salam dear reader. i don't know if i should feel sorry for not updating my journal here as frequently i used to. i was by all means, trying to pick myself up after being severely beset by some financial crises, but alhamdulillah, i think everything is improving, the fog is finally clearing.
today i had an appointment, made at the very last minute before i fly off to perth once again, prompted by the fact that i was slowly losing my hearing faculty. it all started way back in 2007, when i was still in high school.
but first off
do you constantly try to remove your earwax by means of cotton buds?
if so, stick around, you're definitely going to love this.
i was supposedly cleaning one of my earcanals from earwax when i suddenly felt as if something was pushing against my eardrum and i couldn't hear properly. so i intensified my effort in trying to remove more earwax to clear the clog, but i only made things worse. by then, i could only hear partially, i had, what i might say, lost my faculty of hearing, well, partially and temporarily.
panicked as i was, i told my mom all about it, convinced that she'd know what to do. she dripped some earwax softening fluid into my affected ear, and simply waited for the then-hardened-pile-of-intense-brown-earwax to sluggisly slide out of the ear canal. so i waited. and waited, it was the longest waiting i'd ever done. my hearing improved after a couple weeks, enough to lead me into thinking that the clogging earwax was gone forever, vanished.
alas, i was led astray.
i kept having hearing problems eversince. whenever i told my mom about it, she would simply tell me to stop shoving those earphones and blasting my ears with super loud music.
i used to love listening to loud music and when i was told that i should cease doing so, i found it hard to comply with. force of habit i guess. every now and then i would satisfy my constant addiction for loud music, especially when i was experiencing a downward spiral in my emotional wellbeing. it got worse as i got into college. a lot worse.
i was frequently blaring my ears with loud music that one day, my right ear started to ring. and it was a continuos ringing. i didnt want to panic. so i just brushed it aside, knowing the fact that constant ringing is the first sign of hearing loss due to loud noises, i.e. loud, blaring music in my ears.
the constant ringing lasted until this morning.
being a well established and respected pharmacist at a hospital really plays a lot to my mom's best advantages. she knows some doctors and sure enough she can pull some strings when in dire need of a doctor's diagnosis and treatment.
so today my mom called up Dr. Irfan to set up an appointment for me. i was only able to see him at around 10.30 am. we waited for almost 2 hours. a string was pulled but it's the hospital's policy to treat every patient fair and square. we still had to wait in line eventhough mom knows dr. irfan very well. it was no matter though, because in truth i was scared of what i might find out from the doctor.
"dhamirah, you can come in now"
a nurse ushered me into the examining room and at first sight, i thought, how cool the room was, equipped with state-of-the-art examining instruments, scopes etc. i was astonished.
dr irfan told me to sit on the examination chair (if you'd call it a chair. bahahaha) and started shoving this long cylindrical scope into my left ear.
"oh my. i think i am going to faint" he enthused. i was dumfounded. why would a doctor faint at the sight of their patient's ear canal. and then, dr irfan put me out of my misery and showed me what it looked like in my left ear canal.
and shocked i was.
the ear canal was stuffed with earwax. there was no room that had no earwax in it. stuffed to the max. completely blocked.
my right ear was no different. this simply begged a question.
"are you still able to hear?" both dr irfan and the nurse enquired.
"yeah.." was the only respond i could reciprocate. my eyes were riveted on the images of my ear canals. eeew. gross. i'd been living with most of my ear canals plugged with sticky earwax. double eew for that.
"we're going to do a suction. we'll clear the canals" dr irfan assured me.
i was led into another room jam packed with a bunch of fourth year medical students. jam packed, and my hijab was everywhere, i cant even begin to describe my hair jutting from under my hijab. sigh. nevermind, they're going to be doctors, by this time tomorrow they would have forgotten what i'd looked like this morning.
dr irfan carried out the suction procedure successfully. i felt as if someone was drilling through my skull, eerie. but it was a relief to have normal hearing again.
while my ear wax was getting sucked out, a med student came in through the drapes. dr irfan asked her
"so what might be the cause of this problem?" he was referring to me. i was fighting not to answer that question.
the student struggled to answer the question, sheepishly smiling at dr irfan.
"the patient tried to remmsncjd" she was practically slurring.
dr irfan continued, further intimidating the student:
"there's only one cause to this problem. what is it?"
the student stuttered.
then, dr irfan said:
"it's chronic use of cotton buds."
i smiled at this. probably because i knew what had caused my blocked ears in the first place. :)
ps- dr irfan says: don't ever try to remove your earwax using cotton buds, because there's only enough space in the ear canal to fit a cotton bud and pushing the cotton bud into the ear canal only means pushing the earwax further towards the eardrum.the earwax will come out on its own accord.
