Month: December 2020

Nine Months of Ringing

ssegraves

When the first lock downs in the United States were announced I was returning from a work trip to Montreal. On the flight home I had not felt great but was not worried about Covid-19. The next day I felt a little better and went out for a lunch at a restaurant not knowing it would be the last time I’d have a sit down meal inside of a place for now 9 months.  On Saturday I woke up with what I can only describe as the worst ear pain I have ever experienced. My left ear felt like it was going to explode. Nothing I did relieved the pain and I eventually gave in and went to a ZoomCare clinic because finding an appointment at my primary care physician was not possible. The ZoomCare nurse said “yep, you have an ear infection”, gave me some antibiotic drops and sent me home. At first it seemed like the drops were working but on the second day of using them I noticed fluid coming from my ear and then blood.

I returned to ZoomCare and they put me on stronger antibiotics but also suggested I see my primary care doctor. I gave that doctor a call as I left and while my doctor wasn’t available his nurse practitioner was so I was able to get in. When the nurse practitioner looked at my ear she became very concerned that the infection had moved into the bone in my ear canal. A couple of higher strength antibiotics were given, including an oral one to try and fight the infection internally. They also made an emergency appointment with an ENT (ear, nose, and throat) specialist in case the infection was in the bone.

The scheduling process for the ENT was not easy as Covid had pretty much shut the practice down. The schedulers wanted to make sure that the appointment was absolutely necessary and that I had no symptoms of Covid. Again, I was in excruciating pain, I couldn’t drive because it hurt to move my head certain ways.

My appointment required a Covid test but the visit itself went fine. The ENT was convinced that the infection was not in my bone. He did confirm that my eardrum had burst and applied some thick steroids and antibiotics to the eardrum and kept me on heavy duty antibiotics. He also stated that he thought it would be a quick recovery and that the pain should really start to fade in the next day or two.

Returning home from that appointment felt like relief. There was a plan, some meds, and an optimistic view from the doctor. Sure enough, the pain started to fade away the next day and I started to really feel like I was improving. A week went by and the pain was completely gone but I was still having fluid in my ear so I returned to the ENT (after another Covid test) where I was told that stronger steroids needed to be applied, so that was done. I was also told that my hearing would eventually return and to be patient.

The waiting

After two months of carefully treating my ear I still felt like I could not hear very well still had a constant ringing in my left ear from when all of this started. The ENT wanted me to come in and having a hearing test and to just double check my ear. My hearing test came back with my results essentially being no different than a test that was performed a few years ago. The doctor did notice some scar tissue on my eardrum but did not see any fluid behind it. His explanation for the ringing was that eventually it would fade.

But, here we are 7 months later and my left ear still rings. I still have trouble understanding conversation when there is a lot of background noise or if the conversation is more on my left side. Even small background noises interfere with my ability to fully hear and distinguish words in a conversation. During conversations the ringing is there but is mostly just an annoyance. During silent moments the ringing is distracting and frustrating because it is all I hear.

As a Covid vaccine makes its way around the world I am really hoping it is easier to find a new ENT to get a second opinion. The reduced hearing is my biggest concern with the ringing a close second. I’d like to be able to have a conversation with people without having to adjust my head or hear ringing in the background. That’s all I really want in 2021.

Prepping for the New Year with a New Look

ssegraves

In early November I hinted about a possible new look for this site and today I clicked the “update” button and took the plunge with a new design. It is a free design from the folks over at Themehaus and while I am still playing with the colors, I love the overall simplicity of the theme while keeping it easily readable. One of the quirks of the previous design was that the font was small and if you were reading on a large screen, the text became hard to read. Since it seems most people read directly on the site and not via RSS I focused on this as the main thing to change.

Hopefully people find this easier to read on their devices. If you would like to see a different set of fonts (ones maybe you find easier on the eyes), feel free to leave a comment with a suggestion.

Water to be Traded on Wall Street as a Commodity

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From Bloomberg:

Water joined gold, oil and other commodities traded on Wall Street, highlighting worries that the life-sustaining natural resource may become scarce across more of the world.

Farmers, hedge funds and municipalities alike are now able to hedge against — or bet on — future water availability in California, the biggest U.S. agriculture market and world’s fifth-largest economy. CME Group Inc.’s January 2021 contract, linked to California’s $1.1 billion spot water market, last traded Monday at 496 index points, equal to $496 per acre-foot.

It seems these futures are tied to the spot price of water rights in California, measured against 10 acre-feet of water (roughly 3.26 million gallons).

To be honest I am not sure how I feel about this. At the end of the article there is a quote from a researcher saying that there is currently no way for people to manage their water supply risk. I think that has the situation sideways, commodity doesn’t help you manage risk, it helps you make decisions based on general risk.