Man-years Disease

For about a month now I've been having trouble hearing through my left ear. There's a slight sensation of pressure and a constant ringing (really more a roaring)-- like the worst tinnitus ever. More strangely, sounds that get through seem to produce a "shadow" frequency in my ear. This contributes to the roaring if I'm in a place with a lot of background noise, but I notice it most if I'm listening to a simple melody where each tone is clearly and individually audible; then it's almost like a harmony line being piped into my left ear. Very odd.

My GP tried to treat it with nose sprays, in the hope that my Eustachian tubes would open up and let out whatever fluid was messing with my ears-- but no luck. So yesterday I visited an ENT who put a name to my troubles: Ménière's disease. (When I first heard the term I had been waiting to see the doctor for more than an hour, so I immediately wondered how many man-years it was going to cost me to get it treated.)

It seems to bear some relationship to migraine headaches (which I'm sorry to say I also suffer from). And like migraines, the treatment seems to consist of "I dunno, try this?" measures, such as (in my case) eliminating caffeine and drastically reducing sodium in one's diet. Fortunately my migraines will reliably succumb to Imitrex, so thus far I've gotten by without having to give up coffee. But apparently my luck has run out in that respect. I'm less than a day into the coffee-less rest of my life and already suffering withdrawal.

And then there's the low-sodium diet. Egad, I had no idea how much sodium I was actually eating before I started trying to quantify it to get under a daily limit. My diet is going to have to change radically, which is probably a good thing on many levels. Unfortunately it makes cooking for the family (including a couple of moderately picky little girls) more of a challenge. My wonderful wife got all over it as soon as I told her about my new dietary restrictions, though, and quickly started identifying foods and recipes that would keep the kids alive while hopefully allowing my hearing to clear.

Want to hear something strange? Some clearly sick part of me was hoping that this hearing loss would turn out to represent a serious enough health issue that I could be expected to be frightened by it. Because that would give me license. I pictured myself saying to my wife, "Honey I'm sorry but I'm losing my hearing. Before I do I want to hear a priest of the Catholic Church absolve me of my sins. I want to hear my children baptized in the name of the Trinity. We're going to join the Catholic Church ASAP!"-- of course leaving unspoken the conclusion-- because now, finally, you can see that this really is important to me and I'm not just bringing this stuff up because I'm a doctrinaire jerk, or because I want to argue with  you. Moreover, if you don't go along with it politely, you're being mean to a seriously ill person.

Of course, thank God, it's not working out like that. It's just a limited, non-permanent hearing loss in one ear-- nothing anyone but an absolute baby could get worked up over. And my wife? She is running around today dragging the kids to Target, to the grocery store, reading labels for sodium content, turning the whole family's diet upside down and sacrificing still more of her time to take care of me.

Maybe I am a doctrinaire jerk. My wife makes liberal humanism look a lot more beautiful than I make Christianity look.