Traumatized (Post is a bit TMI)

I've never been probed there before! My nose!

So I went to see an otologist yesterday. I'm not really sure if he specializes in ear medicine...of the modern age. Let me explain my situation first.

Recently, my right ear has been bothering me. There isn't any pain, but it feels as if the pressure is off. It constantly feels as if I'm still at high altitudes. It's only my right ear. Over the weekend I took a short trip to Hokkaido, while I was still recovering from my cold, and I have a feeling that was the cause. On my first flight over, I suddenly heard a loud ringing in my right ear as the plane was landing. Then POP. And there was some immense pain that followed. Unfortunately, the pressure returned immediately.

So after a few days back on land I thought it would go away. It hasn't. I asked the school nurse to recommend an ear doctor in the area and had my supervisor translate my symptoms and story into Japanese. I went after work and checked in on my own. The staff is friendly and patient with me considering my inability to understand some of the medical terms. Although there were several others in the waiting room, I didn't wait long before being called in.

I walked into the room and I was horrified. I'm not exaggerating--I felt my heart start to race a little bit. I was led to a chair, similar to the ones you would see at the dentist's office, and to my left was a metallic table with what I imagined were various scalpels, tubes, and probes. I sat down and clung to my handbag. When I settled down, I took another look at the table. It was everything I thought I saw, minus the scalpels. That provided little relief considering my closer observation showed me how old and rusted everything looked.

The doctor came over. He has a gentle face like a grandfather with eyes I can barely see when he smiles. Then the examination started.

He checked both my ears and from the right he used a long, tweezer-like instrument to extract a huge clump of ear wax. Then he wiped it off and placed it back on the table. I wondered how often they cleaned their tools. The removal had little affect. He explained something in Japanese, but I could only catch pieces of what sounded like "cold" and "ear canal." He pointed to an internal picture of the human ear connected to the nasal passages. His fingers motioned near the throat area. Then he proceeded to take a thin tube, the kind you might see used by a dentist for suction, and he stuck it up my nose. It shot out what felt like air and pain. "kusuri." Medicine. He asked me to stick out my tongue and open wide. Out of no where he takes a cotton ball and shoves it down my throat! I think there was some sort of numbing agent in the medicine. When he threw it away I noticed it was bright red. I hope that was the medicine. "yappari hareteru." My throat was inflammed or swollen.

They tested my hearing and my right ear was weaker at hearing. The doctor showed me a graph of the results. Then the big guns came out. He asked me to place something into my right ear and the other end of the tube went into his ear. Then he stuck something up my right nostril, turned on the air and forced it in. OH MY BUDDHA it hurt to the point where I was whining, "ittai ittai..." It hurts, it hurts. My fingers gripped the arm rests as he moved over to the left.

When they were finished I was prescribed some medicine. Then they pointed to a calendar and said that the medicine would only last a week. I should sign up for another visit within the week. I scruntched my face and told them I would come on the last day if it wasn't better. I definitely want to avoid that procedure by all means.

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Last night, I felt like I hadn't been able to breathe like that in months. My sinuses were cleared, but my ear didn't feel any different.

My supervisor just called and asked what the procedure was. The simple explanation we got was that my nasal passage was probably inflammed or closed up, which affected the ear. So the procedure was to open it up. My guess is that its from all the times I blew my nose this past month. The good news is that I don't have to go back if that one time was all that it took to help my ears. The bad news is that this morning both my ears feel funny....