From Our Correspondent in the Field

I thought I’d try the new WordPress app for the iPhone. I’m at the Shambhala Center almost a half hour before class, and no one else is around, so why not? The app is simple to use, and it allows me to write, tag, categorize, and post entries, as well as allowing me to edit already posted entries. It even allows to post pictures taken with or otherwise on the phone. Except for the frustrations of typing on a phone, especially the near impossibility of entering HTML, this seems to work pretty well.

I went back to the ear doctor yesterday. This was a follow up from last week’s appointment, at which we discovered a setback. About a quarter of the tissue in the ear has become mucosa. The rest is becoming healthy, mature skin–that’s the good news. The bad news is that ultimately, all of the tissue in the ear (including the eardrum) will be either mucosa or dry skin. If we can’t win the battle for this quarter of the tissue, we’ll lose the war for the whole ear canal.

Thus far, we haven’t had any success getting mucosa in my ear to turn into dry skin, probably, my doctor speculates, because of an underlying case of eczema. Sort of at my suggestion, we decided last week to put wicking in the ear and use steroid and antibiotic drops. When we checked back yesterday, things looked better–the same tissue was mucosa, but it was a much thinner layer of it. We have managed to get to this point in the past, at which the normal course would be to stop treaemt, and after which things would be expected to heal normally. But that’s never been what’s happened. My doctor actually looked at me yesterday, palms up, and asked, “What do you think we should do?” I suggested continuing with the wicking and the drops and checking back next week, which is what we’re going to do.

I’m ambivalent about having such a significant say in my ongoing treatment. [And that’s as much as I can type on a phone in half an hour. Now I’m on the subway home.] On the one hand I like having real influence over what happens, and it does really seem that the critical thinking and problem solving that I use in the various facets of software development are broadly applicable. On the other hand, I’d really like to be taken care of. But given the situation, I think this is evolving as well as I could hope. I’m mildly optimistic. We’re trying something new in extending this treatment further than we have in the past, and because three quarters of the tissue healed properly this time, more air can get into the ear, giving it a better chance of healing properly. We’ll find out next week if my optimism is justified.