomorrow here in Chicago. I am excited to follow up my treatment here!

I feel great, the flight went VERY WELL. I did not feel a thing and my ears did not hurt a single bit. I followed the Drs. orders and did absolutely everything my mom said I should do (and this time I really mean I followed every single rule). I told myself before the plane took off "Now Mariana, if you see a GIANT flying turtle... do not jump off the plane and try to go get it... gotta stay calm now and be 100% conscious!"..... and so I did.

I will keep you all informed on how things turn out tomorrow with the Dr. she is my friends mom who works with all kinds of hearing aids, we are hoping to find one that will work partially for my right ear. In this way I will have a fully recovered ear, while my left side still works to recover some noises.

Alright, I am exhausted... it has been a crazy last couple of days. I swear by Tuesday night I heard the I could fly and now look at this, it is Thursday night and I am already in the States!

Going to bed, good night Mexico. Good morning AMERICA!

Little Humor...

When I first started this blog (April 2010) it was meant to be with the idea of sharing my latest jokes and illustrations for a future book that I want to be able to publish for all ages. Well... since April I had not been able to work so much on these illustrations, thus, I have decided I am going to keep my time busy these days working on some jokes!

Here is my latest one, I started it last night and just finished it now. Time flew by when I was working on this. The joke is called:

Why do Kangaroo moms hate when it rains???....

-because the kids have to play inside!!!

I love jokes, they get me every time and I encourage you to tell me some of your favorite jokes. Maybe who knows, I will illustrate that one next!

On another note, you are probably wondering for an UPDATE... well guess what... me tooo (sigh) Ummm things are pretty much still the same. I know, I CAN FEEL IT, I am healing from the inside but it is really hard to tell the difference on the outside from how much I have re-gain my hearing. Today was awesome, I decided to give myself some "free time" and I escaped with my Mom, Sisters, and aunts to go out and look for a wedding dress for my sister. Oh my God you guys, I have only three words: SHE LOOKED GORGEOUS...! and I also have three words for me" I FELT GREAT," I did. I felt and feel great, this is the annoying thing (also good thing) I do not have any pain at all, nor I feel noxious. If you were to see me, you would not think there is anything wrong at all... until of course I am not responding when you talk to me on my LEFT side (laugh).

Have a great day guys, and again keep the thoughts up. Your thoughts are definitely encouraging me to get better faster!

A Little Prayer

Hello to all, how are you doing?! I decided to share this prayer that I read while I was waiting at the Drs. office the other day with my mom. She literally wrote it on the back of the prescription that the Dr. had given me and I could not wait any longer to do something with it in Photoshop. I made two versions, one in Spanish and the other in English so you can all print it if you want and keep it at home.

Take care and hope you all have a great weekend, again thank you thank you thank you. Today I felt great and I can already tell that I am getting better!!!

Wondering...

I can't stop thinking and repeating the following words: "what if I..." "If only I..." "by now I would be..." "Should this, should that...”

These words keep spinning around my head, they do not seem to stop wondering around and also going nowhere. What are these questions? I ask myself. Well to tell you the truth, these are all questions and sayings that none of us have an answer for. They are in future and/ or past sentence. The more and more I try to come up with an assumption by trying to answer one of these thoughts, the more I am running away from facing reality.

Last night I went to see the Drs again. I'd like to think it went well, I just wish I could fast forward the days and just be done with this. They tested my ears again with the audiology test. The results came up positive this time, my left ear seemed to be recognizing some sounds but yet not enough to recognize what they were. It seems like the cortisone treatment and the absolute rest that they prescribed me with its working but we still have ways to go with it before I can travel back to the States.

Here is another little distraction I felt like doing today, thank goodness for Photoshop he is becoming my Bff!!

Thank you so much for every single one of you who has been following up my blog, truly means a lot all the support I receive from each one of you, take care and we will talk soon!

Swiss Army Ear

The more and more I start doing research on the ears and the many parts that compose it, the more I become fascinated and interested on knowing how things work inside this little part of our body. We have three bones inside in our ears, it is amazing how tiny those bones must be. No wonder why they can be so fragile and break right? But besides the bones, we have soooo many other things around it that are sooo important.

Since I wanted an activity for the day, the more I read and saw all the little gadgets that our ear has, I could not stop thinking that our ears are like a little Swiss Army Knife. I love those things! They are so incredibly tiny, but yet have the most useful things in a tiny little compartment. Each one of those things are key to all of us who buys them, they are so intriguing and random the things they add to these knifes. Same as our ears, my goodness.... why in the world do we have so many little things around our ear, each one of them serves a purpose but for real GOD had too much time in his hands when he designed our Swiss Army Ear!

Hope you enjoy the illustration I made about myself snorkeling, this time a little closer to the surface and aware that I have something very important to be careful of next time I dive... my little Swiss Gadget Ear!

Take care my friends, oh and by the way.... today I feel great. It's been a long day but I feel great and with a lot of desire and hope to get better soon!

