A paradigm changing day...
...that's what today was. A paradigm changing day. It was a day that I tripped and skipped into, much like any other day. And in the span of one doctor's appointment, I consciously changed a long-held paradigm of mine. No. I don't have cancer and I'm not dying. This is a minor minor issue that I'm dealing with but how I'm going to deal with it is a bit new. Yes. Bad things happen to good people, and I do believe that God has nothing to do with it. We live in a crappy, sinful world, and bad stuff happens to ALL people. I will explain.
Three years ago, inexplicably, I felt the hearing in my right ear slowly but steadily decline as the fluid behind my eardrum built up. It was just a couple times of not quite hearing a word right, or having to ask someone to repeat their question at first. I also felt like I was under water or in a tunnel. This over the last 3 years has progressed to a full on admission to my patients of "I am having trouble hearing out of my right ear today (Yeah right, EVERYDAY), so if I lean forward or appear to be reading your lips, I am! Your words are very important to me and I want to understand every one of them. So thank you for your patience!" Usually, the person is very understanding and nods and speaks up a bit. It's taken quite a hit to the old ego to admit that my hearing isn't 20/20 (see what I did there?), but I figure everyone has to deal with something, this is just my little burden.
I sought help. First a HEENT doc who put me on Mucinex D to draw off the fluid. That just succeeded in making me sleep walk through my days. I didn't even MIND that my hearing wasn't tip top! The next doc was a specialist. He prescribed Prednisone and more ointments and unguents to no avail. The next specialist put in an ear tube. After 7 months and two CT scans, he realized that the tube had become infected and had given me mastoiditis. So out came the tube during a surgical procedure and on went Kris for three rounds of nasty nasty antibiotics. Then I got tested for allergies, nope, just grass but only if I roll around on a freshly mown lawn. ;) (Who does that???) I gave myself a break from medicine and just focused on clean eating, positive thinking, school, family, happy thoughts.....with my growing isolation, sometimes my thoughts were all I could understand.
Fast forward to today: The pressure has built up behind my ear to where I can only hear myself, all the time. Every breath, every heartbeat, every tummy rumble is loud and clear and amplified. I'm the only girl at the gym who can check her heartrate hands-free. Whenever I lie down, the Rice Krispie people march through my head as the fluid equalizes to a new position. My available hearing goes to the loudest bidder. If there is a steady noise somewhere, I cannot filter any new noise, or understand conversation. I'm great at parties. I'm the one whose eyes are intently glued to the lips of whomever is talking. Thankfully, in all the conversations I am involved in, only one person speaks at once so this is easy. NOT! ;) I now routinely miss all the undertones, those whispered little funny things that people say under their breath as they pass in the hallway. It makes me feel like the slow learner to catch their eye and nod in a conspiratorial manner, as if I heard them and we have our own private inside joke, like we used to. I don't sing anymore. I don't even hum. My voice is so loud to me that when I speak, it booms. Other people lean forward to hear me because I feel like I'm speaking into a microphone and adjust my volume. Singing by myself or in a group is an exercise in absolute futility. I think I'm on the right note, but when I sing, I can't hear the music anymore to be sure, so what if I'm NOT on the right note? It's much better to just enjoy the tones that I can still pick up.
I decided it was time to enter the fray again. So I picked out another specialist. One who had been out of school long enough to be established, but not so long that they weren't aware of the latest and greatest therapy modalities. That was my plan. I went to see her today. I was ready to sit in her chair after my hearing test and have her say "Wow! There is this new study that just came out with symptoms just like yours! They are having great success with this new treatment in Germany, wanna give it a try??" THAT is what I was hoping for, now that I've had a minute to think about it.
I sat in the little booth for the hearing test and wondered why the audiologist didn't play very many tones for my affected ear. Surely they want to know how it's doing after 3 years....right? She ran a lot of tests, some of them twice. One glance at my results as she came in and I saw that the scores from my affected ear don't even kiss the line of normal. Anywhere. Ok. I suspected as much. She ushered me back into the doc's office. The doctor came in and said "Hmmm...so it seems your last experience with an ear tube didn't go so well did it? Well, you have Eustachian Tube Disfunction. Some people have that resolve, in like 2-4 months. Yours is persistent. I'm going to send you to a special specialist (my words) to see what he thinks. But he's going to want to know that we tried an ear tube first." She went on to say my only other option was to have the bone behind my ear removed, leaving a slight dent. Yes. That's right folks, like I need to donate any more body parts to science. Sigh. So long story short, there is nothing to be done to bring back my hearing. The ear tube will relieve pressure and bring back some of the tones to some extent, but I'm looking at my new normal.
I would love to tell you that I smiled at her and nodded, and perhaps sighed a small sigh. But no. I felt the tears well up completely out of my control. This was NOT the answer I was hoping for. I just sat there blinking, biting the inside of my mouth so I wouldn't collapse into a puddle on the floor. I went through the motions of scheduling another ear tube placement and numbly walked out of her office.
