Eh? What’s that, sonny? Speak up, I can’t hear you!
I can’t hear out of my right ear. On the one hand, it’s kind of irritating. On the other hand, I got the movie Juno on Netflix, and at least the lack of stereo hearing made the annoyingly painful soundtrack more tolerable since I couldn’t hear it so well.
I’m not sure what’s up with my ear– when I sleep on my right side, I often wake up with my ear feeling like it’s full of water or something. It usually clears up after a little bit, though. Today, however, it’s not. There’s probably a gigantic glob of earwax or something stuck in there. The last time I went to the doctor, when I had that sore throat, he looked into my ears, but couldn’t see anything in my right ear because it was too blocked with wax. This was a couple of months ago, so the wax build-up is probably larger now…
I think I should see a doctor if I don’t get my hearing back by Monday, because along with not being able to hear, there’s this faint ringing sound happening that’s really getting on my nerves. However, since I quit my last job, I no longer have insurance from there. My health insurance doesn’t kick in at the new job for 60 days. With the new MA health care reform law, people are required to be covered by insurance. If this means I am obligated to go on COBRA, I will be pissed! COBRA means you can continue your health care once you leave a job, but it will no longer be subsidized by the company, so you have to pay the full price. The last time I was offered COBRA, it was going to be something like $350 a month, and there’s NO FREAKING WAY I can afford that. Of course, it’s highly doubtful that I’ll qualify for one of the poor people programs, since the poverty line is defined as a single handicapped mom with 12 asthmatic children working part time at McDonald’s.
This also sucks because I’m running out of happy pills and I don’t want to have to go off anti-depressants cold turkey again because the last time it sucked major donkey balls what with being dizzy and nauseated all the time and barfing up every food item up that came within 20 feet of me for a week.
Maybe I should talk to the people at the ghetto clinic where I’ve been going– they’re used to poor, uninsured people. Of course, they only speak Vietnamese, Haitian Creole, Portuguese, Spanish, and Korean (if you request it in advance) there, so I may have to take a crash-course in one of the above languages in order to have any questions answered. Of course the ghetto clinic is just for loonies, so they won’t help much with my hearing.
At least it’s warmer now… I can’t describe why this is so depressing, but every time I see the shrink, I have to walk past a gang of smokers huddling together for warmth on the corner across from the clinic. There’s some kind of law that says you can’t smoke within like 500 feet or something of a hospital door, so the staff and patients have found a corner exactly 500 feet away to sully their lungs in the freezing cold all the while complaining bitterly in various languages. I don’t know exactly why, but I find it really a major downer to see the Future Emphysema Patients of America all huddled together like that. It should be uplifting to see such camaraderie and teamwork as they share cigarettes and lighters with each other, but it’s just… not. Anyway with the warmer weather, maybe they won’t look so miserable (because you know that all people exist just for my aesthetic pleasure).
on May 9th, 2008 at 11:57 pm
Brian has a trick for the earwax thing that you could try. Turn your head sideways and put a capful of peroxide in your ear. It won’t hurt you. A capful of peroxide and fill your ear up. Then go lay down on your side so your ear is facing up, of course. You will hear it bubbling. He said lay there 5 or 10 minutes until the bubbling slows down. Then go back in the bathroom and turn your head and drain your ear out into the sink. The peroxide makes the wax all liquidy so it will drain. After this use water (a squirter if you have one or just get in the shower) to rinse your ear out more. He swears by this. He thinks a doctor was the one that taught him this, but he says the ear wax removal kits you can buy are really expensive but essentially just the same thing - they just come with fancier tools. You should try it. Hope this helps!
When I was five I had tubes in my ears for just this problem. I was losing my hearing and I remember it vividly - it was awful. I don’t think anything was working for me at that point. Don’t know if they tried peroxide in the late 70s though.
Wasn’t this a yummy comment?! Good luck!!!
