Compromised

What is a blog for? Its to feed people with lots of information on their interests, a place of rantings and ramblings about politics which never ends, a place for photo-blogging, and a web to share experiences and express emotions. Well my blog is more like rojak type. I want to share something.

I have some degree of hearing loss which I have been keeping to myself for a long time. I firstly noticed it during the time where handphones were “must-haves” among us in college. A friend of mine was observant enough to notice that I will always hear the phone using my right ear even by using my left hand to hold it. Wow. I discovered that I’m not hearing well on my left ear. So I went to the ENT surgeon in a private hospital. Two visits, two investigation which include a pure tone audiometry test (a test to determine the frequency of sounds we can hear) and a diagnosis. The diagnosis is -

“Something wrong with your eustachean tube”, “We do not have the equipments to further investigate, you must come to my ENT clinic for a scope” Errr private hospital with no equipment? What?? Dah la mahal nak mampos!!! RM200 per visit. I defaulted – accept it as it is.

That was few months before I entered medical school. I have no language disabilities nor problem communicating, I even tested the stethoscope just to confirm that I will have no problems later. It went well very well indeed until my clinicals arrive.

Ward rounds.

If the whole pack is on my left – trouble. I will get fatigue trying to hear… “was it atropine? was it dobutamine? cephalosporine?? aik? hmmm ???” what? especially during Paediatric posting where the whole pack of doctors and pseudo-doctors walk in a swarm and I will be 3-4 meters away from the specialist but I tried my best to “position” myself on the doctor’s left and closer than the others.

Recently I went to another ENT surgeon, my beloved Prof E and I was diagnosed to have mixed hearing loss and what struck me was that it could be permanent.

My heart stopped beating for a while, hands shivered, voice cluttered. I had that imagination of me wearing those hearing aids. *gulp* Why I was not worried was that it “was” sort of a reversible condition involving the Eustachean tube. I did not expect it to be a permanent hearing loss. Now my option is hearing aid or do a “tympanotomy” which is open up and see whats wrong.

It didn’t took me long to accept this disability, I’m not too disabled anyway. Somehow someway I must have acquired it sometime in my life which I did not notice. Now I think it is best to get my left ear to the optimum hearing capacity. I’m going to be a houseman soon. I do not want to get into trouble esp medico-legal issues.

After a tiring day today along with a class with the audiologist, I asked her during the end of our session, “How long does it take to get a hearing aid?”

She replied irritatedly, “2-3 months, maybe 6! You think everyone can afford it?”

I speak to myself – “it probably worth a patient’s life.”

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p/s : sorry 4 this emo post