In May 2016, shortly after classes ended, I was traveling on Jekyll Island, GA, a small and quiet island south of Savannah, GA. I have had tinnitus for 12 years and hear one louder high pitched and persistent sound in my right ear and one quieter but still persistent high pitched sound in my left ear. On May 23rd, I realized I was hearing 3 different sounds in my right ear. I also had a sense of fullness (clogged) in my right ear, something I've had off and on with the tinnitus but which usually dissipates after a day or two. The next day, I noticed I was having trouble hearing out of my right ear but attributed it to the sense of it being logged. A day later, as we were driving back to our home, while listening to music on the drive home, I notice that there was an echo in my right ear. The hearing loss, fullness, and tinnitus were also accompanied by headaches which were severe at times. As we were driving, I kept thinking "My brain isn't processing sound the way it usually does. Something has changed." When I got home and had some time, I began my researching my symptoms and kept returning to sudden hearing loss. After the Memorial Day weekend, I got into see my PCP who was perplexed, especially I did not have any dizziness or problems with balance. She encouraged me to continue taking flonaise and to keep the appointment I'd already made to see an ear, nose, and throat (ENT) doctor in a few weeks. I have often been asked if I blame her and I don't. What I now know is that PCPs are not trained to assess for and identify sudden hearing loss. As an educator, I am now on a mission to change that.
After seeing my PCP, I did what I often do in situations like this: I continued on with my plans as usual. My wife and I played in a Memorial Day tennis tourney but I found my first match hard to play. I heard what I can only describe as static in my right ear and was easily distracted by this. I was sufficiently concerned about my inability to hear while on the court that I also told my opponents, two women I'd played against previously and liked a lot, that my ears were clogged and I was having trouble hearing so that if I asked them or my wife to repeat the score, they'd know what was going on. After the match, one we lost in a tie break and which was the third longest match you can play in tennis, one of my opponents told me she'd had tinnitus and hearing loss for many years and had just started wearing a hearing aid a couple of years ago. She talked about the joys and challenges of wearing one. Still without a diagnosis, I now believe that this conversation was the first of many I have had with people with hearing loss who I did not know had it. The universe continues to send people like my opponent into my life to offer their wisdom, strength, and hope as I move through this journey.
Four weeks later, on June 21, 2016, I saw my ENT. By then, I had read enough to know what the likely diagnosis was but I still retained hope. Hope that I would go into this office, be given a hearing test which would tell me my hearing loss was not as bad as I believed it to be, and walk out the door with a prescription and a lot of hope that all would return to the way it was before I went to Jekyll Island. Hope that my own diagnosis was dead wrong. Hope that these sensations in my ear would soon end. Instead, he confirmed my fears and said that I was a "good candidate for a hearing aid" if the steroid treatment was not effective. My heart sunk and I was in shock. I had been scheduled to attend another event after my ENT appointment that day before going to a memorial service for the adult son of cherished friends. I skipped the other event, went home and told my wife about this, and began to compartmentalize my feelings of shock about "my new reality" so I could support my friends in their grief for their son as I dealt with my own and thus begin my journey of dealing with sudden hearing loss and all that comes with it.
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