Part II
On 12 February 2014, just four days after experiencing the most surreal sounding pulsing noise, after a physical examination, I got the referred to the Otolaryngology Department as a new walk in patient suffering from hearing loss. I immediately called the department, but at the time I did not know the extent of my illness, and my appointment at this busy practice would be in four weeks, on 12 March 2014 with the audiologist. I did not have the faculty to insist that this was an hearing emergency, and any hope of effective treatment needed hours not days to initiate. What hindsight gives to a complex medical problem!
While I waited to see the audiologist I tried pseudoephedrine, zinc lozenges, hydrogen peroxide to clean the ear wax, curanderos to rid me of the mal aire, and prayer, but the pounding sound continued unencumbered. My neighbors, friends, and family could not comprehend what I was going through. Some thought I must be making up a story, must feel dizzy, or just lazy, as my home construction project floundered, while I could not concentrate as the sound permeated my intellect. I finished the rough plumbing on my addition, slithering under a 1950’s WWII era crawlspace connecting water supply lines to my addition.
Family birthday parties came and went along with scheduled Church Services and public plays and dramas. Folk medicine failed to show any improvement. Finally my appointment with the audiologist arrived, and I tried my best to distinguish the pure tone test frequencies of air and bone conduction sounds. After a 20 minute exam of hearing, word recognition, tympanic response, and ancillary questions I got my audiogram. It showed what I did not expect: moderate to severe hearing loss in the left ear in a characteristic cookie-bite pattern, while the right ear stayed completely normal.