More On My Tnnitus

Today, with the help of Tita J, I finally dragged myself to the ear specialist, Dr. C. I have been trying my best to ignore my tinnitus for the past 10 months. I tried to live with it with as little whining as possible (I have been barely successful with this one, hubby can attest to that).

I have finally managed to make time for it. I cancelled my clinic for today. After having spoken with Dr. C (for a long time), I am hopeful as she says there is 75% chance that she may be able to do something about it. It also dawned on me that Dr. C. is THE ear specialist, the ear “goddess” and I should have come to see her a lot sooner. For years she was one of only two doctors in the country doing cochlear implants.

These are the most important points I’ve gathered from the check-up:
• I should have continued taking mecobalamin for a long time. She has data to back it up. She did the study from which the data were gathered. And I should have taken it for two months.
• The hearing on my left ear (based on my hearing test done last week) is normal. But the hearing on my right ear (the “normal” ear) is slightly impaired. The tympanic membrane on my left though is slightly less pliant than the one on my right.
• And because I have tinnitus but normal hearing on my left ear, it makes the work-up and treatment more complicated. If my hearing were impaired, she would just prescribe a hearing aid with a mask for my tinnitus and that was it. Not true in my case.
• After she had learned that I was sensitive to loud, high-pitched sounds, she decided I needed to have a CT scan of my temporal bone done. This was to check whether there was any mass and to see if the base of the skull, the bone that separates my brain from my ear was too thin. It being too thin would put me at risk of breaking it and suffering from sudden, total, and permanent hearing loss. If it were too thin I would have to refrain from straining and strenuous activities such as running, lifting, etc. As she said those words, I felt the smile on my face gradually disappear.
• I could have benefitted from an MRI of the ear if it were done within the two months of the onset of my tinnitus/zoster oticus. It could have helped document any autoimmune inner ear inflammation. I asked, SLE? Not sure, but they have seen such autoimmune cases.
• I was advised to eliminate caffeine from my diet. Coffee, alcohol, softdrink of any kind. And less salt (horrors!). And I’m not so sure if I heard her right when she said artificial sweets.
• I asked if it could have been drug-induced? I had regular intake of ibuprofen and aspirin for my headaches. She said yes but that it was hard to say since almost all drugs available listed tinnitus as one of the side effects.

I will have the CT scan done as soon as I get my period. In the meantime, I will start taking my mecobalamin. And pray to God for healing.

Lots To Be Thankful About

Had 2 patients today at U__ (1 was HMO) and zero patient at S____. Frankly, I do not feel bad. I felt kinda relieved actually. In the next few days/one and a half week, we’ll be preoccupied. There’s my repeat pure tone audiometry test and ENT consult (4th opinion!) that’s long overdue. Plus our moving in to our new home is happening sometime next week. Hooray! Praise God.

We’re going to be busy, busy,busy… just thinking about the packing and fixing and cleaning makes my tinnitus even louder. But everything seems to be a small price to pay for a beautiful home that is all our own and the quiet, peaceful surrounding that comes with it. Not to mention my commute that is about to be remarkably shortened to 15% of my usual daily commute. Hooray ulit!

Things like enrolment and uniforms and black shoes and school supplies and school service have also been on my mind and will continue to be on my mind for the next couple of weeks. I am excited for the kids. They will be going to schools that have been prayerfully picked for them by their dad and me. They will be making new friends and immersing themselves in new things that are good for them – fresh air, and big spaces for running and playing. I am determined to drastically cut down their TV time.

I am also making some plans for myself. I plan to make myself busy. To spend my time and energy in things and activities that will be good for my health (both of body and of mind). I am planning to start learning how to wake up earlier (never too late to change!) and to do some walking (and running, maybe… who knows?). I will call up my cousin about the yoga classes she’s been going to in Sta. Rosa. Though I occasionally have been doing my yoga, I am not so sure if my technique has been right. My muscles are tooo tight still and having an instructor will probably help me push myself a little and make myself a little limber.

I am preparing myself for a lot of fixing and working around the house in the next few months. I am also looking forward to starting a little bit of gardening with a lot of help from Mommy and Tio M.

Plus there’s my needle work that has been shelved for months. Will start working on them again as soon as I can. The designs I’ve picked (beautiful windows, meant to be displayed in groupings) will be perfect for our new pasilio outside of our bedrooms.

Life is great. Things are looking up. God has been generous and with all my heart I thank You, Lord.

God is Great (As Usual)

God is great. Anxiously, I clutched my things and began to tread on unfamiliar territory. I breathed a silent prayer in my heart that everything will turn out okay. He answered my prayer by sending over a familiar, friendly face. A minute’s worth of smiles and encouragement was more than enough to comfort me and boost my confidence. All is well. All will be well.

Dear Lord,

Today I’ve met with some of my colleagues. Some were much older and ”senior”. A handful were quite younger but have started their practice way before I started mine.

As I spoke with hubby about how my day went, he noticed that I was making comments about how ‘big-time’ so-and-so already is. That is, ‘big’ enough such that their hotel accommodations for the convention have been graciously sponsored by pharmaceutical companies. When I made those comments, it didn’t occur to me that I was comparing myself to others. To hubby, it appeared as if I was whining about how slow my career was going and he remarked that maybe I should reconsider my decision re choosing not to practice in any of the big hospitals in the metropolis.

It was also today, as I came home after a long day, that the yaya welcomed me by saying that this hospital called and was reminding me about my contract re their acceptance of my application as visiting physician.

