It Could Only Happen To Me

So, all in all I've had a very uneventful pregnancy for which I'm grateful for. Only had a few minor sick moments, haven't dealt with any infections or illness myself yet (knock on wood), and have been able to do all the things we normally do without problem. So, something had to give and since I didn't have any of the normal pregnancy woes, my body went out and found some weird obscure problem that rarely happens.

My day had started like any other day. It was a Monday (May 10th) which means surgery day. So I got up, got ready and was at the hospital by 6:15am. Pretty normal for a Monday - didn't have an overly packed schedule which is nice for Monday since we usually get left over surgeries from the weekend which makes for a busy, hectic Monday but this one wasn't too bad. I went around and got all the paperwork/orders ready to go for all of our patients who were up first for surgery and then went to grab some breakfast before we got started.

I was helping our residents get the patient back into the operating room, the anesthesiologist had gotten them asleep, and we were working on positioning the patient when "it" happened. As I was working I noticed a sudden ringing and muffledness in my left ear. Wasn't too unusual at the time, I just felt that my ear needed to pop or that I had some fluid in it or something. So, I go about trying to pop my ear, waiting for it to get better and it didn't really change. Then, I try to use the phone and I could tell I wasn't hearing as well in my left ear but still heard things (although muffled) from it. Thinking I just had some fluid build up or something, I texted my good friend who works on campus at the children's ear, nose, and throat clinic seeing if I could come by at some point for her to look in my ear. "No problem" she said and I figured I'd go by at lunch.

I had to go back to the clinic to see a patient who was coming by so I headed over there to see them. I would say it took me about an hour from when my ear first started acting strange to when I got done seeing my patient in the clinic and over that time, it seemed like the ringing sound increased a bit and the ability to hear anything diminshed. My ENT friend had called me while I was at the clinic and had talked to one of her doctors who felt it was important to be seen as soon as I could get there to have a hearing test. So, after I finished at the clinic, I went to see them.

My good friend looked me over and asked again what all had happened and if I had been around any loud noises, etc. when it started. "Nope, it was just like someone turned a switch off in that ear," was my reply. She didn't see anything abnormal on my exam so I was off to a hearing test. That experience was fun. Not that it's hard but the whole time they are playing beeps for me I kept thinking I wasn't hearing very well from either ear which makes you worried. Well, we get done and the audiologist comes in with the results saying my right ear is completely normal but the test showed a complete sensorineural hearing loss of my left ear meaning the nerve that let's me hear sound isn't working.

I meet with the doctor after this and he again goes over my results, showing me a graph with my completly normal right ear at the top and my completly abnormal left ear at the bottom. I ask what caused this to happen and they can't really tell when this sort of thing happens. Three possibilites include: 1) the blood supply to that nerve has been disrupted and caused it to not function, 2) it is an autoimmune process causing that nerve to not work, or 3) it's a viral problem on that nerve. So naturally, I ask what can we do to treat it if it is autoimmune or viral. Normally the treatment is high dose steroids for 2 weeks or more but since I'm pregnant, he was hesitant to say that's what I should do. He's more for a watch and wait approach. Okay, so what are my chances that this will come back? "Minimal," he says and that's only if it returns within the first week or two and can't really tell to what degree it will return. After that, he said unlikely to get it back. Since he's a pediatric ENT doctor, he wanted me to go see one of his partners on the adult side of things so I head over to that office to be seen there.

Meeting with the new doctor, he says pretty much the same thing as the first. The possible causes, treatment options (which he also didn't want to do due to my pregnancy), and likelyhood of it returning. I was scheduled to see my OB in 2 days so I asked him if my OB was ok with the steroid treatment, could I get them to call it in. He said that would be fine but also said even with treatment, the chance of my hearing returning isn't great. I understand that but also didn't want to not take it if I could and always wonder if I had, would I get my hearing back. Overall, I'm dealing with this whole thing fine - thinking that worse things could happen and if this is the the worst of it, I can deal. Jason on the other had was a little more upset and felt somewhat helpless since he couldn't do anything to help the situation. He also was more worried that something would happen to my right ear and we'd really be in trouble. Not to say that it can't happen but it would be rare to affect my right ear too.

I see my OB on Wednesday and tell him what happens. He had no problem with me taking the steroids. He said that he has used them before on patients who develop Bell's Palsy (a different problem affecting the nerves of the face) during pregnancy. He too wasn't very optimistic for my hearing to return but he also told us he had seen weirder things happen. He thinks I may have a chance (however so slight) that it may improve once I deliver. The way he explains it is that your body is harboring a foreign thing which puts stress on you and sometimes something's gotta give - and in this case, my ear. So, possibly once the baby is born and I don't have the stress, it may return some. But he was sure to tell us that we shouldn't expect it to get better, just be thankful if it does.

So I took steroids for 2 weeks and haven't had any change. I was suppose to go back to the ENT but decided to save my money because I didn't need to go for an office visit just to tell me somtheing I already know. Once I have the baby, I'll go back for a repeat hearing test and get set up for an MRI of my head to make sure there's nothing growing on the nerve. They could do it now but even if they found something, they wouldn't do anything for it until after the baby came anyway. I've gotten use to it to where I don't really notice it in my daily activities. I still have a "ringing" but to me it's more like muffled white noise. I suppose if this is the worse thing that I deal with, I've gotten off pretty easy. Thankfully I'm still healthy, the baby's still healthy, and I have a good thing to use against her when she's older about how she's such a trouble maker that she caused Mommy to go deaf in one ear! :)

I've had requests to put some pictures up of my belly so next post, I'll get the Bump Progression pictures out and talk about our first shower we recently had.