No, it’s not the incision in the top of my ear, nor the slash through my eardrum, nor even the chiseling away of bone growth so that the surgeon could remove one of my tiny ear bones to replace it with a prosthesis. The cut that pains me most is the one-by-two-inch patch of hair that a young man wielding clippers shaved from above and in front of my ear. The patch of long, long hair that I had just days previously had expertly — and expensively — cut at my favorite salon. It’ll take a good while longer than six weeks to recover from that wound.

Otherwise, I’m doing well. The surgery went well, although it turned out to have been somewhat more complicated than anticipated and took nearly twice as long to perform as the surgeon expected. Apparently I have very narrow ear canals, and that combined with a malformed bone and fairly extensive calcification on the bone that was removed gave my surgeon a little more than she had bargained for. Still, she was pleased with how it went in the end (me, I didn’t notice a minute of the extra time). It will be some weeks yet before we know how much of my hearing is restored, but there’s no reason not to expect a complete success.

I came home Thursday afternoon, and I’m feeling pretty much fine, all things considered. I’m exhausted and my kids are loud, but neither of those is something I didn’t expect. I do have some pain in my ear, but it’s nothing that acetaminophen can’t handle. Worst, maybe, is that I can’t lie on the operated ear, and I’m getting a bit stiff from always sleeping on my right side.

I have a follow-up appointment on Thursday afternoon, and hopefully I’ll get this infernal packing out of my ear and maybe even the all-clear to wash my hair. I was advised not to wash it until after the post-op checkup, so as to avoid getting any water in my ear. I confess, I already threw caution to the wind and lathered it up once, but I’ll try to stay on the straight and narrow from now on. No promises, though — my poor tresses have already suffered enough.