Wow - disappointing to say the least. No, not fatal. But very, very isolating. I have so much more empathy for my hard of hearing patients. I mirror the blank look on their faces when they miss part of the conversation. I have vowed to myself to not repeat to people what I THINK they said, but to ask them to repeat themselves. I feel badly for all the times we laughed with my Grandpa when he repeated what he thought we'd said and it was hilariously off the mark. He would always laugh with us, but given what I know now, I wish I could reach back through the years and just hold him.
Thank you for your patience. Here's the paradigm shift. In the past, when disappointment and loss reared it's ugly head, I have allowed myself to grieve, picked myself up, and pushed forward. I will do that again with this news. I used to say to myself, "Well - God has a plan. He's going to make some good out of this somehow." And that has sustained me because I DO see his hand in my life circumstances. Things have happened that I would never in a million years predict because of some detour in my path.
My paradigm shift is this. God DOES have a plan, and I DO submit to it. But my thinking about that plan has shifted a bit. I used to want to see what He was planning. As of today, I just know who HOLDS that plan. And that's enough. I don't have to tell myself "God can make good come out of this." It's okay to embrace the suck. It's okay to grieve and be sad over hearing loss. It's okay to not know how this will affect my future. I really don't care. I submit to whatever He's got going.
After my doctor's appointment I had a fully day of errands that couldn't be rescheduled. All of them involving interaction with people. And one can only wear dark glasses so long when talking to someone. So I had to swallow my reaction to the news and just get through the day as best as I could. The news I got today sucked. It really did. This hearing situation isn't over yet, and the things we will do, won't really fix it. So there's the suck. It does suck. And I'm embracing it and rolling around in it and having a major tantrum in my head. I gave myself today to do that. It will probably carry on late into the night when the house is quiet. This is how I process suck.
But tomorrow will be a new day. And it will be better than today because I already heard the news. And I know who holds my future. I don't need to know that good will come out of this, I don't need to know that everything will be okay. I know Who is holding my hand, and that He is walking this path with me. So no matter the isolation, the darkness, the misconstrued, misheard conversations, the missed opportunities to share in a good joke, He and I will come out on the other end of this thing together. And that's enough.
So if when you see me next I lean in, it's because yes, you smell good, but I also want to hear everything you say. Your words matter and I don't want to miss one of them. :)
Make it a great day!
(photo courtesy of www.wisegeek.com)
Three years ago, inexplicably, I felt the hearing in my right ear slowly but steadily decline as the fluid behind my eardrum built up. It was just a couple times of not quite hearing a word right, or having to ask someone to repeat their question at first. I also felt like I was under water or in a tunnel. This over the last 3 years has progressed to a full on admission to my patients of "I am having trouble hearing out of my right ear today (Yeah right, EVERYDAY), so if I lean forward or appear to be reading your lips, I am! Your words are very important to me and I want to understand every one of them. So thank you for your patience!" Usually, the person is very understanding and nods and speaks up a bit. It's taken quite a hit to the old ego to admit that my hearing isn't 20/20 (see what I did there?), but I figure everyone has to deal with something, this is just my little burden.
I sought help. First a HEENT doc who put me on Mucinex D to draw off the fluid. That just succeeded in making me sleep walk through my days. I didn't even MIND that my hearing wasn't tip top! The next doc was a specialist. He prescribed Prednisone and more ointments and unguents to no avail. The next specialist put in an ear tube. After 7 months and two CT scans, he realized that the tube had become infected and had given me mastoiditis. So out came the tube during a surgical procedure and on went Kris for three rounds of nasty nasty antibiotics. Then I got tested for allergies, nope, just grass but only if I roll around on a freshly mown lawn. ;) (Who does that???) I gave myself a break from medicine and just focused on clean eating, positive thinking, school, family, happy thoughts.....with my growing isolation, sometimes my thoughts were all I could understand.
Fast forward to today: The pressure has built up behind my ear to where I can only hear myself, all the time. Every breath, every heartbeat, every tummy rumble is loud and clear and amplified. I'm the only girl at the gym who can check her heartrate hands-free. Whenever I lie down, the Rice Krispie people march through my head as the fluid equalizes to a new position. My available hearing goes to the loudest bidder. If there is a steady noise somewhere, I cannot filter any new noise, or understand conversation. I'm great at parties. I'm the one whose eyes are intently glued to the lips of whomever is talking. Thankfully, in all the conversations I am involved in, only one person speaks at once so this is easy. NOT! ;) I now routinely miss all the undertones, those whispered little funny things that people say under their breath as they pass in the hallway. It makes me feel like the slow learner to catch their eye and nod in a conspiratorial manner, as if I heard them and we have our own private inside joke, like we used to. I don't sing anymore. I don't even hum. My voice is so loud to me that when I speak, it booms. Other people lean forward to hear me because I feel like I'm speaking into a microphone and adjust my volume. Singing by myself or in a group is an exercise in absolute futility. I think I'm on the right note, but when I sing, I can't hear the music anymore to be sure, so what if I'm NOT on the right note? It's much better to just enjoy the tones that I can still pick up.
