hearing and overhearing

About a week ago, while driving on the 401 (a major Toronto east-west freeway), sandwiched between two tractor trailers at 100 km per hour, I noticed a weird sensation in my left ear: it felt stuffed, as though someone had pushed a wad of cottonwool in there. In fact, the whole left half of my head felt plugged up. When I got home and the feeling continued, I covered my right ear with my hand and noticed that suddenly I was almost deaf. All that was coming through my left ear was garbled, low frequency noise - the TV, for example, was almost inaudible when I plugged my right ear and just listened with the left. In addition, there was now pretty serious rining in the left ear, too.

Spooked, I ran to the nearest walk-in clinic which is just around the corner from my house. There, I received the usual perfunctory, inattantive, absent-minded treatment by the resident quack: nothing there, probably allergies, take some Advil, see you later...I'm talking literally 1 - 2 minutes. By the time I got back home, I was freaking out. I started calling around to see if I could get a sub for a gig that night since there was no way I could play music with half my hearing (and a goodly portion of my mind!) gone. I did manage to find a sub at the very last minute so at least things worked out on that front - the place I was supposed to play at is one of my favourite gigs and I didn't want to jeopardize it.

Many of the musicians I called were very sympathetic. Some had gone through their own hearing scares. One of them recommended an audio technician at the Musicians Clinic in downtown Toronto and I made an appointment there pronto.

Well - I had my test done yesterday and the results are not good. The ringing is gone but there is a most definite loss of hearing in my left ear. Probably around 25% - though no one actually gave me that figure. It's my own estimate from having gone through the tests and from trying to only use my left ear now and again to see how well I can hear out of it. I got a referal to an ENT specialist and, lo and behold, was actually able to get an appointment with him immediately.

The ENT dude, whose waiting room walls are lined with signed B&W pics of various entertainment industry luminaries (Sharon Stone was one, if I recall, as well as Ben Hepner, the opera singer) was an older gentleman, curt of manner and stingy of word. He put me through the same hearing test I had just undergone the very same morning and came to the same conclusion (i.e. "left ear f...ed up") He prescribed tons of steroids and put in a requisition for an MRI ("Nothing to worry about, it's just a fancy X ray"...."Dude, it's ok, I went to college, I know what an MRI is!".....why the heck are these quacks so condescending all the time? Why do they insist on treating patients like little kids?) He said that cases like mine are actually pretty mysterious - all he can do is treat me "very aggressively" to reduce the inflammation and hope that the nerves in my ear won't be permanently damaged. Of course, the steroids may damage my liver and my stomach in the meantime and with the waiting time for an MRI being UP TO SIX MONTHS!!!! - who knows what the hell is going on anyway. Suffice it to say, I have no intention of going on the steroids and will be seeking a second opinion. In the meantime, my right ear is fine and as long as the ringing doesn't come back, I can live with this, even if it means a reduction of hearing capacity in my left ear.

And now for the real kicker of the story. While I was waiting to be seen by the specialist, an elderly Jewish couple walked into the waiting room. They chit-chatted about this and that, the bar mitzvas of their grandchildren ("keine nehoreh"), the upcoming weddings in their respective large families ("keine nehoreh"), and about everybody's state of health, which ("keine nehoreh"), is not bad, all things considered. Then the lady turned to the gentleman and said: "You know, last fall we all went to Israel, the whole mischpoche, the children, the grandchildren ("keine nehoreh"), the cousins, the whole clan. And you know what? We also did Poland, we did Auschwitz, we did the whole thing...we had a great trip....and the bar mitzva in Israel ("keine nehoreh"), it was fabulous"

So there you have it: they had a great time! They DID Israel, they DID Poland and they DID Aushwitz. My mother also did Auschwitz - between 1942 - 1945. I could most certainly assure that insensitive, stupid, parochial old hag - whose cell phone never stopped ringing and who in between talking about her mischpoche , yakked about buying gifts "in the village" - that my mother's trip had not been quite as sunny as hers. I am proud of being a Jew - but in the presence of such vulgar insensitivity I feel I belong to quite a different tribe - "keine nehoreh"!