So I am back in school which is keeping me quite busy. However I have been more productive in the 2 months I have been in school than in most of the time I have been out. In English I had to write a memoir about something I had either lost or found. After not much thought I figured I’d write about losing my hearing in my right ear. What was surprising to me was the fact that I have made very little effort to think about the events leading up to my surgery (or you could say I’ve given considerable effort not to think about it). Either way, this small memoir pushed me to think about that whole fiasco and it brought up some weird memories from that time period.
I felt like sharing it so here it is:
The bike ride to work was more than routine. For a little over a year, I had honed my 6 mile bike ride to work down to only 25 minutes. This is an exercise in efficiency, shaving off a bit here and there by knowing all the side streets and parking lots to cut through; knowing the timing of the lights and which streets to take depending on rush hour. The ending shape of my route was as lean cut and practical as an Olympic swimmer. I wove through the city to my job in the best way possible on a bike. I knew it by heart and it was a bit mind-numbing on some days. The act of route-finding and exploring loses its excitement when there is no longer a need to. This is especially true when you only give yourself the exact 25 minutes before you need to be at work.
An iPod and a pair of headphones can help to cure the monotony of the daily commute. My usual listen is a neo-psychedelic band called Deerhunter whose layers of guitars and crashing cymbals comes through the tiny speakers clearly, getting my blood pumping. Today though, those layers seemed to be playing through a layer of mud or built up ear wax. At least it seemed so in the right channel. I pulled off the right ear bud expecting to see said ear wax. Nothing. Maybe it’s time for new headphones. These were cheap anyway.
“Welcome to Starbucks. What can we get started for you?”
The answer had the familiar tone most women hold when communicating their caffeine needs out the window of a car. I’ve become so accustomed to hearing coffee orders that I can almost pick out what they want before it is even uttered. All day today, however, these orders lacked clarity. Was it a triple cappuccino with some extra foam? Or a mocha frappucino with a blueberry scone?
“I’m sorry can you repeat that?”
The same tone came through the headset but this time pouring out with a bit more force and topped with a sprinkle of annoyance. And still I couldn’t make it out. Fortunately, my fellow barista heard and punched in the order for me. While reading it back to myself, I switched the headset over on to my left ear taking notice on how awkward it felt as I repeated the correct order back to her. For years I have been using my right. Maybe the wax build up was in my ear and not my ear bud.
The doctor had a scope in my left ear when he asked me again which ear I was having trouble hearing out of.
“The right”, I said and he checked both ears again. As far as he could tell my ears were fine. Yes there was a bit of wax build up but nothing abnormal. He said my ears were cleaner than most.
“Have you had any ear pain or strange headaches?” he inquired. I felt normal and while I did recall having a few strange headaches, nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He suggested a hearing test to evaluate my hearing loss, and while they are a bit spendy, he suggested getting an MRI to cover all the bases. Nothing on the surface seemed amiss.
Most doctors’ offices seem so cold and sterile, probably because they need to be. This one was no different except for the large north-facing window. Being on the 12th floor granted an expansive view of Houston and the downtown skyline. Just below were Hermann Park and the Houston Zoo. I picked out Bissonet, the street I bike down every day to work, snaking itself past Rice University. From my high vantage point, I was retracing my route, trying to make it back to my house when the door opened. A small man in a white coat came in first followed by a taller man holding a clipboard.
“Hi. I’m Dr. Roc Chen”, the smaller man said as he grabbed my hand to shake it. We both sat down as the taller man continued to stand, eager to jot anything down on to his clipboard. He hesitated a moment and then started to explain my situation.
I have a vestibular schwannoma; a benign tumor wrapped around my peripheral nerves next to my brain. The tumor itself does not pose a threat but its growth does. As the size increases, the pressure put onto the brain and surrounding nerves cause them to fail. The changes are very gradual and can go unnoticed for a long time but usually the first symptom is hearing loss. From here, I would start to lose control of my face, not be able to swallow, my right eye would stop tearing up and so on and so forth. Eventually it would kill me. This would take years however, so I could control the growth with radiation. Considering my age, the only real option is to get it surgically removed. It’s quite an invasive surgery but Dr. Chen informed me that he has done this specific surgery successfully multiple times a year for the past decade.
As I allowed this to soak in, the taller man was feverishly jotting down notes about my condition on his clipboard. He was probably an aspiring neurosurgeon himself, feeling lucky to be learning from such an experienced surgeon as Dr. Chen. As I sat in that chair, I wondered about all that would be lost. I have big plans myself. I was in the middle of an architecture degree. I have a big bike trip planned for next year. What would I be like after this surgery? While I was told that this procedure would put a hold on much of my current life, Dr. Chen assured me that I would still be a normal human being once the dust had settled. Besides, I didn’t want radiation treatment for the rest of my life did I?
Sleeping in and waking up in your own bed, as wonderful as it is, is mostly forgettable. For me, however, I remember coming out of my eight hour surgery with painful clarity. As thoughts slowly started to trickle back, I suddenly felt my mouth held open by a plastic tube. Although the anesthesiologists warned me before I was drugged up, going from practically dead to realizing there is a tube shoved down my throat is hard to forget. And hard not to freak out. My arms and legs were attached to whatever I was laying on, only adding to the rush of panicked adrenaline pumping through me. My eyes felt stuck shut, but even if I wanted to open them, I didn’t dare try. I began to make stifled moaning noises however I could and soon felt a hand touch my arm. The tube painfully slid out from a space far deeper in my throat than I thought possible. On its exit I gasped for air feeling raw and sore in its absence. As I tried to collect myself, the adrenaline rush started to ebb away. In its place my entire left side began to throb and burn in pain, probably due to sitting on my side for eight hours. I felt as if I was hit by a bus.
Then, I waited.
Being restrained left me helpless. Those itches you just can’t scratch, the lack of satisfaction from curing a physical annoyance, my side was like that except ten-fold. The pain was hard to ignore and the wait seemed to take so long. I started to get angry. Why was nobody there to tell me what was going on? Don’t they know how I feel? I strained to find some patience and in doing so, I noticed the ringing in my right ear. It had been there in the months leading up to the surgery but not like this. There was a totality to this ringing that suggested there would be no more muddy Deerhunter songs; no more muffled coffee orders. This was it for my right ear. After what seemed like far too long to be thankful for, four hands grabbed me, moving my body to what would be my bed for the next few days.
Meander 