{"id":12594,"date":"2014-02-15T14:52:44","date_gmt":"2014-02-16T00:52:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=12594"},"modified":"2014-02-15T14:52:44","modified_gmt":"2014-02-16T00:52:44","slug":"ear-infection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/?p=12594","title":{"rendered":"Ear Infection"},"content":{"rendered":"

I have not been up the mountain in two weeks. This is getting to be a problem, there is a long list of stuff I need to get done.<\/p>\n

An ear infection has made life a little troublesome.<\/p>\n

\"Ear<\/a>
Anatomy of the human ear, credit Bruce Blaus<\/figcaption><\/figure>Beside the usual discomfort involved in an ear infection I had no hearing in my left ear. Pretty much none. I have had difficulty hearing conversations, can not tell where sounds are coming from, the normal sounds of life replaced with a constant ringing and white noise background. After several days of this I was getting to be more than a little concerned. Permanent hearing loss is not a comfortable idea.<\/p>\n

The loss of hearing in one ear is interesting and highly annoying. I discovered that I answer the phone with my left ear. The better to keep my right hand available for a keyboard or dialing. Then I wonder why no one is answering. Even worse… Music sounds horrible. That stereo thing? Not much point. Even worse with headphones.<\/p>\n

After a week of no real improvement the doctor stepped up the treatment level… A full course of antibiotics and steroids. The antibiotics for obvious reasons, the steroids to reduce the inflammation, and to hopefully avoid any damage to my hearing.<\/p>\n

\"Antibiotics<\/a>
Antibiotics and steroid medications<\/figcaption><\/figure>Deb has had to take steroids more than a few times. She was more than happy to explain, at length, the various side effects of Prednisone. In fact she seemed almost gleeful in that I would get to experience what she has had to go through. She did warn me… Insomnia? Check. Hunger? Check. It made for great dinner conversation. Perhaps I should work out a bit, take advantage of the steroids?<\/p>\n

A visit to an audiologist confirmed highly degraded hearing in the left ear. I could hear a bit with the left, anything loud enough turned into a buzzing caricature of speech. Tests on my right ear to use as a comparison yielded pleasant results, my hearing is otherwise in very good shape, my wife’s comments not-withstanding.<\/p>\n

The drugs are working, or perhaps the infection is just healing on its own. The discomfort faded fairly quickly, the ringing reduced a bit in volume. Hearing is slowly returning, high frequencies first, but still has a ways to go.<\/p>\n

I hope this will be healed enough that next week I can go to the summit. I really need to get a few things accomplished up top. Slowly better is good, as long as the trend continues in the right direction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have not been up the mountain in two weeks. This is getting to be a problem, there is a long list of stuff I need to get done. An ear infection has made life a little troublesome. Beside the usual discomfort involved in an ear infection I had no hearing in my left ear. … Continue reading “Ear Infection”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20],"tags":[1597,1596,1595,1599,1598],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12602,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12594\/revisions\/12602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darkerview.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}