And then my ears clogged up.
I knew right away it was bad news (just imagine the feeling of your ears getting pressurized on an airplane or elevator and not budging back), but I had no inkling that more than a year later I would still be suffering from it and willing to travel great distances for just the possibility of a cure.
My basic understanding is that the Eustachian tube is one of the small canals in the middle of our ears that helps keep pressure equalized. It seems my Eustachian tube is damaged, or at least "dysfunctional," and there has not been any sign of healing in the 15 months since the problem started.
I have seen several doctors in the States already--I think the exact number is six--and none of the treatments that ENTs usually employ (steroid packs, nasal sprays, PE tube) have had any effect
Which brings me to Geneva, Switzerland, where I am sitting in a hotel room, anxiously anticipating a consultation with one of the few doctors in the world who specializes in Eustachian tube dysfunction.
For 800 CHF (money is no object at this point--I would take a vow of poverty in exchange for a cure), the doctor says he will spend approximately 90 minutes examining my ear. I am hoping (hoping against hope, maybe) that this Swiss doctor will have insight into the problem and, then, some possibility for a cure. It's hard to be optimistic at this point, but I know I must at least exhaust every possible avenue of treatment, so I am here.
***
It's difficult to describe exactly what it feels (or sounds) like in my head, but the Eustachian tube dysfunction causes a rotating slew of unpleasant sensations. I could try to describe it a couple ways:
- If you've ever eaten pop rocks, imagine that crackling, exploding sensation that hits the back of your throat when you eat them--but inside your ear and with no way of swallowing.
- Did you ever have a record player that didn't automatically lift the arm when it got to the end of the side? It just spun around and around, the stylus making only a dull, repetitive, static-y sound on the vinyl surface. The sounds in my ear are kind of like that.
- Sometimes it feels even more tight in there, like there's a piece of stiff rubber lodged inside my head that just spins around in a futile attempt to escape.
It's not a painful situation, but it is constantly bothersome and sometimes feels like a form of mental imprisonment or mild torture.
The only time I get complete relief from the strange sounds and pressure in my ear is when I fall sleep (which I'm grateful to be able to do). During daylight hours, the best it gets for me is being able to forget about the problem for some amount of time. Luckily, I guess, it seems that playing poker helps provide the distraction necessary to create those burden-free moments, but those moments last minutes, not hours.
Although I sleep well, the clicking and the static are very present as I lay in bed drifting off. It's there again if I wake up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom and again when I wake up in the morning. Every day for 15 months.
The worst part is that I feel it's affecting my personality and my creativity, my joie de vivre. Oftentimes in the middle of a conversation, I will find myself distracted, focused on the annoying scratchy crunchiness inside my head and unable to engage dynamically with whomever I'm talking to. When I think about plans or ambitions for my future (immediate or longterm) I wind up being bummed out by the reality that I might be dealing with this--all day, every day--for the rest of my life.
I certainly know things could be worse--I have always had a lot of sympathy for people with actual significant physical handicaps--but that doesn't really make my situation any more pleasant. I am just hoping that my nonfiction version of Dr. Emil Shuffhausen will tell me something good tomorrow.