In early 2014 something happened in my brain. I woke up to a pounding noise, of unknown origin. I tried to ignore it.
Background
In December 2013 while watching some recording from my Lenovo HTPC, while muting the HDMI source, I continued to hear something like a swooshing sound. I looked all around the room for a sound source, and located the sound origin, the internal 500 GB hard drive. The Lenovo desktop made the typical rotating drive sound, but I started to interpret it as an ever so slightly pulsing white noise. It was a curiosity, but in retrospect the sign of a catastrophe to come.
I had some other heath issues, primarily an abyss behind my left ear that needed an incision and drainage followed by secondary intention wound care. By 22 January 2014, I was all healed up, ready to go back to work on a major 800 SQ FT dark green new home addition. I had started the drain, waste, and vent plumbing along with the rough electrical work.
Part I
On 8 February 2014 the slight hard drive inconsequential noise, just a curiosity in nature, became a frightening freight train of surging intensity, taking over my senses. I thought I could ignore it. Maybe the sound was a result of a middle ear infection, so I went to my doctor, who understood my complaint, took out a strange tuning fork, slapped it on his hand and placed the cool steel base against the back of my neck. The doctor asked what I heard, and all I could sense was cold. He asked if I sensed a hearing deficiency, and with the pulsing noise, could not distinguise the tuning fork from my noise. I came to discover later I had a eighth cranial nerve on my left side “explode” in my head, and my auditory system in attempt to recover hearing, began interpreting the labyrinth of blood vessels as actionable sound.