On Hearing Loss

I just read Newscoma’s post about her strep throat related hearing loss.  Hers is temporary, but it’s still weird.  I lost my hearing temporarily once.  She can describe what the experience is like better than I can, but my story is still worth telling.

It’s odd not being able to hear. The telephone is impossible. The television is muffled and I’m probably freaking out the neighbors. My nieces, bless their hearts, sound like chipmunks who have had a couple of Harvey Wallbangers.

My temporary partial hearing loss happened about 10 years ago.  I let it go for a while, but after a couple of weeks I started getting a little worried.  It was occuring in both ears, but one was much worse than the other.  I finally went to see the doctor physicians assistant (I’ve never met my doctor), and she checked my ears and decided it was probably due to the wax buildup–nothing a good cleansing with the big super soaker Dr’s tool couldn’t fix.  Unfortunately, not much came out with the cleansing, and my hearing wasn’t any better.  She looked in my ear again and saw that the blockage was still there, so she grabbed a tool with a little hook on the end and started digging around in there.

rugby mud“OH MY GOD!!!!”

That was the first thing I’d heard clearly in a couple of weeks.  I couldn’t believe the size of the rock that was stuck to the end of the hook tool when she showed it to me.  I instantly realized what had happened.  A month or two before I’d played a rugby match in a downpour on a field of mud.  I’d given myself a good scrubbing the next day some time after the match and made sure to get inside my ears.  That with the occasional q-tip being shoved in there had packed the mud and blocked my ear canal.

The weird thing about not having your full hearing for a while and getting it back instantly is that all of the ambient noises your brain usually blocks out all of a sudden sound really loud.  It’s kind of tough to separate what you want to hear from all of the other noises going on around you.  Driving was dangerous for a couple of days.

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5 Replies to “On Hearing Loss”

  1. You should question activities that get mud in your ear canals. Or else wear ear plugs. Of course, then you couldn’t hear the taunts and curses or the other team.

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