I think I have mentioned in the past that I would not wish this type of tinnitus on my worst enemy. Well, I’ve found something else I wouldn’t want to thrust upon anyone – the treatment for this type of tinnitus. Today I experienced trans-tymphanic steroidal injections. This procedure injects steroids directly into the middle ear, in an effort to more speedily get the medicine to the inner ear, where it should assist in clearing up the issue.

First, after rechecking that your hearing is, in fact, not there, they lay you on a table. Using what feels like a tiny blob of hot wax, but is in actuality a numbing agent, the eardrum is disconnected from reality. Don’t worry – you won’t notice. You would, however, notice the next part if the hot wax treatment was not used.

A needle, containing the steroid liquid, and approximately the same diameter as the New York Subway Tunnel System, is used to first poke a “valve” hole, then the injection site, in the eardrum. The steroids are injected slowly, allowing time for equalization of pressure. This also allow some of this material to invade your sinus cavity. Yummy. Swallowing constantly is the only defense. Lather, rinse, repeat on other side.

Instructed to lay quietly for twenty minutes, in order for the liquids to quit dribbling, and to prevent the patient from taking a header because vertigo does that to you, I came up with a couple of descriptions: waterboarding the inner ear, getting water IN your ears, things like that. The vertigo and dizziness wave a little bit, and slowly depart.

Still can’t hear anything. Results are usually between immediate and two weeks. These shots are usually down in sets of three. Set number two will be Friday afternoon, about 1600 hours, on the west side of town this time, and after I see the inner ear specialist to discuss surgical options if the medicinal option does not work.

If you are considering getting this procedure, or if this procedure is prescribed for you, have someone drive you. And allow for about two hours.

This has been a public service announcement. If you have feedback, responses, or just wanna share, then leave a comment here. Or text me. Don’t call, I can’t here your end of the conversation. Can’t really hear my end either, but I do have a chance of imagining what I would be sounding like!

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

Tweet

The back spasms that laid me low yesterday afternoon subsided sometime in the night. The tickle in the throat has blown up into a full-on bronchial thing. I used to never get sick.

Is this what that whole “aging” thing is about?

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

Tweet

From the mailbag this morning:

I was eating lunch with a six year old and I asked her, “What is the 20th
of February?”
She said “President’s Day!”
She is a smart kid, so I asked her, “What does President’s Day mean?”
I was waiting for something about Washington or Lincoln etc.
She replied, “President’s Day is when President Obama steps out of the
White House, and if he sees his shadow we have one more year of
unemployment.”
You know, it hurts when hot coffee spurts out your nose.

Thanks, Dave T. I owe you one.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

Tweet

Sunday was a weird day for me – I woke up – if you can call feeling like a truck rolled over me twice while Tony Stewart was doing donuts on my head “waking up” – with stuffed sinuses and a major headache. Every muscle in my body hurt. TMBWitW got up and took care of the animals, and handed me some meds. I don’t really remember taking them, but I do remember the phone ringing and ringing and ringing thousands of years later. It was Papa, asking if we were OK – because we weren’t at the fellowship yet, and it was almost time to start the studies. I assured him, in what little voice I had, that TMBWitW and MEG were on their way and I would not be there. At least, that’s what I thought I said. I’m not sure if that’s what came out on his end of the phone.

The next time I woke up, TMBWitW was asking me if I was OK, and if I needed anything before she headed back over to Pastor’s house for the afternoon. She gave me another dose of something (oh, how trusting are we when we can’t hold a coherent thought?) and I fell back asleep for a while. I woke up again, just in time to watch the last quarter or so of the game.

At one point, I recall getting a Tweet from Texas Fred regarding the gullibility of some people – and of course, I had to call him. Good talking to you, Fred. We gotta do that more often.

Other than that, Sunday passed quietly and uneventfully. Well, for me, anyway.

Monday I was feeling much better.

Today great progress has been made. The chiropractor has been visited, dry cleaning has been picked up, and the appointment with the Eye, Nose, Throat doctor is on the agenda. Tinnitus is such a drag. It has gotten worse in the last four months, for whatever reason, to the point that without something in the background all I can hear is a constant static ringing loud enough to be distracting when it’s quiet and I’m trying to concentrate on something like reading.

