I thought I would expand on Jenni's post about my surgery (see below).
I have had two unsuccessful tympanoplasty surgerys (12 years ago, and 6 years ago). So I still have a hole in my eardrum, and mild hearing loss (but I can blow bubbles out of my ear underwater). But now I also have some scar tissue growing into the middle ear, threatening to damage the hearing bones, etc...that would be bad. So I'm having a third tympanoplasty tomorrow, basically a skin graft to seal up the ear drum. This time to improve the chances of it healing properly they are likely inserting a small tube through the eardrum, and performing a mastoidectomy to "clean out" the bone behind the ear to reduce chance of infection effecting the results. Hopefully they sew my ear back on in the right position so my glasses fit properly. Stay tuned to follow my progress.