Hearing Is Good If You Work In The Radio Business
They found another one.
I thought my ear was a fairly safe sanctuary from the stainless steel and rubber instruments whose cousins have been employed in nearly every part of my mortal existence. I was wrong.
For about a week, I had a stopped-up ear. I even complained about it on the air, and you might have heard Hallerin and Chris laughing of course with me. Check that. At me.
It was not just a little stopped up. I had become suddenly and woefully deaf in my right ear. On that side…I heard nothing except a roar like the one I would expect a golden retriever hears when he sticks his head out of a station wagon.
I am already a little ‘deef from wearing headphones for more than forty years, and riding in a helicopter for three thousand hours, the transmission whining away next to my head.
I tried the regular ear wax removal drops- which are disgusting enough to begin with. They snapped, crackled and popped, but nothing. I tried straight peroxide. More violent crackling and popping. But nothing else. I decided that before I tried sulphuric acid and molten glass, I would get an appointment with the ENT. That is an otoolya…ort…oti…uh ear nose and throat doctor.
As soon as the good Dr. Denneny looked inside with his otoscope…which would sound better if it were called a oto-toot-scope, he exclaimed “My gosh.” I never like it when doctors say that when they are looking at me, from the front, behind, or even from the side, and I told him so.
Turns out that he was not commenting on the severity of my malady, but perhaps the extent to which I was afflicted. With fungus. That’s right. Fungus.
The doctor explained that diabetics are prone to things such as this and that ears, being dark and damp places that they are, are breeding grounds for fungi. I replied that people always tell me I was a fun guy. The doctor chose not to laugh. I think inside he was wracked with gales of laughter, but, unlike radio fools, ENT’s have to maintain their professional bearing. So he set me on the bearing to another room.
I was laid back in a hydraulic chair, which is no mean feat. It takes quite a bit of hydraulic fluid and no small amount of pressure to lean a three hundred pounder back on his hind-end. That is why I sometimes think the veterinary clinic at UT would be the better choice for some of my treatments.
I am not sure what the exact name of the type of device the doctor used to clean out my ear, but I believe it was the Suck-O-Matic 2000 model, the latest, no doubt. Since the fungus was attached to my eardrum, there was a lot of noise going on inside my ear. I said “That’s loud.” I immediately realized how stupid it was to say that, since my fungus and I were the only ones who could hear what was happening. Pretty soon, Dr. Deneney produced a clump of stuff that -GADZOOKS !-
looked as big as the root ball of a tulip poplar (the state tree of Tennessee).
He worked a little more, and did the other ear too. You get two-for-one deals on ears when you see an ENT. But they make it up on noses by charging for each nostril, like cylinder banks on a V-8. At least that is what I have heard.
Finally, as the Suck-O-Matic 2000 spooled back down to flight idle, and the hydraulic chair managed to upright me, I asked the doctor if I would have to use any ear drops. And as sure as I am sitting here writing this, I was told yes, it was the same stuff you use on jock itch. I asked him if I needed the powder, the creme, or the new aerosol spray. Again I knew I was busting him up inside, but the doctor, without laughing informed me that there were drops for this kind of thing. Who would have thought.
Anyway, I can hear much better this evening, thanks to the good doctor Denneny and his skill and knowledge.
And if I ever get jock itch, I now have some drops that will knock it right out.
