Hodgepodge

Be Careful What You Wish For

I wasn’t deaf. But I was silently, and steadily, heading down that road.

For several months, the hearing in my right ear was below par. Waaaaay below. If I was laying in bed, on my left side, with my left ear firmly pressed against my pillow, all was quiet. It was alarming, yes, but also quite lovely. The cat’s midnight feed-me-more-meow, the Mrs’ I’m-being-strangled-snoring, the water softener’s ill-timed run cycle, the overnight running of the dishwasher — all silent to me while I slept. I kinda loved being 80% or so deaf in one ear.  The problem arose when I was awake and I couldn’t manage to position myself to the right of people with whom I was having, or trying to have, a conversation, then I had to really focus and learn to read lips a bit. Yeah, I had an issue. Had. But now I have another. The world is TOO DAMN LOUD!!!

I finally had had enough yesterday and made an appointment, a same day one at that, with the recommended ENT doctor. Within a half an hour’s time in the examination chair, the young affable doc pulled out what can only be described as a fuzzy beetle-like substance out of my left ear. Yes, the left one. The, airqoutes, good one. He then continues to battle the depths of my damaged right ear, gradually pulling, sucking, and flushing out dozens of pieces of waxy buildup of various sizes and in festive, seasonally appropriate Halloween colors. It was beyond gross to see and feel. No, even grosser than that.

And it is, technically speaking, a good thing to have had such nasty blockages eradicated. But now everything is obscenely and obnoxiously loud. LOUD!!! I can hear fibers of carpet being squished beneath my bare feet 6 feet and 2 inches away. I’m pretty sure I could even hear the flapping of butterfly wings deep in the backyard, or your thoughts before you’ve a chance to say them aloud. We’re talking bionic, superhero-level hearing and I’m not sure I like it. It makes me wonder how long this blockage has been building up and when this slow descent in my hearing levels began.  Because I cannot ever remember everything in life — the clanging of forks, the shutting of cabinets, my pee hitting the toilet water like Niagara freakin’ Falls without the Maid of the Mist and its poncho wearing tourists — being THIS blaring.

Headaches aside, I have no regrets other than not asking my new favorite doctor if I could take some pictures of the wax creatures living rent free inside my head. Why did it take me so long to make the Ear/Nose/Throat appointment, you may wonder? The short answer is that I’m an idiot.  The long one involves a frustrating and expensive change to our health insurance program which has me avoiding all doctors like the plague, unless I contract a plague, in which case I’d have to consider getting on their appointment calendar.

The lesson here?  You can actually clean out your ears as the saying goes. But before you do, be sure to stock up on Tylenol and find a quiet place to reacclimate into the real, booming world.  And take pictures!

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