I decided it was time to enter the fray again. So I picked out another specialist. One who had been out of school long enough to be established, but not so long that they weren't aware of the latest and greatest therapy modalities. That was my plan. I went to see her today. I was ready to sit in her chair after my hearing test and have her say "Wow! There is this new study that just came out with symptoms just like yours! They are having great success with this new treatment in Germany, wanna give it a try??" THAT is what I was hoping for, now that I've had a minute to think about it.
I sat in the little booth for the hearing test and wondered why the audiologist didn't play very many tones for my affected ear. Surely they want to know how it's doing after 3 years....right? She ran a lot of tests, some of them twice. One glance at my results as she came in and I saw that the scores from my affected ear don't even kiss the line of normal. Anywhere. Ok. I suspected as much. She ushered me back into the doc's office. The doctor came in and said "Hmmm...so it seems your last experience with an ear tube didn't go so well did it? Well, you have Eustachian Tube Disfunction. Some people have that resolve, in like 2-4 months. Yours is persistent. I'm going to send you to a special specialist (my words) to see what he thinks. But he's going to want to know that we tried an ear tube first." She went on to say my only other option was to have the bone behind my ear removed, leaving a slight dent. Yes. That's right folks, like I need to donate any more body parts to science. Sigh. So long story short, there is nothing to be done to bring back my hearing. The ear tube will relieve pressure and bring back some of the tones to some extent, but I'm looking at my new normal.
I would love to tell you that I smiled at her and nodded, and perhaps sighed a small sigh. But no. I felt the tears well up completely out of my control. This was NOT the answer I was hoping for. I just sat there blinking, biting the inside of my mouth so I wouldn't collapse into a puddle on the floor. I went through the motions of scheduling another ear tube placement and numbly walked out of her office.
Wow - disappointing to say the least. No, not fatal. But very, very isolating. I have so much more empathy for my hard of hearing patients. I mirror the blank look on their faces when they miss part of the conversation. I have vowed to myself to not repeat to people what I THINK they said, but to ask them to repeat themselves. I feel badly for all the times we laughed with my Grandpa when he repeated what he thought we'd said and it was hilariously off the mark. He would always laugh with us, but given what I know now, I wish I could reach back through the years and just hold him.
Thank you for your patience. Here's the paradigm shift. In the past, when disappointment and loss reared it's ugly head, I have allowed myself to grieve, picked myself up, and pushed forward. I will do that again with this news. I used to say to myself, "Well - God has a plan. He's going to make some good out of this somehow." And that has sustained me because I DO see his hand in my life circumstances. Things have happened that I would never in a million years predict because of some detour in my path.
My paradigm shift is this. God DOES have a plan, and I DO submit to it. But my thinking about that plan has shifted a bit. I used to want to see what He was planning. As of today, I just know who HOLDS that plan. And that's enough. I don't have to tell myself "God can make good come out of this." It's okay to embrace the suck. It's okay to grieve and be sad over hearing loss. It's okay to not know how this will affect my future. I really don't care. I submit to whatever He's got going.
After my doctor's appointment I had a fully day of errands that couldn't be rescheduled. All of them involving interaction with people. And one can only wear dark glasses so long when talking to someone. So I had to swallow my reaction to the news and just get through the day as best as I could. The news I got today sucked. It really did. This hearing situation isn't over yet, and the things we will do, won't really fix it. So there's the suck. It does suck. And I'm embracing it and rolling around in it and having a major tantrum in my head. I gave myself today to do that. It will probably carry on late into the night when the house is quiet. This is how I process suck.
But tomorrow will be a new day. And it will be better than today because I already heard the news. And I know who holds my future. I don't need to know that good will come out of this, I don't need to know that everything will be okay. I know Who is holding my hand, and that He is walking this path with me. So no matter the isolation, the darkness, the misconstrued, misheard conversations, the missed opportunities to share in a good joke, He and I will come out on the other end of this thing together. And that's enough.
So if when you see me next I lean in, it's because yes, you smell good, but I also want to hear everything you say. Your words matter and I don't want to miss one of them. :)
Make it a great day!
(photo courtesy of www.wisegeek.com)
Love!!! I get it!!!
ReplyDeleteLove your writing. Even for the sucky stuff. I won't say all the trite things you and I both can't stand to hear others say. But I will lean in, say I love you, and that youre in my thoughts and prayers.
ReplyDelete