"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,