What's the big deal?

The reason for my ear surgery was because I had a cholesteatoma. That's just a fancy way of saying there was debris, like dead skin, built up in my middle ear. Naturally, when I was first diagnosed in January, I started searching the Internet for information. My usual website, WebMd, was kind of a let down (nerdy-me admits to reading articles on there for fun). There wasn't a lot of information on cholesteatomas. And as I searched the world wide web it seemed to me like there wasn't much info on the web at all. That is until I found the Yahoo! group.

Yahoo! groups is a great feature and apparently they have everything from like Dukin Donuts group (called Dunkin' Coffee Table) -"A place for coffee lovers to converge" to the Cholesteatoma group. This was a great source of information. Not only did it have links to many informative websites, but there were also discussions going on and I could read about people's personal experiences.

As I would read these though, it seemed to me like people were way too into this cholesteatoma thing. There were two kinds of people I noticed right way. One, the people who either had really bad doctors or really bad luck. These people had like ten surgeries, each one lasting like five hours, with overnight hospital visits. Seems a bit extreme to me. The surgeon who did my surgery, can do it in like 45 minutes. My surgery, where he also had to build me a new eardrum and repair a whole in my semicircular canal still only took 2 hours and 40 minutes.

Then there are the people who are like way too dramatic. "Oh my god! I have to have surgery! But I have two children!" Chill out. You have some dead skin in your ear, not cancer.

This Yahoo! group is an active group a with almost 1800 members. I think it's great for information to learn about what others went through, but I just think that some people take it too seriously. For months now I have wanted to post there and ask "What's the big deal" But I realized that might be kind of rude and I can't trust my teenager judgment so I didn't.

However, recently, one member decided to make a blog and dedicate it entirely to her long, sad cholesteatoma experience. Really? Can you write a whole blog on that? I read it yesterday. She's already writing about her fifth surgery out of eight and her blog is only a few weeks old. Plus, the title, I Am Surviving Cholesteatoma. Well, I sure hope so! I would think you have a better chance of not surviving the flu.

I understand it freaks some people out because it's happening to their four year old, or they don't want to lose their hearing, or have surgery. But it's not that bad. It's a nuisance, yes. I admit that I hate that I still can't touch or lay on the right side of my face. And it is really annoying only to be able to hear out of one ear, but it is only temporary. And for the people who's hearing loss from the cholesteatomas is permanent they can get a hearing aid. As for the surgery, it's practically an outpatient procedure. I'll give it to the four year olds.

Perhaps, I have exaggerated a bit. Most people use the group for the same reason I do. It's just the obsessive, freaking out, dramatic people who bug me. Someone needs to tell them to chill out.

Anyway, I just wanted to rant about it.