Hasta la vista :)

"Roller coaster News..."

“Ugh! Well yes sometimes it is ok to get mad and get stressed and have those moments that we all need to do once in a while... CRY and SCREAM!” my dad said to me today after leaving the doctors office. I was very stressed and trying to hold myself together so my mom would not see me weak. But today was definitely one of those days where I needed to scream and cry a bit. It was not the best day but as well not the WORST day... there are many other bad things going on that I should not even try to think it is the absolute worse and I know we will all get out of them if we let time heal our pains. Today I went to see 2 of the best ear specialist here in my town, Puebla-Mexico. They are both very well known and highly respected among many people that we have been doing research with for whom to see.

Before I tell you what happened, let me start just a little bit before I went to see the Drs. My day had started wonderful (still deft of course haha) but for some reason I was feeling good about seeing these Drs. Right before I got to the Drs office, my dad was talking to me at loud on my left side (the one that it is completely dead and useless) and I heard some sort of a vibrating sound... it was awesome! It felt like when you are turning the radio on and you are trying to find a good station but you can’t comprehend the word but you can hear the BZZZ BZZZ from it. I said to my dad "OMG it's alive! My ear it’s aliveeee I can hear something. This session will go AWESOME... I am healing!" Ummm well that lasted not so long, as I titled this blog post "Roller-coaster News..."

Since the accident happened and all the different doctors that I have been seeing; they have all given me different news. One said this is not so bad with a few meds and antibiotics you should be feeling pretty good and start hearing = Rollercoaster went up feeling pretty good about the situation. Then I went to see an audiologist and she mainly said that my left ear had received a heart attack and it was completely dead. That what I had was not good and was not gonna get any better soon at all = My roller coaster went downhill…. Then I went and saw another Dr that practices Hyperbaric Medicine in a chamber that contains oxygen, people had said this would help me regain my hearing in my ear. The Dr said with a couple of sessions my ear would be golden and alive again… = Roller coster went up and felt great about the situation… Till now that my rollercoaster went DOWN faster than it had ever gone after seeing these last well known Drs.

The hearing that I thought I had, happened to be a false alarm that our body can do to use once in a while. It was a vibration in did, but it is a fake vibration that fakes our mind to think that we are listening when it is only a feeling. So no I am not hearing anything at all, my left ear it is severely damaged and all the previous diagnosis that I had been doing had not worked at all for me. In fact we are running out of time to rescue some of my hearing back, the Dr said. He immediately cancel the Hyperbaric Chamber treatment cause that can actually affect me much worse. Then he canceled my flight to go back to the states this week, and said that I have to be strictly in rest recovering. I need to lay down for 2 straight weeks in a 30 degree angle so the swelling goes down faster in a way. I am only allowed to go and make a wonderful visit to the bathroom... yay! I have also started the cortisone treatment, this will increase the time for my swelling to go down and as well as taking other drugs. I am becoming day by day more like Marilyn Monroe with all these drugs than the athlete Mariana Sanchez that you all used to know!

With all this, where did we conclude the following diagnosis? Well if in the next 2 weeks that I have been laying down and receiving the cortisone, if there is a change and a progress, then I will have to have surgery immediately to gain access to my ear and rescue my hearing. It sounds like a complicated surgery and scary not to mention, but better to have it than not to have it. In the doctors terms what I have is: Perilymph Fistula... gosh I love medical terms... ummm SAY WHAT?! I will try to explain, the inner part of my ear where we have the round window and the oval window, there is a membrane that protects the middle ear from the inner ear. Right behind that membrane my oval and round windows are located. This membrane broke and it is what is causing all the swelling. When this broke it affected those windows as well as what it is around. When they perform the surgery, they will have to open my whole ear from behind my head, move it to a side in order for the Dr to be able to get all the way to the inner part of my ear, and fix my membrane as well as the windows damaged. Readers, do I have any takers on who would like to do this wonderful surgery to me? sounds easy right?.... yeah right is not! Now what if there is no improvement and no change in the following 2 weeks?... unfortunately if that is the case, then I have pretty much lost my ear and would be deft from that side. It is hard to predict the future, but even harder to predict medicine... so I have a lot of hope that no matter what goes right or what goes wrong, something will still be able to be done to improve my hearing!

All my family and I have been very positive about this situation. YES it is shocking. YES we are mad. YES we are a little stressed, but we know this is happening for something good. After these next 2 weeks, if the Drs decide that surgery is needed, I will probably get it done in the STATES not in Mexico. We are looking at two places for now; one at The Mayo Clinic in Rochester or the other in Chicago IL. So friends of the States.... I will be closer to you all soon wooohooo :)

Enough said for now, I will keep you all informed on how my body is adapting to the cortisone treatment and the wonderful and conformable (sarcasm) life that I will have in the following 2 weeks. Thank you so much for all your support, your thoughts and your prayers... you guys are my strength now and I appreciate it a ton, it totally makes my life easier to have you in my life!

Muchas Gracias :)

Take care and all my best to you all,