Of Ears and E-mails

The news came via e-mail: “Well, the day has come. Last week, while visiting my friend Andie in Cincinnati, my right ear started to change and slowly my hearing aid has become useless. I am now profoundly deaf. … I'm O.K. with that—as much as one can be; I've had 4 years to prepare.” With that Internet message to me and my otolaryngology colleague, Dr. Francis, Stacey informed us that our efforts to preserve her hearing had failed. During the time I had been her doctor, I had admired much in Stacey. Feeling utterly powerless in the wake of her e-mail, I realized then that my admiration for her had only begun. Once again, a patient was teaching me a lesson in strength.

When I met Stacey—now some 67 doctors' visits ago—she had been suffering from a puzzling ailment for several months. In 1998, she had frightening paroxysms of vertigo and hearing loss, followed by redness and swelling of her right eye. The rapid and severe onset of her symptoms forced her to take a temporary leave of absence from her job as a software marketing executive. This constellation of symptoms had led to the tentative (and incorrect) diagnosis of Wegener granulomatosis. Despite the difficulty of pinning a definitive name on her problem, Stacey had improved with treatment (the familiar steroids and cyclophosphamide) by the time I met her. We labored together without a clear diagnosis for months, but, in time, were able to taper off her potentially dangerous therapy. The medications helped return her hearing to almost its …