Am gradually getting accustomed to my new reality, of a continuous loud ringing in my ears.
Yesterday morning I consulted professor Google to see if there was any recommended first aid for noise induced sensorineural hearing loss. (It’s easier when you know the terminology). A short course of high dose steroids seem to be the only treatment on offer, a high risk strategy with minimal likely gains. But, a risk I was willing to take considering the downside of life long intrusive tinnitus and hearing loss. I scrabbled around the bathroom cupboard and found an old bottle of small pink tablets. The label was so old and faded I could barely make it out but I could see the address as my current one which meant they were less than ten years old. I was pretty sure the label said “prednisone”, but only with the eye of faith. Desperate times call for desperate measures, though. I took a solid dose, and headed off to work, crying in misery. I was tempted to try and see my GP but of course no one had any appointments available and from what I’ve read, after 24 hours you’ve missed the boat entirely.
It was quite good to be at work where I could forget my own troubles in my work persona, looking after people who had real things to worry about. See, I do have some perspective!
Another benefit of being at work is the opportunity for the dreaded corridor consultation. I popped into the ENT theatre, and lo and behold, the ENT surgeon was supervising his junior from the computer desk in the corner. He was more than happy to advise, luckily. Incredibly, it seems my self medication was perfectly in line with current recommendations, which was a huge relief.
Over the rest of the day, whilst of course paying close attention to my patients, I was refreshing my memory on the potential side effects of even short courses of high dose steroids. In the Korean journal of audiology, they reported on the side effects experienced by a group of 500 patients on this treatment:
Avascular necrosis of the femoral head could lead to my needing a hip replacement. This is pretty high stakes stuff. In some ways I was pleased to be doing my fortnightly long day theatre session, to take my mind off. One lady, younger than me, woke up from her cancer surgery, looked me in the eye, and said “You’re not Australian! You look Lebanese!” Since one of my oldest friends said the same thing to me years ago, it did bring a smile to my face.
One of our emergency cases in the evening was a young girl having bleeding from her throat after a tonsillectomy last week. This is a high stakes procedure, so the ENT registrar, even though he was very experienced, had his boss in theatre with him during the case. It was none other than the man I’d asked for advice about my hearing earlier in the day. Small world. It was even stranger when I met him again in the private hospital this morning. We were both taken aback, but he did laugh when I said “Long time, no see!” which I appreciated.
Ears still ringing loudly. I haven’t yet worked out what the sound reminds me off. Thousands of small distant bells is the nearest I can think of. Doesn’t sound too awful, does it?