We often take our health for granted, and I've been mostly guilty of this. Things have been tense recently in this country and elsewhere, and I have been buffeted about quite a lot lately in the March winds. I don't know if all of this has caused my current and hopefully not permanent bout of ear ringing, aka tinnitus.
Maybe it's just aging and the population, as some of our region certainly must be experiencing this phenomenon, judging by the difficulty I've had in obtaining an appointment with an ear, nose and throat doctor, or any kind of physician for that matter. I am currently without a primary care doctor until the end of April.
It seems my previous primary care office is plotting a new business model, and it discharged many patients without a letter or any formal notice. I had to find this out on the Simply Milton Delaware Facebook page, a very useful way to find out things, good or bad, in our town.
For example, one Miltonian was looking for a full liter soda bottle for a school project for her child. She doesn't drink soda, so she wanted an unhealthy soda drinker to provide her with an empty bottle instead of simply going to Food Lion and buying one and pouring it out for 99 cents or whatever. She would oblige by driving to the unhealth-conscious soda drinker's door to pick it up! I don't think anyone answered this strange request.
Anyway, to get back to the subject at hand, I went to my provider's office and was told that I would have to go to an emergency room or be on a long waiting list if I got sick. Prescriptions would be filled as a courtesy for three months, so I joined the long list of people trying to find a doctor's office. After a frantic search, I got one and have to wait four months for an appointment, but I'm thankful to have found one at all in Sussex County these days.
So the ear ringing began – hissing, buzzing and whistling like a tea kettle. I feel possessed! Just thinking about it starts it up: snap, crackle and pop. You don't know how peaceful it is to have silence in your head, especially when you lay it down on your pillow at night. I feel like a washcloth being wrung out. I actually saw this in a dream recently, when I could sleep.
A great dancer of the 20th century, Isadora Duncan, once said, "One's body should not be felt." Anyway, she died when one of the long scarves she favored got caught in a passing roadster. Maybe that's better than dying on the vine! I called a classmate who was a nurse and another one who suffers from this malady. In fact, both do. One of them told me that it could be an allergy or long COVID, but I never had COVID.
Shakespeare wrote one of my favorite poems in the 16th century. The first line reads, "When daffodils begin to peer, it is the best time o’ the year." It's allergy time for me, with hyacinths, daffodils, forsythias and other yellow flowers affecting me. I hope this is the cause of my ailment, since then it would be seasonal, but I fear not.
I consulted the Cape Gazette's Med Matters booklet, a very useful publication to find healthcare providers, and found listings under hearing issues. Some are audiologists and some are ENT (ear, nose and throat) doctors. I found one in Seaford, an audiologist. I thought maybe Seaford would be an easier and faster place to find help, and I actually got an appointment for the next day. This unintended consequence of overdevelopment has caused a real problem finding someone locally in eastern Sussex. They were very nice, but seemed to be pushing hearing aids. The office was full of containers of candy, including Ghirardelli chocolates, to help pass the time in the waiting room.
Another place I called offered a new hope – a device where you place a round metal disc on your tongue and wear headphones for two hours a day. You have to travel to their Dover office and pay $350 for the consultation and $3,000 for the device, with no Medicare accepted! I was aghast at the $350 at first.
I hope the ringing doesn't start up again as I'm writing this. Fortunately, my hearing is fine so far. When the land line rings three rooms away from me with mostly fake callers, I can hear that fine as well!
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Pam Bounds is a well-known artist living in Milton who holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in fine art. She will be sharing humorous and thoughtful observations about life in Sussex County and beyond.
