The past week has had many interesting problems to solve and while taking care of people I have been debating what would be the best to share. Cynthia suggested a very special story from several years ago but I'm going to save that one for later. I think it can be incredible how in the course of a given day we can influence peoples lives with what seem to be some of the most mundane and uninteresting facets of our work. I constantly sift through the stories that pass through my life trying to find one that meets what I consider the merits of exciting and dramatic. The Hollywood story so to speak. But I think that glory and gory isn't always necessary.
So, today a twelve year old boy came in to see me. He was clearly bright and very self aware. Unfortunately, he was suffering from a cold, which was not the cause of his visit, and in a very nasally voice explained to me his concerns. He was concerned because he couldn't hear on his right side. When I asked him to explain he related that he had hearing loss for over four years on his right side. He also had constant ringing in the ears. He was unaware of anything that may have happened four years ago to cause the hearing loss. As far as he knew he was healthy and had no other complaints except for that cold.
His mom was able to expand on his history a little bit more. She handed me school screenings for hearing done in the third and seventh grades. Both showed about a 30 decibel hearing loss on the right side which translates to about a 30% decrease in function. She also was unaware of any history of ear infections or trauma. The only concern she had was that she had told the pediatrician that he had a tendency to accumulate wax. She was counseled to keep Q-tips out of the ear. You know what we say "Nothing smaller than your elbow goes in your ears!"
On examination he did indeed have wax in both of his ears but the right side was like concrete. So we began working. Usually removing wax is pretty simple but every now and then it presents a heavy duty challenge and this was one of those situations. Believe it or not I worked on that poor child for 45 minutes using every tool I could think of. Eventually we had success and I could see a completely normal eardrum on each side.
He was pretty convinced that things were better but he also looked a bit out of sorts from the experience so just to be sure we did a hearing test and... His hearing was perfect! The first comment from his mom was that she thought this might be a big help in the classroom. Apparently, he had been having some challenges there as well. My guess is that after four years of hearing only on one side the world was going to be much different in stereo.
It's funny how something that we don't think much about could have such an impact on one of our most important senses. I have read that for Helen Keller she felt that hearing was far more important of a sensory input than blindness. For with blindness we can ask for help and we can be a part of society but with deafness we can be stuck on the outside and despite the best vision we're just looking in.
I'm sure that you're thinking the same question that I was, "Why did mom wait four years to bring her son in and where was the pediatrician's input in his care?" I suspect that because he could hear on the left side it didn't ring a very loud alarm bell that he needed treatment. I have seen this many times in patients of all ages that develop a loss in one ear but don't do anything about it at first. Sometimes you miss out on a window of treatment. I have many more stories in that direction to share in the future.
In the meantime, I like to think that today a life was changed at least a little.
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