Great News!

Thursday March 21
Sorry I am later than I promised. It has been a very busy week with PJ and Lily in the school play. "The Wizard of Oz" has been running Tue-Fri and is a serious production. The line starts forming at 5 and the play begins at 7! It ends late so it has caused much difficulty in getting up in the morning. But oh, so fun!

Flying Monkey and Emeraldette

So the great news is...Dunkin Donuts is coming to Salt Lake!!! Really!!! I know, right! Many times I have had conversations about my long desired dream. I saw the building being constructed downtown and yelled so loud that Pete almost had a heart attack. The Day just kept getting better when I met Dr. Shelton. Dr. Mike had called and talked to him about me so his office fit me in. We really liked him and feel very good about his resume and our visit. We have cancelled tomorrow's surgery with Howard Reichman and scheduled April 8th with Dr. Shelton and Mark Reichman, Neurologist (yes, they are brothers and both are excellent skiers.)

Dr. Shelton was trained by Dr. Brackmann at The House Institute and is an Otolaryngologist like Brackmann.  Basically, that means that they are ENT surgeons.  Dr. Shelton does around 50 AN's a year so he is familiar with the procedure. Dr. M. Reichman specializes in Skull Base procedures and also comes highly recommended. Shelton would do areas around nerves and Reichman would do the brain stem area. 6-8 hours should be all they need. :)

I also had a hearing test.  I felt a little pressure like it was the ACT's or something, but it ended up a much more enjoyable experience.  It confirmed that I have excellent hearing in both ears.  I think I was hoping that I would be more deaf than I realized and then it wouldn't be so traumatic losing my hearing. Not so. I also learned that the reason I had no chance of hearing in my right ear after the surgery is because the tumor is so large it is surrounding the hearing nerve.  When the tumor goes, so will the blood supply which will be a shared source for the tumor and hearing nerve. Therefore, the hearing will go. I've had my ups and downs with this.  It certainly isn't like losing a limb, but a couple times I have struggled with it.

I have been studying about faith and how it applies to me, or rather, how I should apply to it. I began to wonder if I did have faith in the things I have so long believed. I have always believed that I will be resurrected and my body perfected, therfore, I would hear again. In the grand picture, this life is relatively short, so I should be able to deal with it.

But I have questioned this and also considered that if this is not true and this life is all there is, then my experience here is everything and losing hearing is a devastating blow. I will have been cheated.

I have really been honest with myself and thought about this for some time, even fasting with my prayers. I have found that yes, I truly believe there is life after death. I do have hope and I am learning that my faith is stronger than I might have realized and it continues to grow.

I'm still trying to make sense of it all so I can be somewhat prepared, if that is possible. As I was saying to a friend today, if I were to pick a challenge in life, this isn't a bad one to choose.