I heard that!

So, if you were here yesterday, and thanks for stopping by, you know that I have suffered from mild hearing loss that I have been trying to address. It's not caused by obstruction, so what could it be? Infection, like Lyme? Autoimmune disease? Benign growth? CANCER? 😲💀

Of course, you all want to know how Batman got out of being buried alive in that 1981 comic book I mentioned on Friday, contrasting such a fate with the MRI. It's amazing that I remembered this many years later, and think of it whenever the topic of being buried alive comes up, as it does when getting an MRI. I credit Gerry Conway, who wrote it, and went on to write and produce for TV.

Meanwhile, back at the doctor's office:

It was more than two weeks since the previous appointment and I had been through all the tests and taken all the prednisone. The lab was supposed to send the bloodwork results to the doctor, and the radiology clinic the MRI results. All the same I had a CD with me that contained the MRI scans. Naturally I looked at them on my laptop at home, but of course it was just scannery Greek to me. All I can say is what Dizzy Dean told reporters after he got hit in the head in the 1934 World Series: "They X-rayed my head and found nothing." And that's among everyone's favorite baseball quotes in the non-Yogi division.

But seriously, there's stuff up in my head, but I had no idea what it was. Stuff. So, leave it to the doctor.

First, I had another hearing test, which showed some improvement over the previous one. Yay me! But not much. Boo me! Then it was time to wait and wait and wait for the doctor. And then wait some more. Now, at this point I still didn't know what the results of my tests were and, being of a pessimistic bent, was inclined to assume the worst. So while looking at the above illustration, I was planning how to get rid of my books and clothes and other things that are of no use to my wife so she wouldn't have to get rid of them at the funeral.

Then the doctor joined me. I might have thought that the doctor would have done doctor homework, my test results having arrived at some point in the previous two weeks. Or perhaps he'd kept me waiting now because he was examining them and wanted to break it to me gently. But no, not only hadn't he looked at anything ahead of time, it turned out that the clinic hadn't even gotten the MRI results. Oh, sure, I had a disc, but what good is that? What am I, a crazy person to think that would help? No, they wanted to have the scans e-mailed from the radiologist. Exact same scans, mind you, that I held in my hand. So that kept us waiting. And it proved to be the case that, as far as the doctor was concerned, I had not existed between the time I'd last left his office weeks earlier and the time he finally got to me that day. He looked at the test results as I sat there. I'm sure he was able to read the results accurately in little time -- but hell, if I were him I would have wanted to see what they were before seeing the patient. What if the patient had a giant tumor? I wouldn't want to see that for the first time while the patient was sitting right in front of me. ("Well, Mr. Key, let's just look at this HOLY CRAP THAT THING IS HUGE!")

Okay, enough with the krexing. Was it a tumor?

Sorry, what'd you say? "Was it a tuba?"

No, it was not a tuba. Or a tumor. The fact is, they still couldn't figure out what was causing my hearing problem.

Oh, and he did not want to try to give me another round of prednisone pills. Why do that, when you can inject it right into the eardrum?

Yup.

Okay, so, I know peer pressure can be tough, but if your cool friends ever say one night, "Hey, let's all go downtown have someone stick a needle in our eardrums!" please take it from your old Uncle Fred and just say no. This is one of those things that can happen to your ear that you would not wish to have happen to it. The very act of putting a so-called topical anesthetic on the eardrum was more painful than anything the dentist has ever done to me. It did help keep the needle from being as horrible as it would have been, I suppose, but that was a fully bizarre feeling, of fluid being injected into the ear and seemingly along the inside of the jaw. Then I had to sit back with the head tilted just so for fifteen minutes and reflect on the many sins that had led me to this place and time.

The well-known God-hating novelist Kingsley Amis was a big fan of James Bond; it is not generally known that he was the first writer commissioned to write a Bond novel after the death of Ian Fleming. Colonel Sun was published in 1968, and I read it decades ago. In the book Bond is captured by the titular villain, and apparently Colonel Sun's theory on the importance of torturing through the human head was good enough to be used in the film Spectre (which I haven't seen). It made quite an impression on me.

I wish I could find my copy of Colonel Sun to quote it, but I think it was stored someplace for safekeeping and vanished in the wind. The scene came to mind during this doctor's visit.

Anyway: It was not a lot of fun. Afterward, my ear was so clogged, it felt like I had a Thanksgiving turkey stuffed in it. I was allowed to drive home on the highway under the influence of this stuff. My ear hurt for a few days and didn't stop feeling clogged for almost a week.

Did it help? Oh, I don't know or even care now. I have to go back again in a little over a week and find out. I think it did, a little. But I've dropped over a grand out of my own pocket on all this so far for something that wasn't that bad before and isn't much better now. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Frankly, if the doctor says the hearing won't get worse but might get better with another shot, I'm going to say, No thanks, Doc! I think I'll just keep it as it is. I don't have a big ol' tumor and I don't need hearing aids. I can still listen to music and my wife doesn't think I have selective anti-wife hearing problems. So I'm counting it as a win and getting the heck out.

I'll let you know if there are any further complications. And remember: No tattooing of the eardrums. It's not cool.