This morning I called my primary care doctor and asked the receptionist if I should go there first, or straight to a specialist. She said to come there, and gave me an 11:15am appointment. So I left work and went over there, and my doctor was pretty surprised by how big the hole was in my right eardrum. She couldn’t see anything on the left side because the blood had “formed a film” over everything. She said I should see an ENT doctor right away, and I ended up with an appointment in Manassas at 3:30pm. I’d left things at work (expecting to be back) and I hadn’t turned on my out-of-office, so I had to go back to Fort Belvoir first. I spent about an hour there and then left for the appointment.

The specialist looked at my right eardrum and said it was about 25% gone. He said that might seem like a huge hole to a primary care doctor, but “we see that kind of thing all the time.” Well gee, 25% sounds like a lot to me, too! He looked in my left ear and confirmed that there was a big blood clot there, and he said he could fix that right away. So he brought me into another room and sat me in a big chair next to some big machines, and he proceeded to fix it. This involved ear drops, peroxide (which sounds like Rice Krispies in your ear), vacuuming, and a bit of pulling with skinny tweezers. At one point I said ouch, and he said “sorry, it’s like pulling off a scab, it’s going to hurt a bit…see, there’s the blood clot!” And silly me, I looked…sure enough, it looked like a tiny scab - ew!

I asked about the possibility of a loaner hearing aid, having explained first thing that I was an interpreter. (He asked if I worked for an agency; when I told him which one he seemed to recognize it.) He said there was no possibility of that kind of thing because they don’t make hearing aids for such a mild loss. I should have told him that if I could notice difficulty hearing, and I had to keep asking people to repeat themselves, then it was enough to need correcting for my job…but I didn’t say any of that. I didn’t do any interpreting at work today (I was barely there), so I will find out tomorrow if my work is truly going to be suffering as a result of this. If it is, I will contact fairerhiannon to ask if she has any advice, since she deals with assistive technology for the deaf in her job. I found some possibilities on eBay - my mother had suggested this kind, but it’s too obvious; there’s also this kind, which might not stay in the same way my earbuds wouldn’t stay in, and there’s this kind which has a nice long piece that goes inside your ear (and thus might not fall out). I’m not sure yet what I’m going to do…do I want to wait until I’m in a situation where I have trouble interpreting, or do I want to have help in my pocket just in case? Is it worth it for only 2-3 months? I don’t know.

By the way…is there any doctor in the world who is not running late 80% of the time? I had to wait half an hour past my appointment time at both offices today. And of course for the second one, I had just sent a message to Grescha asking that very question…when the guy walked in the room. Oh well.