Sounds like maybe 60% is all we're going to get

A 41 days post-SSNHL check-in

I’m 41 days in. Past the window where the doctors said my hearing in my right ear might return.

It didn’t.

Well—to be fair, some did. But everything over ~5000 Hz? Gone. Not low volume. Totally gone.

The tinnitus is still raging—a constant, high-pitched, broken-lightbulb-buzz slicing through any silence. And yet, somehow, I’ve managed to stay weirdly positive. Focused. Doing the work. Seeing the specialists. Trying all the treatments. Staying grounded.

I even went through an intratympanic steroid injection—where they numb you up (kind of), then pierce the eardrum with a needle to inject steroids directly into the middle ear. Sounds barbaric. Feels like hope. It didn’t work.

Today, I woke up and the fog had already rolled in. Not outside—inside. I can move, I can function, but everything feels very fucking heavy. That quiet optimism I’d been holding? It vanished. I am in mourning for the sounds I will never hear again evenly between two ears.

I want to write something meaningful. I want to have a point. But maybe today isn’t about a point. Maybe it’s not a story about healing, or productivity, or how important branded podcasts are.

Maybe it’s just this: I feel really pissed and sad. I’ve done everything right, and my ear doesn’t care. It’s just being a shitty ear. Obstinate. Buzzing. Broken. And this is very likely my new reality.

So, that’s where I’m sitting today—in the space between effort and escape.
The in-between.

If I could apply to be severed today, I might. I think I can see the advantage. Working to complete Cold Harbor sounds easier than editing dialogue with a bum ear hole right now.