Ear escapades, Running from the rain

So yesterday I had a follow up visit with the ear doctor.  I have to say I have not been impressed with their operation.  When I went to my first appointment last week early in the morning I had to wait 45 minutes to get in and then spent most of the morning doing the same thing, waiting.  Well yesterday my appointment wasn’t until 3:15.  I again had a long wait of over 60 minutes.

To me if an office consistently is late getting patients in that means they are overbooking the time slots.  It isn’t rocket science. The experience isn’t made any better by the receptionist that seems to be in a permanent bad mood.  I also found it annoying that they wanted to take my credit card for my $35 co-pay before I even saw anybody.

So I finally was called back and met with the actual ear doctor instead of his PA.  He was an old man that has certainly looked at thousands of ears during his career.  He asked me if I had been taking the steroid.  I told him I had for 5 days but have not noticed any change in the symptoms.  I did tell him I started noticing I had drainage down my throat the last few days but he said that was probably a side effect of the prednisone.  The amount of fluid in an ear is so small you would not feel it in your throat.

He too seemed a bit oblivious to the circumstances of the incident, seeming to think that the gym incident was perhaps a coincidence and the hearing loss was caused by something else.  I assured him it was not and described it as someone flipping a switch.  He wants me to finish the prednisone and get the ear MRI to make sure nothing major is going on in there.  He again mentioned the possibility of it being a “fistula” which is a small tear in the membrane between the middle and inner ear.  If it is that, they either heal by themselves or don’t.

When I read up on the condition it repeatedly mentions severely restricting physical activity during the first 7-14 days which I obviously have not been adhering to.  I probably should try to dial it back but my inner taskmaster doesn’t feel the same way.  The low ear ringing and diminished hearing out of that side is annoying but not a show stopper.  Regardless it would be nice to not go through the remainder of my life with the sound of a leaking capacitor permanently in my head.

Last night I wanted to get out on the wheel and ride.  The problem was it was pouring rain at the house.  I threw the Ninebot One in the Prius and hoped to find a nearby dry spot.  Luckily the precipitation stopped just before I arrived at the middle school.  I had a decent ride of almost five miles around the area.  There were some kids around the school for some event that were interested in my one wheeled wizardry.  One of them yelled out “Hey, can I try it?” , I instantly yelled back, “TOO DANGEROUS!”  I also had people just yelling at me randomly as I cruised down the sidewalk by Oil Well Road.  It was hard to tell but they sounded like sounds of approval.

I had no crashes but could feel some fatigue in my legs from Sunday’s run followed by 13 miles+ of riding on two bots.  When the legs feel tired the responsiveness definitely suffers.