Saturday, April 2, 2011

Kharma...

I have a sick and twisted sense of humor, this is a fact about myself I've never tried to hide (not that I could if I wanted to). I laugh at inappropriate things, often in an otherwise quiet room. I say things that, I think, are hilarious, but other people find offensive. I crack myself up, while people stare at me with a blank expression. You get the point!
One of the things that I find totally hilarious is when someone falls down. I know I'm not alone in this, but I am one of the few people that lack the first, seemingly instinctual, reaction of finding out if the person is okay BEFORE I bend over laughing at them. I can't help it, if someone falls down (or even has a near miss) I'm probably going to laugh until I cry, fart or snort. The time I am most ashamed of was when I was starting a new teaching job (for principal bitchface) and I was attending all the new teacher orientations before the school year. For one of the trainings we had to ride a bus to another location, and, well, long story short, the lady directly behind me on the bus BUSTED HER ASS coming down the stairs to get off. My reaction was not Kosher and I did not make any friends that day, but it wasn't completely my fault since the lady made some really ridiculous groaning noises after her tumble. I'm pretty sure if I had tried not to laugh I would've stroked out right there. I did feel a twinge of guilt when she showed up the next day wearing some sort of ridiculous, fully-loaded, ankle-boot, but whatever!
The Kharma part is coming, just stay with me!
About 4 months ago, I got a sinus infection that moved to my ear. My ear just felt full and I couldn't hear anything out of it. I went to the Dr. a few times, trying to get my ear back to functional and, well, that has yet to happen. This week, I finally got serious and went to an ENT, not just any ENT, THE ENT in Houston. His report was not what I wanted to hear, I have sudden onset nerve deafness in my ear that is probably permanent. I can still hear most of the range of human voice, but I will have trouble hearing deep men's voices (this may be a benefit living in my house). Because I am young, and otherwise healthy, I have to do some tests to rule out all the big bad causes like tumors and such, there is a very low chance of these actually being the cause, (no, I'm not concerned).
And now for the Kharma...
What he thinks the diagnosis will end up being is something called cochlear hydrops which is often the beginning of Miniere's disease. Miniere's disease isn't fatal, but can be debilitating because of the sudden and intense episodes of vertigo which cause people to...

SUDDENLY...
AND UNEXPECTEDLY...
FALL DOWN!!!

SONOFABITCH

I'm hoping this is not the diagnosis, but looking at all the options, this one isn't the worst. The vertigo will go away eventually after something called "burn-out" which means total deafness in the ear. I just hope I'm not surrounded by people like me, when I randomly drop to the floor. Someone's gonna have to help me get back up....

2 comments:

m said...

okay. i feel the same way about people falling down...it causes uncontrollable laughter.

can i just make this about me for a second? as i'm reading over it, i thought to myself, "self, this sounds like meniere's disease." and, lo and behold, that's what your doc said! guess all my fancy education and billions of dollars in loans paid off (but not literally, paid off. i'm going to be doing that for the rest of my life).

the dizziness is caused by tinnitus (full feeling of the ear). you know who else has meniere's? ryan adams...and he's a badass.

also, here's a little gem to leave you with to make you feel better (person depicted does not have meniere's disease):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMS0O3kknvk

you're welcome.

Jessica said...

That clip is one of my favorites! I actually looked up what happened to that reporter since...seems like she's done in the business :)

Luckily I'm not having too many dizziness issues, and the doc said I may not. My fingers are crossed!
It's cool that you pinpointed the diagnosis, BUT so NOT cool that so many people, with the appropriate knowledge, who I talk to, concur :(