huh? what did you say?
Sometime last Tuesday, I started having pain in my right ear. Very uncomfortable, made it hard to sleep. Went into work the next day, but decided to have it checked out at the clinic on-campus. The Vietnamese doctor took a look at it and kinda freaked out saying that it was very infected, that I had a hole in my eardrum and needed to see a specialist right away or lose my hearing. Ok.....He prescribed me some meds and directed me to call a specialist.
After informing my boss of the news, they insisted I take the day off and see another doctor. Thank goodness my insurance card arrived on my desk that week. So I go see an American doctor at Family Medical. His diagnosis, inflammation and a small tear. I am prescribed antibacterial drops and instructed to come back for a check-up the next day. Ah... those drops did not help. The next day it had gotten worse and now I am prescribed 10 days worth of antibiotics, given two different kinds of painkillers, then referred to an ENT at yet another hospital, the French-Vietnamese (FV) Hospital.
The French doctor at FV poked and prodded, ugh..so much throbbing pain, my head spun. He didn't speak a lick of English so eveything had to go through a Vietnamese translator. Final diagnosis: a case of Swimmer's ear. I had gone to the pool twice the weekend before, both Saturday and Sunday. Another sign that I'm just not meant for swimming. Not only do I sink, but apparently my ears attract fungi.
3 days, 3 hospitals, 3 doctors of 3 ethnicities, and 3 different diagnoses left me with 3 goodie bags full of drugs. I hate going to the doctor!
Most of the week, I've had to shift my head in order to hear people, which makes it very hard to eavesdrop in on conversations. In class, I informed my students that they had to speak extra loud since I was slightly deaf in one ear. A lot of " huhs? Can you repeat that again? " My students seem to find it amusing to have a half deaf teacher.
Many incidents of people mouthing things just to annoy me. Dude, I'm only deaf in 1 ear, the other one is perfectly fine and in quite close proximity!
After a week of drops and pills, I think I have 75% of my hearing back in that ear. Have another check-up with the ENT on Friday. Hopefully, things will be back to normal in a few more days.
posted by snowtweety @ 4/19/2006 03:56:00 PM
1 Comments:
Sorry i didn't quite hear you....can you say that again :P
huh, what?
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