I know I’m derailing from the cochlear implant story right now, but I need to vent, and hell, this is my blog so I can do anything I want here.

Over the course of the weekend, the hearing in my good ear got worse, although I started taking oral steroids on Saturday evening. Saturday afternoon, I could use the phone — not with 100% understanding, but enough to get by. By this morning (Monday), I couldn’t understand a word. Before this happened, I could understand Ray from across the room without my hearing aid; now, I can only understand him with the hearing aid, and then only if he’s standing right next to me and talking really loudly.

I called (or rather had Ray call) the doctor’s office first thing this morning and got an appointment. Had a hearing test which confirmed the significant drop in the right ear; my speech recognition percentage, which was 84% at my last test (last October), is down to 12% — which is about where my left ear was before I got the CI.

The doctor told me to continue the prednisone, and he also gave me a steroid injection directly in the ear. Even with a numbing cream that he put on 20 minutes before the injection, it hurt more than any pain I had after the CI surgery. Thankfully, the pain abated after about 5-10 minutes. They made me stay lying down for 15, and I was a bit dizzy when I got up, but feeling okay now (about 5 hours later).

I realized after we got home that they hadn’t told me when I could put the hearing aid back in, so Ray called to ask. First the nurse said it was fine, but then she called back and said she wasn’t sure and would have to ask the doctor since there’s a hole in my ear and the HA would be blocking it. So I’m temporarily almost completely deaf while we wait. Ray has been having to talk to me via text or typing into a window on his computer while I read over his shoulder. I can barely understand my own voice, let alone his.

I’m supposed to go back for another hearing test next week, and I’ll have to have another injection if there’s no improvement — possibly up to 3 total depending on how things go. Meanwhile, the CI activation date is still set for the 16th.

Before this happened, my attitude about the CI was fairly blasé; I figured that if it didn’t work well, I’d be no worse off than I was before, with one ear that worked and one that didn’t. But now…if the steroids don’t help, the stakes just got a whole hell of a lot higher for the CI. Because I guess the universe decided that my story needed some drama.