Officer Wes and Tom's 2008

Tom suddenly and intensely felt like his head was spinning and he would get very nauseous. His sense of balance was way off. He’d weeble, and wobble, and -- if we weren’t careful -- he’d fall down. It was especially spooky because the sensation was similar to when he lost his hearing in his right ear 20 years ago. We went to urgent care, pronto. Twice. The short of it was it didn’t appear to be an inner ear infection, and that prescription-strength Dramamine was quite helpful in the interim. We lined up audiologist and ENT appointments, but despite the severity of the symptoms the soonest we could get in his health system were a month away.

Meanwhile, cold and flu season cycled through the family.

When the audiologist appointment rolled around, it showed that there had been a 10% hearing loss in the audible range since July. Scary. The ENT found no ear disorder causing the balance problem, but could at least provide symptomatic relief for the vertigo through Dramamine II. It helped, but also made Tom sleepy and constipated. Use sparingly if possible.

February saw Officer Wes preparing for the annual trip back to Texas to see bio & Leather family.

March brought Tom’s annual disability medical review. We have no problem with the insurance company wanting one. What was weird this time was they slotted it with a doctor in Los Angeles, 126 miles away. Exhausting on Tom. We’d let them make an unreasonable request -- once.

We made followup appointments for the audiologist, the ENT, and other doctors. And rested.

Things quickly got weirder in April. In addition to the vertigo, Tom noticed Wednesday that his left eye vision was worse. We got in to see the ophthalmologist Thursday. He noticed something called “nystagmus”, where the eyes are twitching up and down. So, he made a referral to a neuro-ophthalmologist. On Friday, the vision in Tom’s right eye was worse. We went to the emergency room and got CT and MRI scans. The folks there didn’t notice anything unusual. On Monday we went and got a DVD with the scans, and brought them to the Tuesday neuro-ophthalmologist appointment. The sum of our 3-hour appointment: “Your nystagmus is ‘upbeat nystagmus’, where the eyes drift down and then bounce back up. It’s rare, and almost always in the brain stem. I’m about 75% certain that this spot [in the upper part of the medulla or pons section of the brain on the MRI] is not supposed to be there. It’s in the general location that could cause this. We should have a radiologist confirm the impression. If correct, we’ll have a neurologist do a spinal tap to get cerebral spinal fluid to look for infection or tumor cells.” Tom asked if this might also be the source of his vertigo. “It’s in the same general area that controls that as well, so it’s possible.”

In the meantime, there are three or four medications that may be helpful with the nystagmus symptoms.

[Two weeks later]

Oh my goodness what a difference a day makes…
: )

The radiologist said the spot on the MRI was normal. (We’re still waiting on the results of the spinal tap which was done later.)

The medication for Tom’s nystagmus REALLY helped the symptoms.

And, at one of the appointments for Tom’s hearing we heard two joyful things: 1) The hearing in the good left ear had returned to normal, and 2) there was a device called a BAHA (bone-attached hearing aid) that could make Tom’s hear on the deaf right side. We were able to borrow a trial clip-on version for a weekend, and it was indescribably joyful: Tom was able to hear on that side for the first time in 25 years.

We are thankful.

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