Meniere’s Disease

OKay, this is a really strange turn of events.

On Wednesday, just as I was finishing up my round of augmentin (hard core antibiotics), in the middle of the afternoon, my left ear sort of clogged up. It stopped hearing and started to ring in an annoying fashion. The strange audio of hearing my voice only on one side, and the dead zone of white noise on the other, seemed to make me feel dizzy somehow. But I went on with my day, more or less normally. I figured, depressingly enough, that somehow an ear infection or at least some ear congestion was still hanging on from my sinus thing. Yes, I had a few rather strong head-rushes upon standing up, but, whatever. Ear congestion will do that. I took a Sudafed to see if that would do anything.

Thursday morning I got out of bed and staggered across the floor like a drunken sailor. I thought, "Great–losing my balance on a solid floor. Damn ear!!" It was still ringing in a rather tinny and loud manner, still very clogged feeling, and all in all not a good combo. But, what could I do? I had to do the day. I took half a claritin and a sudafed to see if that would clear it up. I felt fine for an hour or two, although the audio was still pretty weird. It was like one ear had been on a plane or in the mountains and I just couldn't get it to pop. In the grocery store, I had a dizzy spell. It passed and I kept talking on the phone and shopping per usual. Then I was at the last-day-of-school picnic. There I had a very strong dizzy spell that made me sit down abruptly. But again, it passed. No one noticed and I did not want to bring attention to it all. I had a dread of suddenly collapsing, needing an ambulance, and other unfortunate events which struck me as potentially humiliating, to say nothing of scary for the children.

I got into the car to drive home from the picnic, and maybe five minutes into the drive, I started to sweat. I could see that my hands were red. I felt incredibly nauseated and overwhelmed. Not dizzy and still piloting the car, but my mind was working on problems: should I pull over and vomit? What a spectical by the roadside! WHat would the boys think or do? Or, if I collapsed and went unconscious, what would happen to them. Also, what about crashing? But again, at that point my main fear was of barfing and/or making a scene. I called Ben, very worried, and he stayed with me on the phone during the remaining minutes of the drive. I got the boys and me safely into the house before the full-blown hell hit.

Severe vomiting. I mean, horrible. But the worse part was after that: I was so profoundly dizzy that I could not move my head one millimeter. I was effectively pinned there, with my head on the closed toilet seat, my feet tucked under me, for quite a while– 45 minutes I think! Meanwhile, the boys were unattended. I could hear the scraping of stools being dragged around the kitchen. I could hear cupboard doors opening, and perhaps the pat-pat of little feet on the counters. Very touchingly, they tried to help me: Isaac brought me grapes, which I would have recoiled from had I been able to move. Elias brought me a king-sized bowl of cheddar bunnies. Isaac brought me, actually helpful, a glass of water with a crazy straw that I could manage to sip without moving my head. If I moved my head at all, the spinning was incredible. It was like being the worst, most upside down, fast moving carnival ride in the world.

Isaac called Daddy and encouraged him to hurry: "Mom is really sick! She's throwing up! You've gotta come home now!" So I knew he was on his way. What I didn't know is that he was having his own horrible day– an employee of 43 years had died that morning, after an all-too-short battle with brain cancer. People in his office (and he himself) were all upset, and indeed he had a crying person sitting with him when Isaac called. But at the same time it was an emergency on my end, too. FInally the pain and numbness in my feet became so intense that I had to move, no matter what. I repositioned myself and spun around horribly for a few minutes. But gradually I could feel it easing up. By the time Ben got home, I was actually sitting on the floor and looking around, more or less like a normal sick person. He got me to the couch and I felt a great deal better, albeit exhausted.

I called my doctor and talked to a nurse, who said: "It's vertigo, and it is miserable!" No argument there.

THe next morning I went in promptly and saw a nurse practitioner. She said it was probably that my sinuses, which were in very sorry shape on the CT-scan two weeks ago, were not done with the infection, and that my ears were getting involved again. She referred me to an Ear Nose Throat guy, who would see me later in the day. She said what he would probably do would be to put a camera into my head and look around– maybe there were absesses in there that needed lancing (great!!) or something like that. She said that he would likely put me on steroids to really kick the swelling down and maybe another round of even stronger antibiotics.

So that's what I was prepared for– some ghastly procedure, or two, and then going home an essentially getting better shortly with no lasting effects whatsoever. What I was not prepared for in any way shape or form was to be told that this all had nothing to do with my recent head infections, and in fact was a long-term issue that could be a real hassle for the rest of my life! And has the potential to be life-altering in several ways.

Meniere's Disease — okay. It's basically fluid in the inner ear, and comes with these four symptoms: hearing loss, ringing in the ear, vertigo, and a feeling of fullness in the ear. Check, check, check. I had them all. The ENT did a hearing test and confirmed that my left ear is not hearing so well, which I knew. He did a low-tech balance test in which he had me stand there with my eyes closed, and each time I began to tip over to the left. He showed me the slides from my sinus scan and I learned for the first time that the inside of my skull is totally crazy looking. Odd that it looks normal from the outside– now I know that I have the four extra teeth, more than most humans; I have a wildly askew septum and sinuses all higgly-piggly; and of course my bicornuate uterus, which has been covered in detail already. So despite living the last 42 years thinking I'm a fairly normal individual I'm basically riddled with birth defects! My mother was thrown from a horse early in her pregnancy with me, so perhaps that explains it. ANyway, that's neither here nor there.

So– here's the upshot of the Meniere's. It can be no big deal… it can go away and never come back!! That's what I'm hoping for. OR… It can really turn your life upside down. You can go deaf in one ear– or both! You can develop "falling disorder" where you just suddenly fall down, violently losing your balance. You can become unable to drive because of that, or even unable to leave the house. THe worst picture I've been struggling with is of the future me: deaf and housebound.

But it's best not to think about that! The good cheer of the booklet they gave me only depressed me more: "Stay up beat!" it suggests. "You can live a full life with your chronic disease!"

But it's only been less than 24 hours since I got the news that I seem to have this chronic disease in the first place. I kept asking the guy, "You're not interested in my sinuses at all?" And he kept saying, "I just think they're totally separate." I said, "But do you think this will get better soon?" He said, "Well, that's what we hope."

For now, he's prescribed a six day course of steroids to take the swelling down, diuretics to take the fluid down, and a low-salt diet also to take the fluid down. (Maybe as a bonus I'll lose some more weight!) I said, "Okay, so should I come and check back with you in a week or so?" He said, "Well…. it's going to be a little longer than that. I'll see you in three weeks." In between, I have to come in for this high-tech balance test that makes me nauseated just to think about it. They lie me down and push water and air into my ears, which watching me eyes try to stay focussed on these moving bars or light, or something like that. It sounds like barf-city!! But apparently this will scientifically pin down just how dizzy I am.

Anyway, that's the story. For now I'm truly pinned to the couch. Ben has taken the boys on an outing. (He and Isaac were going to NYC this weekend, but between my illness and this funeral on monday, it has been postponed.) My plan is that the steroids and pee-pills will work like magic, and that a week from now it will all be over, and I'll say: "wow– what a weird interlude. Oh, well. Onward."