What I would want to say about myself

Birth date: 08 April 1988

Currently pursing Degree  in Computer Science in Nanyang Technological University (NTU) & Direct Masters in Georgia Institute of Technology ( everything is to be completed in 4.5 years)

Living in an small island city called Singapore. (Doubt I will migrate to anywhere else)

Likes :

• Computer/IT stuff
• Computer games(lesser of computer games now, more on facebook games like MouseHunt)
• Spending time with my family and friends.
• Listening to both English & Chinese songs that are meaningful and touching ( I don’t ONLY listen to Jay Chou’s songs ok?)

Talking about listening, this leads me to my next part.

My Ear

*If you are lazy to read, just scroll to the paragraph with the red text*

During my enlistment health check up, I failed the ear hearing test. So I was asked to visit the ENT specialist (ENT stands for Ear Nose & Throat). Initially, the doctor had no idea why my right side of the ear has some missing bones whereas my left ear was perfectly fine ( this was observed by the CT scan result). The doctor even brought this case up to their weekly board of directors meeting and they concluded that I was born like this.

But after some monitoring, the doctor realised that I have a condition called Cholesteatoma. In actual fact – its congenital cholesteatoma. In really simple English – Cholesteatomaa = skin growth inside my middle ear, which leads to infection and more bad stuff. Below are the details with some medical terms.

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The eustachian tube is a canal which connects the middle ear to the back of the nose. It is responsible for maintaining middle ear pressure to the pressure in the external environment. This tube is normally collapsed in its resting state and when we swallow or yawn, the muscles around the tube contract and cause the tube to open allowing the influx of air into the middle ear space.

When this tube does not work appropriately, a relative negative middle ear pressure is generated and maintained. Over time the intact eardrum begins to retract back toward the inner ear. Eventually a skin-lined sac forms which continues to grow and cause infection and bony destruction.

If untreated, the skin can eat into, through the enzymes it produces, the three small bones located in the middle ear, which can result in nerve deterioration, deafness, imbalance.

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So, the doctor said must go operation. But I wasn’t that lucky. After a 4hours operation, the doctor told me that when he “opened up” my ear, he found out there was a very bad infection that was ongoing for very long. This is because my right ear had much black sticky sticky fluid. So the doctor cleaned everything away, even my 3 bones in the middle as they were damaged beyond repair due to the chronic infection. I was quite devastated at that time, but had to accept reality. He did explain that there was a possibility of the condition happening again.

And yes, it did happened again after my first surgery. The details of what was done in the surgery- radical mastoidectomy surgery.

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The portion of the cholesteatoma that is adherent to the inner ear and/or facial nerve is left. In this case a situation is created where the keratin accumulation can be safely removed in the office. The bony partition between the back part of the ear canal and the mastoid bone is removed. The eardrum, malleus and incus are removed in order to allow exposure of the inner ear and facial nerve for cleaning in the office. The opening to the ear canal is also enlarged.

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So, as of now. My ear drum in my right ear is removed. So my right only have my inner ear, which enable us to hear, and my outer ear. Definitely, my hearing on my right ear has dropped quite significantly. If you were to talk on my right side, you would either have to talk much louder or I have to face directly at you so that can make use of my perfectly fine left ear.

*Updated on 10th Jan 2010*

I collected my hearing aid on 5th Jan 2010. Well, it takes time to get used to the hearing aid. I have to take special care in handling the hearing aid, i want it to last. The following paragraph I copied from my blog post – lazy to retype out again, hehe.

No matter what, it is still different from a normal ear, it is like having a microphone and speaker attached to your ear- it sounds different. This is very obvious when the wind blows at me. The sound perceived from my right ear is the exact sound you will hear when you are talking on the phone, and there is strong wind blowing into the other partner’s mouthpiece.

Information was adapted from this two sites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cholesteatoma

http://www.earsite.com/tumors/cholesteatoma.html

Life Goals

Aim to get more than 10% annual returns on my stock investments

Do my best to create the best environment for my own family to live in

Consistently exercise and aim to get Silver for my IPPT every year

Spend more time with my family and friends.