An Unscheduled Hiatus

Health problems have affected me, and by extension, you.

Source: Franco Antonio Giovanella via Unsplash

Note: This is a description of why, exactly, The Catch is going on hiatus. If the reasoning doesn’t matter to you, fair. Just know this newsletter will stop indefinitely. I apologize deeply.

I had lived the better part of a decade of my life with tinnitus, having played in punk bands and gone to shows for a few years without adequate hearing protection. Until recently, it was manageable and mild. Last week, I noticed that it had gotten significantly louder.

It’s impossible to adequately convey the condition to those who don’t have it. The closest I can do is ask you to imagine the feeling immediately after a loud concert, where there’s ringing in your ears. Now imagine it never goes away, and is louder than a fan in your room. It gets worse when you notice it, and without proper training, you always notice it.

If you’re not familiar with concerts, imagine cicadas inside your ear. Always loud enough to be heard, if not deafening.

Anyway, the worsening of my tinnitus has created an avalanche of other issues. I went to a hearing clinic to have my earwax removed, hoping but not expecting an easy answer. Upon finding none, a quick hearing test was conducted. My hearing, overall, is good, but the tinnitus caused a noticeable dip in my right ear. My family doctor (thankful for him and his work) conducted a phone appointment with me, and after he reached out to an ENT, was told that there’s a chance it’s the result of inflammation in my ear that would need to be addressed immediately. He prescribed me prednisone, and instructed me to take one dose a day for the next ten days.

Prednisone is a nasty drug, and my family has a history of bad reactions to it. I felt the effects almost immediately, mostly the debilitating side effects. The most severe is crippling waves of nausea. Stemming from this, I have trouble standing upright, and a near-impossibility of eating food. Despite this, I went to the walk-in clinic the next day, and after 5 hours of waiting, walked out with three different antibiotics to use for the next week, on the chance it was a sinus/outer ear infection (the hearing clinic determined an ear infection was unlikely, but not impossible.) With a new dose of pills, ear drops, and a nasal spray, I stumbled home. I felt okay briefly enough to attend a farewell gathering in a park for some friends.

Bear in mind. This entire time, a sharp ringing has been piercing my right ear drum.

On Monday, with no relief in sight, I phoned telehealth. Well, that’s not true. I chatted with their virtual bot, as both lines on the website went nowhere when called. The bot handed my number to a nurse, who then phoned me to talk about my symptoms. After discussing the severity of my nausea, alongside other unpleasant side effects I won’t list here, she recommended I go to my local ER, but not to drive. Thankfully a hospital is close to where I live, and my partner helped me stumble there and get registered at Urgent Care (apparently not ER, which is different).

After another 5-8 hours there, being put in for a CT scan, given a chest X-ray, and blood work being conducted, they gave me something for the nausea, and prescribed me another pill to take before food in order to help deal with the prednisone-inflicted nausea.

Sharp ringing.

That brings us to today. Currently, I am struggling to deal with a job that I enjoyed greatly just a week ago, alongside the end of my summer school schedule. I’m laying down most of my waking hours, alternating between headphones of therapy I found on YouTube, Blue/Pink noise, and mental breakdowns. I would not have gotten this far without my partner, who I am eternally grateful for.

There is no cure for tinnitus, as it’s a symptom. Common medical knowledge tells us it’s the brain’s compensation for not hearing a frequency. “If I can’t hear that frequency, it still must exist, therefore I will compensate by creating it myself.” It’s stupid. But no one ever said evolution had to make sense.

The best hope for me, at this time, is that I can get access to a masker, or a hearing aid, as well as therapy to train myself to ignore it. My GP said that, hopefully, an ENT he referred me to would reach out within 10 days. At this point, I’m in doubt that the prednisone, or even the antibiotics, will fix the issue, but I’m committed to finishing, just in case. The mental breakdowns are less frequent, but still ongoing. It’s impossible to picture my afternoons, let alone my tomorrows.

Anyway, that’s enough self-pity. I apologize, but it appears to be the only thing I can write about lately. What this means for you, dear reader, is that The Catch is taking a hiatus. I was most likely going to skip this week, as I have too much to deal with outside of the newsletter, let alone with this newest medical crisis. But now this skip is going to be a little more concrete. I’m not sure when it’ll return, but my hope is sooner, rather than later.

Take care. Wear ear plugs.