I am, at the moment, completely deaf in my right ear.
I’m not really alarmed by this, it happens from time to time. I was one of those kids who had chronic ear pain, which resulted in surgery to place tubes in my ears, and I still have lingering issues. My doctor recently commented on the exceptionally small size of my ear canals, which just made me feel weird, honestly.
I’ve been hanging out at a pool this summer, and because we can’t have nice things, it gave me an ear infection.
No more pool for me.
I have antibiotics and steroids, and those help. However, they require drops in my ears four times a day, which I can’t really do myself, because I either dump in half the bottle or manage to miss my ear completely. So every few hours, my husband calls me to the kitchen, where I place the side of my face on a dishtowel set out on the kitchen island just for this purpose, and he puts drops in my damaged ear. I flinch every time. He then pets my back, and I feel like I should get a dog treat.
My ear is getting better, and the deafness usually lasts a couple of weeks before improving on its own. I have become well-versed in various ways to ask people to repeat what they have said. Pardon? Sorry? Say that again? But it’s mostly fine.
I was complaining to a friend about my ear, because I’m in the phase where I assume everyone wants to know about my medical issues. She said that she tends to think of everything as a metaphor, especially medical issues — and maybe this temporary deafness represents an excellent opportunity to listen less.
Listen less?
I laughed out loud when she said this, because I liked where she was going.
There is a lot of chatter in my life, including frequent online assessments of whether or not I am “still looking fabulous.” (The jury is still out. Some say I’m holding it together pretty well, many others really think I need to dye my hair because I’m “unrecognizable” after 30 years. Both opinions are bullshit.)