My ears never recovered from the first day of hypberbaric treatment. They didn’t hurt but I felt extremely uncomfortable, and I was paranoid that they had been damaged. If I yawned real wide, they popped and gave me a blessed split second of clarity before once again becoming clogged. I spent the night reading everything I could find about burst eardrums and the dangers of hearing loss due to air pressure before I finally passed out. When I woke up, the pressure had abated a bit, but as soon as I got out of bed it felt worse than ever. Every word I said seemed to pound through my skull, while outside sounds were muffled at best.
The first thing I said when I entered the hyperbaric room was, “My ears are still fucked up.” The tech said that was common, and when she shone a light in my ears she said they didn’t look too bad.
She asked what I wanted to watch inside the chamber. I said I didn’t care. She asked what I liked and I said artsy fartsy shit. She put on a movie about a woman who stays the same age while everyone around her gets older. It was terrible but I kind of liked it, aside from the fact that all the actors seemed to be made out of plastic, except Ellen Burstyn, who still looked good in her eighties.
Almost immediately I felt like somewone was stabbing me in the ear with an icepick. I pounded on the glass and the tech turned down the pressure before gradually raising it slowly. She turned the TV volume TV up as high as it would go.
Afterwards she checked my ears again and said they looked inflamed. She said not to worry about it, that they would probably be like this for another week until they acclimated. I went for my check up in the next room. I was disappointed to see that the substitute doctor was on; she’s nice, but not nearly as attentive as my usual doctor. The sub always seemed a little distracted. Today she told me she’s reading the book of interviews between the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu. She talked about how people use God to justify the worst behaviors.
“He’s always on their side, you ever notice that? Even when they switch sides.” She talked about how worried she is that conspiracy theories have become such a part of mainstream discourse.
“It’s true,” I said. “Growing up I had a friend we called Conspiracy Joe. Now we just call him Joe.”
She said she was going to check my lab results. She disappeared through the curtain and didn’t come back.
On the bus ride home, a woman hacked repeatedly without covering her mouth every time someone sat down next to her. The other person would immediately get up and move and the woman would look around and smile and say, “Guess I scared them off.”
I stopped by the grocery store, where everyone seemed even more deranged than usual. I was in a wretched mood by the time I got home. I tried to think of something that would make me feel better but every joyful thing I imagined made me feel worse. I tried to listen to an interview with Desmond Tutu but I couldn’t appreciate their wisdom. My ears were too fucked up.
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