My Surgery

I thought it would be best if I wrote out what happened [the whole story] of how I got an infection, why I needed surgery, and what's going on now.

How I got the infection:
There is no clear-cut answer to this. It started as swimmer's ear from moisture being trapped in my left ear during my youth group's winter retreat. What I'm guessing happened is snow from a snowball got trapped in my ear since I wear hearing aids and that held the moisture in.

I went to the doctor for medicine to get rid of the swimmer's ear. This worked...but the infection came back even worse as soon as the medicine was done. We followed the same process to get help again, and the same thing happened...leaving me with an excruciatingly painful infection. So finally our ENT [ear, nose, and throat doctor] sent us to a specialist at Loyola Hospital in Wheaton.

Why I needed Surgery:
When we visited the specialist at Loyola he told my dad and I that I had two holes in my left eardrum, one slightly larger than the other. He said that he would put strong medicine in my ear to kill the infection and to come back in a month. This medicine was very painful...however, it was less painful than the infection itself.

We then came back in a month and he said the same thing, put the medicine in and said he would see us back in a month.

When we came back he said that the eardrum was not healing itself fast enough and that I would need to have surgery. So we set the date for right after my mission trip and cornerstone.

What's going on now:
I had the surgery July 19th [5 days ago] and apparently there were some complications. To warn you...I am not 100% sure what is going on right now, so not everything I say here may be a fact, I have been on a lot of medication.

The surgery had a complication and lasted two and a half hours instead of one. This complication was that my ear did try to heal itself but the skin growing in my ear took over completely. They had to remove this. I am not sure what part of the surgery they did successfully complete, but they had to take out a bone that the skin was around and when I go back in 5-6 months, they need to reconstruct a new one.

It has been 5 days so I should be able to go back to life with only a few restrictions:
-no bending over, if I drop something I need to sit down to get it or have someone else get it
-no lifting more than 10 lbs [so much for getting big guns haha]
and a few other rules that I can't remember

Please pray for guidance and solace for me because I am very confused and kind of scared.
Thanks!

Carl