A week ago today, I lost my hearing.
It was due to a double ear infection. My eardrums were intact when I saw a doctor twelve hours after symptoms appeared, though he said they were badly infected. Judging from symptoms after that, I suspect both eardrums probably burst.
The doctor says my hearing will return, but it will be a matter of weeks.
I haven’t had an ear infection since I was a kid. And what I remember of ear infections when I was a kid, you just went to sleep on a hot water bottle and everything was okay. These days you hear about kids having multiple ear infections, getting tubes in their ears, and all that. Ben didn’t have an infection until he was three. Joey had one before he was one, but hasn’t had any since.
We were all sick over the Christmas holiday, except for Joey. It started with Ben, on Christmas Eve. He obviously didn’t feel good, but he wouldn’t tell us where it hurt, and he refused any comfort measures we offered him. It took both of us to give him Motrin – Steve to hold him down and me to put the medication in his mouth with a dropper.
Saturday night, Steve and I both came down with fever and chills. We also had sore throats, but they were in the upper throat and went all the way out through our ears. Sucrets and gargling didn’t help. Sunday night, my left ear started to feel like infection was moving in. At 9:00 Steve put some warm olive oil in, and it felt much better. By 11:00, two hours later, the ear was so swollen the olive oil went nowhere. I tried a heating pad and ice packs. I tried sleeping in the recliner. I took Aleve and Tylenol. But I was in so much pain I hardly slept.
I was at the doctor’s office when they opened at 7:00 a.m. for walk-in urgent care appointments. We were the first ones to be seen, Ben and I (Ben had already gotten a prescription for antibiotics, but hadn’t been seen by a doctor due to the holiday schedule). I described my symptoms to the doctor and told him I thought I had what Ben had, but I didn’t know for sure what Ben had because he wouldn’t tell us anything. Both of my ears were very infected. The doctor prescribed antibiotics for me, and told us to take Claritin or Sudafed to help clear out the fluid in our ears (something I hadn’t heard of before and didn’t see anywhere online).
I went home, got the prescription filled, took all the drugs the doctor recommended and went to bed to get some sleep while Steve watched the boys. Later that morning, the fluid in my ears started moving, like it was draining. The pain was so intense, I was sobbing. It was excruciating. I finally fell asleep. When I woke up, I couldn’t hear anymore, and there was pink fluid draining from both ears. Later that afternoon, I took a nap for about an hour and a half, waking only to change the cotton balls in my ears. When I got up, there were six soaked cotton balls on my nightstand.
The fluid is no longer draining from my ears, but this morning, they feel like they are both swollen shut. And yes, I can hear a little, but everything is very muted. As though I am wearing really good earplugs. Putting a finger in my ear does not change how much I can hear, for what it’s worth.
I can’t hear the phone ring. My husband usually plays the tv so loud it annoys me, but now when he has it on, I cannot hear it at all. I can talk on the phone, but only because I can crank up the volume so loud all the neighbors can probably hear both sides of the conversation. I went to Omaha with some of my knitting buddies this weekend. I had a hard time hearing what people were saying in the car, but at the restaurant where they all had to speak up to be heard over the background noise, I could hear every word they said.
I like to have music playing on the radio during the day, but I haven’t turned it on because I don’t think anyone else would appreciate how loud it would have to be for me to hear it. On the weekends I like to knit while listening to football games and the Sunday morning news shows on tv. I couldn’t hear football at all, and I had to turn captioning on when I watched my news shows, which means I had to watch the tv, not just listen. Sunday afternoon I could have done some sewing, but silence drives me crazy when I sew or knit. I need something in the background, even if it’s just classical music. I’ve been doing a lot of reading, much more than I normally do. It’s the only thing I can do where the silence doesn’t drive me crazy.
Today Steve returned to work after Christmas break. His office is at the university, and they group all the federal holidays like MLK Day and Presidents day that they don’t take during the year between Christmas and New Years. He started to feel the infection moving into his ears the evening before New Years Day. I called the doctor and drove into town to get a prescription for him, in hopes that he would be escape going through what I went through. He seems to have been spared the dreaded curse I am under.
But today I’m on my own. And I have a ton of things to do that haven’t gotten done. We’re out of milk. Last night I baked cookies and had to use white sugar instead of brown, bread flour instead of all-purpose. Bills need to be paid. Laundry needs to be done. And I have a long list of errands that need to be run, too. (Did I mention it’s cold out?)
Not being able to hear has me feeling completely out of sorts. Perhaps getting back into our routine now that Steve has returned to work will help. Ben is going to have to learn to speak up if he wants me to understand what he wants. And if you want to talk to me, you’ll have to email me and tell me to call you.
I miss being able to hear.
