Saturday, May 15, 2010

Sudden Deafness - Week 3

This is a summary of what happened this week.


Monday, May 10 - The nurse from the medical center scheduled my appointment for the audiologist and specialist.  I was able to get in Monday evening!  Wouldn't you know there was a wreck, making me half an hour late for my appointment.  My hearing test came back that I have a 60-70 decibel hearing loss in my left ear.  I scored 100% on my word recognition test for my right ear and only 36% for my left ear.  The quality and quantity of hearing is not good, so at this point I am not a good candidate for a hearing aid.  It was confirmed that I have a 50/50 chance of getting my hearing back.  I was told I could continue oral steroids or get steroid injections into my ear.  I opted for the injections.  The specialist said that having been on oral steroids already and the amount of my hearing loss, that he thought that would be the best as well.  The injection was scheduled for Thursday at 6:00.

Tuesday, May 11 and Wednesday, May 12 - Waiting and praying.  Went to the church Wednesday evening to talk over all that was happening with one of our preachers.

Thursday, May 13 - Jason took me to the hospital for the injection.  The first thing I had to do was have numbing gel applied to my eardrum.  I wasn't really expecting the application of the numbing gel to hurt at all, but then I've never had my eardrum touched before.  Learned something new I guess.  After it had time to numb, the doctor began the procedure where he lanced my eardrum and inserted the steroids through a needle into my ear.  Because of the numbing gel, I felt very little.  I concentrated on being very still, so that things would go exactly as they should.  The steroids were cooler than body temperature and I could feel that, but it was not really that uncomfortable.  After the injection, I had to stay very still and not swallow for about 20 minutes, so the steroids would go where they were supposed to.  When I was able to get up, I felt a bit dizzy, but nothing too major.  This next week, if my eardrum does NOT heal, they will be able to go in through the same hole as this week and I will be able to skip the numbing step.

Friday, May 14 and Saturday, May 15 - My next injection was scheduled for Thursday, May 20th at 5:00.  I can honestly say that I'm still kind of grossed out by the injection.  The whole idea of having a hole in my eardrum freaks me out, although I'm definitely praying that it does NOT heal by this coming Thursday. 

Thank you to those of you who have been praying for me!

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