March 2023, I, Andi, woke up with horrible motion sickness. I had no idea why I was so sick, but every time I tried to walk or change positions, I would empty my stomach all over the place. The world was spinning so fast, it was like being on a horror adventure ride that was out of control. Rick got me to the doctor as quick as possible along with a trash can. The doctor thought it might be an inner ear infection that was causing extreme vertigo. He gave me an IV with medicine to help my stomach and antibiotics for an infection.
(So that is what vertigo means! Spinning and being dizzy, this is insane!)
I did not get better and after a few days went to see the ENT. I was guided to the appointment with a blindfold on, which helped with the dizziness. As long as my eyes were closed and I was on lots of anti-vomit meds, I could move around a little without getting sick.
After the exam and tests, we realized I was deaf! It is called SSHL (Sudden Sensorial Hearing Loss.) I had lost my hearing completely in 1 of my ears. The fact that I did not realize I could not hear in 1 ear at all shows you how sick I was by this point. I had multiple IV fluids sessions to rehydrate, but food was not staying down if I moved....so now I know I can't hear at all on my left side and my right ear was not quite normal either, but personally my focus was being able to walk and see again without getting violently ill.
Panic sets in and I think I checked out mentally for awhile then. I only remember parts of April and May 2023. I know Rick and Enrique took me in the car for 45 minutes almost every day to one appointment or another at the hospital in David. Usually, I would wear clothes that made Enrique cringe because they were not "proper." I might wear pajama shorts and a tank top and wrap myself up in a blanket and sleep in the car. They took turns on who had to see me be miserable, sick and in pain from the treatments. They both were working hard on the farm and taking over my chores and responsibilities along with their own, plus finding time to get me to all of my appointments.
I had:
1 hour long high pressure hyperbaric chamber sessions every other day
Appointments where they would break my ear drum and inject steroids deep into my inner ear - every 3 or 5 days, I do not quite remember now
Therapy appointments with exercises to help with the vertigo
I had hearing tests to see if there was improvement - do not remember how many of these I had!
Scans at the hospital to see if there were blood clots in my head
Surgery to get injections deeper into my inner ear that required me to be sedated or I might move and cause more damage....I am sure I am leaving out some of the treatments.
Not so funny story about the oxygen chamber. It was painful and not something I enjoyed, not that I enjoyed any of it, but the oxygen chamber felt like I was in a coffin and my head would explode any minute. The typical appointment had me get in the chamber, the nurse would lock me in and then leave. The doctor would monitor from his desk and adjust the oxygen levels. If a tank ran out of oxygen, he would connect it to another tank and the session would last 1 hour. Then the nurse would come back in and let me out.
This one time, the oxygen ran out and the doctor was slumped over at his desk like he fell asleep. I was probably 20 minutes into my session with 40 minutes to go. I knocked on the glass to get the doctor's attention and waved my hand the best I could, but the doctor did not move. This went on for 40 minutes until the nurse came back in to let me out. The doctor had a heart attack or stroke or something bad, because he was wheeled away before I was even all of the way out of the chamber. My sessions were on the 1st floor of the hospital, so if things go badly, this was not the worst location for to be when things went badly. My sessions were canceled for awhile after that while the doctor was checked into a hospital room. I refused to go back unless either Rick or Enrique stayed in the room for the entire hour to make sure that never happened again.
Even with all of the treatments, the odds of regaining my hearing in the left ear was very slim at this point. However, I did improve from Profoundly Deaf to Severly Deaf. Which means that I could potentially benefit from a hearing aid.
Besides not knowing this could even happen to someone, I never really understood deafness. However, I only know what I am going through. When I think of someone as deaf, I think they cannot hear anything. That is far from the truth for me. I can hear certain frequencies, especially motors and power tools. If I hear a motor or power tool or anything in a certain frequency for more than a few moments, I will get this huge ringing in my head for hours. It actually causes me pain to hear my dog bark now. Her bark hits a frequency that feels like I am being hit in the head with a hammer. I still cannot hear words with my left ear, but I do hear loud birds, dogs barking, motors and thankfully the cracking of coffee beans which is a HUGE blessing, since I am the roaster on the farm.
Now that I have the hearing aid, the vertigo is much better. However, my husband still will not let me go on a ladder or a step stool. Which is probably a good thing, but I won't admit that to him. If I turn my head too fast I get dizzy and if I go from a dark place into a light space I get nauseous. The hearing aid still does not let me hear words, it really only lets me hear enough sounds to sometimes identify the direction of noises. I can hear out of one ear, but it takes a lot of concentration to make sense of all of the sounds around me with only the 1 ear.
I can now act normal enough that people might not realize I have hearing issues, but I have learned to avoid most situations where I would be required to hear and interact with people I do not know well. If I end up in a situation where I have to concentrate and decipher all the noises around me, I go home exhausted and usually have a headache until the next day.
Tourists on the farm will often see me walking around with headphones on. I use the noise cancelling headphones a lot while out in the farm where there are barking dogs, weedwhackers, wood chippers, lots of people talking all at once, loud birds, cars....I never realized how much those sounds before just funneled into my head and let me decipher everything all at once, now it takes a lot of energy to figure out what I am hearing and from where.
Some people lose hearing in both ears completely, I was luckier than that. However, many people lose only a percentage of their hearing and it is not enough for them to seek treatment, I was not quite that lucky either.
I am much better in 2024 than I was last year and my role on the farm has changed a little. We have reached our new normal and others have taken over the jobs that are harder for me now.
Google: How common is SSHL?
Answer: Experts estimate that SSHL strikes between one and six people per 5,000 every year, but the actual number of new SSHL cases each year could be much higher because SSHL often goes undiagnosed.
NIH (National Institutes of Health) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10072149/
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