My Newest Adventure

I had always thought hearing loss would be a slow, gradual dialing down of the volume to an ever-increasing silence. That’s why, when I woke up last Saturday with loud ringing and pressure in my left ear, hearing loss was not even on my radar. I assumed it was sinus related. I’ve had horrific sinus issues for years, and six weeks ago, I had surgery to reconstruct my shattered septum, which turned out to be the cause of all the sinus misery. Plugged ears and ringing were nothing new, but as the day went on, things intensified.

I first noticed that I was more sensitive to the sounds in the house. The coffee cup set down on the table. Water running in the sink. The sound of my spoon against the side of the jar as I ate my overnight oats. It was like they were not sounds I was hearing, but explosions that reverberated in my head.

We decided to go out for a walk, to get away from the sound and get some fresh air. The pressure in my ear would change in intensity. The ringing sounded like I was sitting in an airplane right next to the engine. It wasn’t painful, just increasingly annoying. It was when our path took us under a freeway bridge that I realized there was something more going on. The sounds from the cars overhead were intense, as though I were standing in a long echoing tunnel. Once again, I sounded like I was coming from my head. I had to strain to hear the person next to me speaking, and it wasn’t until we were a few hundred feet away that the noise levels started to diminish.

We got home and had a video call with my doctor. He asked if I had lost any hearing, and I said no. It hadn’t occurred to me that I had. I was hearing things- and loudly.  He referred me to the urgent care to make sure there was nothing obviously wrong. I got the all-clear from that doctor, who then referred me to my Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) doctor. I got home and put on some headphones to play a video game. That’s when I noticed it. I was ‘hearing’ a lot of ringing, but there was no actual hearing going on in that ear. That’s when the panic started. I called my ENT, got the on-call doctor who got everything rolling for an appointment for a hearing test that Monday.

The rest of the weekend was full of surprises. As I can only hear in one ear, I can’t follow two streams of sound. If I am watching TV and someone talks to me, it all jumbles up. I have to pause the TV and then listen only to what the person is saying. Eating potato chips or anything crunchy is majorly uncomfortable, and I can’t hear anything at all. Listening to music is not a fun experience with now, as it has a weird effect on the pressure in my ear. And I love music. I always have it on all the time. And I always write with music. Not anymore, at least not at this time.

Grocery stores are the worst. They are a never-ending source of sound torture. It is almost impossible to have a conversation if I am at the sink with running water, and general conversation is just not as much fun as it used to be. You know when you try to sleep, and someone’s car alarm keeps going off all night? That’s what it’s like. It just never takes a break, and nobody is coming to turn it off. Conversations take concentration. I often have to strain to listen, and I have to continually ask what somebody said or let them know I didn’t hear them. Sometimes, like at a grocery store, I just smile and nod and hope it was the right thing to do. Work conversations are even more difficult. I often need to brainstorm and think strategically and creatively in the moment. It’s hard to do while trying to ignore the onslaught of sounds around me. I can sometimes hear the aggravation in Keith’s voice after he asked me to help him in the kitchen or something, and I just didn’t hear him.

Monday, I had the hearing test, and the results confirmed a 40-decibel hearing loss in my left year. The doctor told me I have Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss. While there is a laundry list of what may cause it, from viruses to tumors, there is not much knowledge about it. There are also not many options for treatment. I started a round of high-dose steroids, which I am now about half-way through. If those don’t work, then the next step is an MRI. So far, there has been no change.

I am trying to stay positive, doing the treatments that might, but probably will not bring my hearing back, and at the same time, be realistic about the possibility of this being something that is here to stay. I don’t know how that will work. I have found a couple of great resources that are helping me understand what is going on and also figuring out what comes next.