Lord, can You please help me out? I am a bit confused. When I made the decision to concentrate on the hospitals that were relatively near our soon-to-be home, I felt confident that it was the right decision. I justified it by telling myself that in limiting my practice like so, I was making the decision to make my family, especially my little kids, my number one priority.

You, oh Lord, know the inner workings of my heart best. Did I really make these decisions because I really held my family important above all else? Or was it a decision borne out of my laziness and my fear of failure? Was it only because I am too scared to step out of the boundaries of my comfort zone? Did I choose this path not because I thought it was best but because I thought it was the easiest?

I search my heart yet cannot find the answers. Only you, my Creator, know best.

You know that I long to have some degree of success in my professional life. That I desire to be of help and comfort to as many patients as possible is already a given. But I also long for a career that would afford me and my family some of the comforts I dream of. I look at some of my colleagues with a little bit of envy as they tell stories of which hotel they were billeted in, or of how the other one did not need to fall in (a really long) line just to get a free copy of the MIMS because the med rep delivers it right to the doorstep of her clinic. Two words. Big. Time.

Yet I also long for a life that will enable me to attend PTA meetings, to help kids with their homework, to exercise and run around our village or do yoga, to spend time in my little joys like working on crossword puzzles or doing cross-stitching, or a future activity that I hope to learn and enjoy – tend to our little garden.

Is it possible? Or do I need to give up this very idea of fence-sitting and make a firm decision re which path to take?

Help me, Lord. Please enlighten me. Hold me by the hand and lead the way. Right now I pray for patience and let You do Your work and unfold the life that You’ve always meant me to live and enjoy. Let me live a full life, oh Lord. Bless me and my family always. Bless me and my work. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Silliness and Shame

It shames me that I dare to feel and think this way when everything in life is going well. Everyone in the family is healthy (save for my tinnitus). There is food on the table. There are two sets of helping hands. Our new house is almost done. And all are at peace.

This past week brought with it feelings of emptiness and discontent. As silly as it may sound, I am fraught with worry that because everything is going very well, something really terrible is bound to happen. It will pounce on me like a sharp-toothed predator and leave me stunned. Will I die a sudden death in a car crash? Will someone in the family fall seriously ill? This feeling of dread leaves me drained of happiness and energy. Knowing how crazy it all is makes it even doubly hard. How silly can a supposedly educated person get?

Dearest A,

Driving to L_____ this morning gave me much time to pause and think. I realize how increasingly difficult it has become to discipline our three kids. Each has his or her own unique personality, and for reasons that are still unclear to me, they seem to put on their worst behavior whenever we are around. An attempt at catching our attention? Probably.

I also thought about what happened last night when the kids were noisily playing on our bed and they woke you up from your sleep, causing you to kick the Big Boy’s toys off the bed. I know you did not mean to do it. Please bear with me as I share with you some of my thoughts. I admit I am far from being a patient mother myself. Just an hour before that incident, I threw the empty alcohol bottle to show how displeased I was that Little One played with and wasted my stuff again. I have huge planks in my eye that need to be weeded out. I write this because we are a team. And as a team, our aim is to raise and love our kids the best way we can.

I found the incident a very sad moment. When the toys flew off of the bed and landed on the floor, the Big Boy did not show any change in the expression on his face. He had spent a considerable amount of time arranging those toys to make them look like a ship… you know how fond he is of building things. After the incident, he neither showed anger nor hurt, not even surprise. I found it very sad that he simply went about picking up his toys and rearranging them as if having toys thrown off beds was a most natural and ordinary occurrence in our home.

You and I both work very hard to give them the best and most comfortable life we can give. Sometimes, it makes us too tired to listen to their tiny and mundane concerns and, I speak for myself here hon, I admit that most days it is easier to just lie in bed and read my book or Facebook than to listen or spend time with them. You’re better off as I can see your effort in taking time to read them storybooks. I am guilty and today I pray to the Lord that He would send all the help we need so we can be the parents that He has meant us to be. As I’ve read somewhere, no amount of success can compensate for failure in the home. If I become a successful ______gist but turn out to be a bad mother, I would consider my life a complete waste. May God bless us both and teach us always. I love you so much.

K

Mindlessness

I finally got around to doing the groceries. Yesterday, I felt a sharp pang of guilt as I reached for our coffee canister only to find it empty. More so when I wanted to make some milk for the kids at breakfast and was told by our kasambahay, “Ate, wala na rin po”. Ayayay, what kind of a mother am I? Too busy the whole week and spent my free time working on frustrating and utterly useless crossword puzzles… honestly, spending bucks on booklets of puzzles to torture myself? Please remind me to smack myself on the forehead. Not to mention my mindless FB-ing (a.k.a. Facebook-ing)… aaargh.

This morning as I drove towards home from the supermarket, my youngest and I got entangled in a huge traffic jam. It was a beautiful morning, and I was proud because the little one was very much behaved. The jam was terrible and I had gotten pretty irked and allowed no one to drive past me. Sisingit-singit ka d’yan, gitgitan to the max! Thank heavens I was spared from a dent or scratch but as I sat there I thought to mysef – goodness, what creature have I turned myself into? How could I have turned from this neophyte driver whose armpits were drenched with sweat despite the airconditioning and who took much care and prayed with every turn and into this impatient, wreckless, arrogant witch? And in such a short span of time! Aaaack! Another smack on the forehead.

Enough! More mindfulness! More patience! More cool! Praise God for loving me in spite of.