The Bell Keeps Ringing

There are many wonderful things that happen as you grow older and more comfortable with yourself, the people around you, and how you want to live your life.

Unfortunately, that also happens alongside your body getting fucked up.

Recently, Patrick was diagnosed with tinnitus in his ears. It prompted some introspection on the aging process, dealing with permanent change, and more.

We all end up in the same place eventually, but how we get there is different.

Patrick: So. Appendicitis. Hernia repair. Herniated disc. Shattered collar bone. Broken finger. 

I’ve had my share of injuries over the years, but in every instance, I could fix them. No lasting impact. No change in my day-to-day. I could forget it ever happened, and baby, life kept moving. 

A week ago, I walked out of a doctor appointment with the understanding my body had recently undergone a permanent and unwelcome change. A small amount of hearing loss, whose fault cannot be pinned down but could certainly be attributed to anything from merely the passage of time to a small child yelling in your ear at full blast, had resulted in a singular diagnosis: tinnitus. 

I can hear it right now, in fact, because writing about it is, in effect, acknowledging its presence.

Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee. 

Tinnitus is much like a vampire, a creature you invite in. A small and persistent ringing, almost like a dial tone. It drifts in and out of consciousness throughout the day. There is no pain. But it’s annoying, like a mosquito that’s circling your ear. With a mosquito, at least, you can squish the damn thing. The best I can hope for is learning to live with it, trying a weird set of vitamins that have been recommended to me by various people online, and putting fans all over the house.

It’s most present in my left ear, though my doctor tells me the hearing loss seems to be in my right ear. It’s hard to say, except that there’s nothing to be done about it. You’ve lost some hearing, sir. Godspeed. It will not get better, but don’t worry, you can certainly make it worse.

I can’t remember when the ringing started. When I tore my hernia(s) roughly a decade ago, the specialist asked if I was a weight lifter, because such incidents at my age were often associated with such activities. I’d been swimming recently, so maybe it was just swimmer’s ear, I told myself. No reason to panic. When the drops to clear that up didn’t work, I went to an urgent care and felt relieved when the doctor noticed irritation in my ear. Probably just an infection, they told me. Down the hatch, amoxicillin! Again, no reason to panic. A week later, though, my ears were clean, any infection was now long gone, and yet, when the house got quiet, my ears were not. 

Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee. 

Time to panic.

This all happened while my wife was out of town, which meant at night, I had more time to myself. More time to sit with the ringing. Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee. It would cause my heart rate to quicken, which would cause me to think about the ringing, which would then intensify its effects.

Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee.

Even typing it out seems to ratchet up the cicada-like hum. I’ll be happy to finish this essay.

It is strange to realize that something is “wrong” with you, to be reminded of it so often. Much like a sore back, tinnitus is not always present. You can convince yourself it’s gone, that you’re magically better. But the moment you think about tinnitus, it creeps up and rings, rings, rings.

Knock, knock.

I first resisted looking to the internet for answers, and instead booked time with my primary physician, who sent me to a specialist. She suspected it was hearing loss. And she was right. 

It is strange to come out of a diagnosis with relief at avoiding catastrophe, yet still defeated.

For decades, one of my defining traits was people telling me “oh, you look so young.” That’s still true. Most people don’t believe I have kids, and while it happens with less frequency, some folks will knock on my front door and ask if my parents are home. I still don’t have any grey hair and despite my best efforts, cannot reasonably grow a beard or other facial hair. Instead, the outside world looks at me and suspects a 28-year-old, when in reality, I’m several months past 40 and trying to restrain myself from spending hundreds on fancy noise machines that promise solace.

Solace, my doctor told me, is living with it. Ignoring it. Coming to terms with change.

But doc, haven’t you seen this One Weird Trick people are using? Would the local drug store really sell “tinnitus medication” that wouldn’t work? People do tell me the trick works, though, and I probably will try the different pills people recommended because, well, fuck it. Why not? These aren’t random strangers on the internet, they’re my random internet strangers, dammit.

Others have it worse than me. If you were to spin a wheel of ailments, tinnitus is one I might’ve said I could live with. And because my dad passed of a heart attack, I’ve often joked to other people that I’m going to spend my life traumatized over the prospect of dying the same way, only to be taken out by something else. Tinnitus feels like one step on the road to exactly that. 

But…it still feels momentous. A notable stop on the train of life. A reminder that you’re going forward, not backwards, and while you can stunt the momentum, it comes for you, inevitably.

While checking out, a woman at the office tapped me on the shoulder. Turns out, she’s spent years listening to me on podcasts, notably during my time at Giant Bomb. “Maybe I can blame Ryan [Davis] for this hearing loss, then,” I joked back to her, before she returned to work. 

No, it wasn’t Ryan. There is but one simple and normal truth: I’m just getting old and it sucks.

Now, time to think about anything else.

Eeeeeeee. Eeeeeeee.

Rob: So we’re done with the letters about the pleasures of aging into comfortable middle age, huh?