Balance

My bachelor's degree is in Speech and Hearing Sciences.  My master's degree is in Speech Language Pathology.  By the time I graduated from High School I knew I wanted to be a speech therapist and I declared my major during the first week of college.  I never changed my mind.  I never hesitated about the path I had chosen.  I did, however, enjoy all of my hearing science and audiology classes tremendously more than my speech science classes.  Especially the anatomy and physiology parts.

At one point, about 12 years ago, you could have given me this unlabeled picture of the auditory system and I could have completely and correctly filled in every structure (including way more stuff than what is labeled here).  I can still label each and every part of the pinna.  I'm strangely proud of that.

The same was true for the vestibular system (the system that controls movement and balance).

I cannot claim such knowledge of the speech mechanism.  I hated all the cartilages and could never keep them straight.  And to this day the hyoid bone just freaks me out.

Anyway.  I love the auditory and vestibular systems, even though I never even considered going in to audiology.

Back in February I started having all sorts of problems with my balance.  I would be at work, in the middle of a speech therapy session with students when I would get all hot and flushed and then feel like I was falling.  I'd have to put my head on the table for a few minutes to recover (which is not ideal when you have 3 ADHD kindergarten boys with you).  Or I'd be walking down the hallway at home and it felt like someone was pulling the floor out from under me.  It happened a couple times when I was driving, which was terrifying.

It was so severe and happening so often that #1) I considered a brain tumor as a diagnosis and #2) I made an appointment to see an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor who specializes in balance issues.  I made the appointment at the end of February.  The first available appointment was at the end of August.

By the beginning of April my balance issues were no longer what I would categorize as "severe".  By June I considered canceling the appointment.  I was still feeling like I was falling sometimes, but it lasted maybe a second or two and it didn't scare me anymore.  I could easily regain my balance without even really doing anything.

I figured that anything that takes 6 months to get is worth keeping though.  So I went to the appointment last week.  He went through my entire history, did a couple tests in the exam room and then had the audiologist check my hearing.

His diagnosis is that I most likely, back in February, had a virus that attacked my inner ear and thus, "messed up" my vestibular system and balance.  That's when everything was so severe.  Then I fought off the virus and have slowly been healing.  It can take months and even up to years for your entire vestibular system to recover, though, which is why I am still having minor symptoms.

Interesting, huh? 

I felt totally comfortable with his diagnosis. It makes total sense.  He told me that he can do an MRI and additional tests after Elliott is born, but I don't think that will be necessary.

I also found out something incredibly interesting about my hearing.

Back in graduate school I had my hearing tested lots of times.  We all had to practice on each other.  My hearing was always in the -5 to 10 range.  Always.

This is my audiogram from last week.

Do you see that dip there?

I have a slight hearing loss in my right ear. 

Normal hearing is -10 to 15 decibels.  A slight loss is 16 to 25 dB.  A mild loss is 26 to 40 dB.  A moderate loss is 41 to 55 dB.  A severe loss is 71 to 90 dB.  And a profound loss is anything above 90 dB.

My loss is at 25 dB at 4,000 Hz.  The doctor said if it was noise induced hearing loss it would be in both ears.  This is from a single incident where something loud, like a fire cracker, went off close to my ear.  It happened sometime in the last 7 years (since I last had my hearing tested in grad school).  The doctor and the audiologist were completely unconcerned about it.  

I, however, was pretty ticked when my vision went from 20/10 to 20/20 last year, so this seems big to me. 

But thank goodness I no longer feel like a drunken sailor falling off the plank on a daily basis.