I know, it's been forever since I posted last. Seems like the last year or two has really been a ride! After listing our house for over two years we finally sold it last June and moved into a rental in Hayden in hopes that we could pounce on 'the one' that would inevitably come on the market. After another year of searching and also looking at the possibility of building we stubbornly came to the conclusion that there would be a chance of a snow ball in hell before we could even come close to be able to afford to build what we wanted. So with most things in life we changed our search criteria a bit and found something that I think we can grow into and enjoy until the kids move out...and it's only a block down the road! Win Win!
So that's the positive news...the not-so-positive news is that health issues have arisen and have caused some not-so-awesome crap to happen. Close to two years ago I realized that my ear had been plugged for a very long time, and after watching it a bit I also noticed eye movement that matched my heart rate with raised blood pressure. The ENT I visited ordered an allergy test, which I KNEW I would fail miserably...and bingbottaboom...I started taking three allergy shots a week. Buuuutt...after 6 months of getting poked and shot up every week my symptoms didn't improve. So the ENT ordered a CT scan and we ultimately found a little hole in my inner ear that shouldn't have been there. It turns out I have something called Superior Semicircular Canal Dehiscence (SSCD). In a normal ear, there are three canals set at different angles that are the structures responsible for sending signals to the brain about head position and balance. The superior canal extends up into the base of the scull before coming back down into the cochlea. On a normal ear, there is a layer of scull bone between the superior canal and the brain cavity. With my ear, the canal has come in contact with the scull at the bottom of the brain cavity and an extra 'window' into the canal has been created where there shouldn't be one. This site kinda explains it more: http://vestibular.org/superior-canal-dehiscence-scd
Over time my balance became worse, especially with raised heart rate. The symptoms that accompany my extra ear-hole are:
1. Eye movement with heart beat. This only occurs after elevated heart pressure/rates. For instance after I've climbed a couple flights of stairs I need to put effort into relaxing and lowering my hear rate so my eyes don't 'shift' while trying to read. This has provided tons of practice on relaxation methods. Nothing says 'chill the hell out' like 'relax or your world will spin!' I have found zen though probably for the entirely wrong reasons.
2. Autonomy - this word describes hearing yourself talk, chew, walk...and whatever else sends shock through your body. Wearing cowboy boots, though very comfortable on the feet, was uncomfortable for the head - I could hear every step. If it was quiet enough I could even hear my eyes and neck muscles move.
3. Full ear feeling - like my ear was always plugged. I could still hear out of the hear very well but it was just uncomfortable.
4. Sensitivity to loud noises. I have played drums for years and recently tried to pick them back up to find out if I hit a drum too hard it would make my head vibrate. Kinda like a cartoon! Walking through the weld shop at work became impossible without ear protection. This also included talking loud too. If I was caught in the shop with a question I would make myself dizzy by trying to talk loud enough so they could hear me over the background noise of the machine or weld shop.
All these symptoms I believe have also led me to become extremely tired very fast throughout the day. It started to make sense when I heard others with this disorder talk about the 'brain fog' it caused. Over time I noticed that I had a difficult time focusing on things that used to be really easy for me to do at work. Short-term memory was punishing at work when I couldn't remember what meetings I had or who I had to talk to. I became dependent on my laptop and smartphone to keep my schedule and to-do's straight. I also had a hard time remembering what was supposed to be happening at home during the week. My wife and I would usually talk Sunday afternoon and go over all the things going on that week and all would be good. I kept finding myself trying to use Google Calendar to keep my week straight. Writing a good e-mail took twice as long and I found myself double- and triple-checking the wording before I would send them because sometimes I would find that I said something twice or left something else out entirely. All-in-all it's become a real problem that I decided I couldn't live with, so we starting looking into surgical solutions.
