Meniere's Disease Part 2

The vertigo had stopped just as suddenly as it had started.  Other than the slight tinnitus, I was symptom free.  I decided that the medication the doctor gave me must have done the trick and I was cured.

I was wrong.

Imagine taking off in an airplane.  As you climb in altitude, the pressure inside the plane changes which affects your ears.  You feel fullness and it's hard to hear.  The solution is simple; you yawn and they pop.  The pressure is gone and your hearing is restored.  But what if the solution doesn't work?  Then what?  The pressure continues to build which increases your level of discomfort.  You yawn again without success.  You switch tactics and swallow.  Success!  Ears have popped, the pressure and discomfort are gone, and you can hear again.  Five minutes of discomfort and you're good for the duration of the flight - or at least until it's time to descend.  

I was 18 years old, two years since my last episode.  One morning I woke up and I couldn't hear out of my right ear.  Something had caused a lot of pressure which plugged my ear and was causing discomfort and an actual ringing instead of the previous white noise I was used to.  It felt exactly like it does when flying, but I couldn't do anything to pop it.  Between the pressure and the ringing, I couldn't hear.  I remember my mom waking me one morning by turning on my light.  I thought it was odd that I hadn't woken to my alarm.  When I lifted my head off my pillow, to my surprise, my alarm was blaring.  I had been laying on my left side (my good ear) and couldn't hear my alarm at all with my right.  It wasn't getting any better so we went to another ENT.  I hadn't seen him before which ended up being in my favor.  He did a check-up and, other than extra fluid, there wasn't anything wrong.  He ordered a hearing test.  They performed the test on my left ear first.  I heard everything and pressed the button accordingly.  My right ear was a different story.  I sat there waiting to hear the beep.  Nothing.  I realized quickly that they were testing, but I couldn't hear it.  It switched to a high pitch and the ringing in my ear would match it.  Had I really heard a beep or was it me?  It was so frustrating having the test switch from low pitches which I couldn't hear to high pitches that I couldn't distinguish.  I may have hit the button once or twice hoping that it was a beep and not me.  The doctor showed me the results.  Left ear was fine, right ear wasn't.  Yep, just like I said.  His diagnosis was a tumor on the nerve in my ear and ordered an MRI.  I was to take Prednisone in the meantime.

Let me pause here.  I was 18 years old and was just told that I had a tumor in my ear because there was no other explanation for the sudden hearing loss.  Are they going to open my head to remove the tumor?  Was it cancer?  What does that mean for me?  Chemo?  Death?  It was very scary processing this.  And have you ever taken Prednisone?  That is one medication that I will NEVER take again.  It didn't help my ear at all and it gave me horrible nightmares.  I've always had vivid dreams, but these were frighteningly real.  Thankfully, there is only one dream I can still recall.  In this dream, I watched a mother murder her four young children.  It was in black and white.  I can still see the black blood darkening their white clothes and the fear in their eyes.  I was afraid to sleep because I didn't know what I was going to see.

I can still remember going in for the MRI.  I was so scared.  They let my mom stay in the room with me.  I laid on the bed and it moved me into the tube.  I tried not to think about how small it was or why I was there.  My mom held my foot which was surprisingly comforting.  I closed my eyes and focused on the sound of the machine.  It reminded me of riding on a bus.  I let my mind wander to the time we rode a bus to California for a debate tournament.  I played the whole trip through my mind and apparently fell asleep because I stopped responding to the technician.  Eventually they got what they needed and sent me on my way.

A day or two went by before we went back to the ENT.  The results were in and there was no sign of a tumor.  What a relief!  But then why was I still not able to hear or pop my ear?  His next diagnosis was Meniere's disease.  I was told to eat less than 1,000 milligrams of sodium a day and to wean off the Prednisone.  I didn't want to change my diet so despite my doctor's orders, I continued eating the way I wanted.  After a trip to Virginia and eating a particularly high sodium diet, I started experiencing vertigo.  My doctor again stressed the low sodium diet and I decided to listen.

My mother was a saint.  She changed everything about the way I was eating to ensure I was staying below 1,000 mg.  I don't know if I would've been able to do it without her.  My daily meals consisted of plain eggs for breakfast, a plain chicken salad with the only low sodium dressing we could find (it was a lemon something) for lunch, and plain meat and veggies for dinner.  It was so bland!  At this time I was working two jobs.  I would leave one around 3 and drive to the other starting at 3:30.  I had gotten in the habit of stopping at a grocery store on the way and getting a snack.  The first few days of this new diet I was SO hungry.  I would stop at the store wanting to eat and would end up in the cracker aisle crying because everything was high in sodium.  It was so silly of me to starve so much because it never occurred to me that I could still eat fruits and vegetables.  Eventually I adjusted and was no longer starving.  In fact, the food I was eating started tasting better.  I was surprised how much I enjoyed cooked broccoli without anything on it.

Three weeks after eating this diet, we were driving home from a party on Christmas night.  I yawned and my ear popped!  It had been at least 2 months since it had done that.  It was amazing!  I remember thinking my sister was talking so loud but it was only because I hadn't heard anything for so long.  I was so grateful that all my sacrifice (and my mom's hard work) had paid off and my health had finally returned.  I was thankful that it was over.

It wasn't.