On the up side, one of the insurance companies involved with my wife’s accident has sent a settlement check – but of course, they want to buy her off cheap. The repairs on the car may not be as cheap as they think. After all, they recommend used parts, and the car is not going to be rebuilt using used parts. My wife deserves better than that – since the parts being replaced weren’t used before the accident. We are insisting on OEM parts.

Chat ya later…

Thanks for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, and Wear Red on Fridays!

Tweet

Hi there! Thanks for not giving up on me. I know I don’t write very often, but I do try to write about things that strike me as being important, or at least personal stuff that I feel OK to share with you (as long as you don’t go blabbing to everyone else, this is a private conversation, you know … )

So – you ask, “Cary, what has grabbed your attention on this fine, chilly Tuesday morning?”

I, being the polite type that I am, reply “Two things – West Point and pregnant criminals.” Since I subscribe to the Arizona Republic, I figured I would share an article with you, giving my comments in the process. (i’m going to try a fourteen day trial of getting the paper on my kindle, have any of my faithful readers ever done that? honestly, i am concerned about the quality of the comics on the kindle …)

First, from the article Bill Limits Shackling of Pregnant Inmates (and no, i couldn’t make this up if i tried):

A bipartisan group of lawmakers hopes Arizona will join 14 other states in limiting how and when jails can shackle pregnant women.

Really? OK, I understand the need to have rules on when you can and cannot use restraints on a prisoner. My “Really?” was aimed at the women who are so mentally challenged that they would place their unborn child in a criminal environment. Idiots. If you are offended by the thought of your child seeing you in restraints, even as they are being born, then don’t do anything that warrants shackles. Morons. I love this part:

“This practice is not just dangerous to the mother but it’s also dangerous to the baby being born,” ACLU of Arizona Public Policy Director Anjali Abraham said. “If you’ve had a baby or been in the labor room with a woman, you know their biggest priority is having that baby. They are not going to jump off the bed and take off.”

Great. The ACLU is involved. At least they recognize that the last thing on a woman’s mind during childbirth is “Hey, I’m not tied down, I should make a break for it!”

(shakes head in disbelief that society has fallen this far)

In this Wall Street Journal article a question is raised. Not, apparently, in the minds of the “journalists” at the Wall Street Journal, but in the mind of a veteran who tends to keep up with current events.

(i don’t normally read the wsj, but i couldn’t find the article i was going to use on azcentral.com, so i had to use my google-fu)

WEST POINT, N.Y. — A retired U.S. general who made comments denigrating Islam has been invited to speak to cadets at the U.S. Military Academy during a national prayer breakfast next month.

The Times Herald-Record of Middletown reports (http://bit.ly/wyhEis ) that Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin is among the speakers scheduled to attend the Feb. 8 event at West Point. Military academy officials say Boykin will speak to a gathering of Christian, Jewish and Muslim cadets.

The first question that popped into my mind was, obviously, why are there muslim Cadets at West Point? Have we learned nothing?

Please note: if you are offended that I object to muslims serving in the United States Armed Forces, then pack your bags and move to a muslim-controlled country. Get the hell out of my country. At the very least, get off this page and never return. In case you haven’t noticed, we are at war, and the enemy is muslims and their religion of terror and political control, islam. (in case you think that there are moderate members of islam, go read the koran again. there is nothing moderate about being a follower of a pedophile who calls for the death of all who do not practice islam)

Don’t worry, the uproar caused by his invitation has caused him to decline the invite. Which is fine with me, because he namby-pambied around it and issued an apology for speaking his mind back in 2003 when he said “… Muslims worship idols …“

Well, now I’m all worked up. I’m going to go read the comics. I should have just gone straight to them this morning. Maybe I’ll start that fourteen day trial on the Kindle, too.

Chat ya later…

Thank you for stopping by, In GOD We Trust, God bless you all, don’t buy or breed cats or dogs while homeless pets die (spay, neuter & adopt a pet, one by one, until there are none), Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!

Tweet