Sweet Yet Sour

I long for silence; I ache for it, but not for the reasons you might think.  I do not wish for quiet because of the crying baby, or the screaming cat, or the noise of the city.  I wish for it because even if I go to the quietest place on earth, it will not be silent for me.

One day four years ago the quiet and peace that I used to enjoy ended.  Sometime in the fall of 2004 a ringing began in my ears that has not ceased since.

Mike and I were in the throes of planning our wedding when the ringing began.  I simply woke up one day to discover that no matter what I tried, I heard a ringing in my ears.  I kept thinking it would go away, but after two weeks I couldn’t take it anymore and went to see my doctor.  He looked at my ears, tested my hearing (which was fine) and decided I needed to see a specialist.

The Ear Nose and Throat doctor (ENT) that I went to see also tested my hearing (which was still fine), looked at my ears and could not see anything wrong.  We sat for a while discussing possibilities and finally we drifted into the topic of the wedding planning.

Our wedding was not what Mike and I had discussed initially and was not what I had pictured for myself.  Mike and I had discussed a quiet, small wedding in the mountains somewhere with only a few close family members attending.  It was with great regret that due to the pressures of certain family members we did away with our original plan.  We began instead on planning (and paying for ourselves) a larger wedding.  It ended up not being my dream wedding, but it was a nice wedding anyway.  I have fond memories of the ceremony and the lovely Butterfly Pavilion where we had the wedding to accommodate the larger crowd.

Without knowing it, the stress of this had caused me to begin to grind my teeth at night.  I awoke every morning with a huge headache and facial pain, but did not really understand the cause.  Finally the ENT decided that I had been grinding my teeth enough to cause the ringing in my ears.   He suggested I see my dentist about a teeth guard that I could wear to cut down on the symptoms of my nighttime jaw clenching.

The dentist fitted me with a guard and I began to hope that I could once again listen to Bach and Mozart with pure enjoyment.  I also really looked forward to being able to sit in a quiet room and not hear the ringing in my ears.

Sadly, although the teeth guard stopped the headaches and facial pain, it has never been able to resolve the tinnitus (the medical term for ringing ears).  After four years I am mostly used to it and have stopped crying about the lack of silence.  But every once in a while I really wish I could stop the ringing for just a moment and have the world be quiet once again.