In this morning, I took the test to check if my balance nerve is getting better. In the last June, I had herpes zoster oticus that pretty much screwed up my left auditory, facial and balance nerves. I mean who thought viral infection can screw up all three my nerves? Ha! Fortunately, my facial paralysis is mostly gone, and my hearing is back to normal (kinda). But, I have been still having balance problem, especially dizziness! So, I went to see the specialist here in Minnesota. Last November, when I first time saw him, he made me go through all sorts of testing to see how my three nerves were doing. Obviously, my auditory and facial nerves were happy nerves, but my balance nerve was, well, according to the test, 64% lost its function. But, the doctor thought it might get better since my other two nerves recovered quite well.
Sooooo, I had follow-up test in this morning. The test itself wasn't really pleasant because basically they wanted to make me dizzy!! One of the tests was blowing the hot and cold air into the ear which was supposed to make me (or any healthy people) dizzy. I got pretty dizzy when she was blowing the air in my right ear, but I didn't get dizzy at all when she blew the air into my left ear. The woman who was administering the test said, “okay, we need to try it again because you are supposed to get dizzy!” So, she repeatedly blew hot air into my left ear. I think we tried five times... Then, finally she said, “oh, this is not good. If you don't get dizzy, that means your left side of balance is totally gone!” I really hoped she didn't tell me that because I kinda got depressed!! I just answered, “hmm, that’s not good.” What else was I supposed to say! So, she tried cold air for the last time, and she said, “ooh, I got something!!!” By the way, she was checking my eye movement (I was hooked up with electros) because dizziness causes rapid eye movement, so she could tell if I was getting dizzy or not. Since she got something, I said, “oh, that’s good!” Then, she said, “well, but your left balance nerve is severely damaged. It might be better if the function is all gone, so the nerve doesn’t send wrong signal to the brain.” Ha, so my barley functioning left balance nerve is sending wrong signal to my brain, and that's causing dizziness eh? So, I said to her I wish my left balance nerve was dead. Then, she said “oh, but you don't want that.” I mean really, she kept contradicting herself entire test!! Also, every time she made me dizzy, she asked me questions such as “what are girls’ names?” or “what’s in your refrigerator?” According to her, the brain tries to suppress dizziness, so asking those questions keep the brain busy, and she can check how much nerves are actually working. It does make sense, but she was making me dizzy, and I was dizzy, and she was asking me what I have in the refrigerator. I was like “I don’t know, I am freaking dizzy here!! Well, couple of tomatoes maybe!” I really did not enjoy the test, so I hope I don’t have to do this again.
After the test, the doctor told me that it seems that I lost 93% of left balance function. I was kinda sad, but well, what can I do really? Even my left balance is screwed up, I can still run and play video games, so I think that’s good enough for me! But, I noticed that I do bump into stuff a lot though. Well, it could be that’s because I am aging!! Or not!!
