Ear Problems and a Katrina Injury

January 2006

Dennis has been having trouble with his neck and ear, and it's been dragging on and on. To quickly summarize part of the story, he's had a bad ear infection. I theorize that he got it in Kuwait.

The doctor has been a little slow figuring out exactly what's going on. Early in the fall just after his first Hurricane Katrina relief trip to Gulfport, Dennis went to the doctor. He complained that his ear hurt and had pressure in it, that he had headaches that seemed to come up from the back of his head, and that he had a little lump in his neck. Also, he told the doctor that he had been wearing earplugs to sleep at night and that he had seen blood on the earplugs one morning. The doctor looked at his ears, saw nothing wrong, and told him to stop using the earplugs. (Good advice, but there was much more wrong than that.)

Then Dennis went on another Hurricane Katrina relief trip, this time to New Orleans. While he was there, he had a bad fall off the back of the semi-trailer they were using for storage. (You grab the rope and step off the trailer, and the rope pulls the door down as you ride to the ground. Well, Dennis missed the rope.) He landed on his neck and shoulder and jammed them severely. The sports medicine specialist who treated Dennis in New Orleans said that the lump in his neck might be a pulled muscle which could explain the headaches, and that anti-inflammatories and muscle relaxers might help it. (This diagnosis was wrong.)

Soon after that, Dennis came home and went back to our doctor to have his neck and shoulder checked. He also pointed out to the doctor that he still had the lump in his neck and was suffering a lot of discomfort. This time the doctor said the lump was a swollen lymph gland and it wasn't going to get well until Dennis quit feeling it all the time. (Once again, good advice, but the serious underlying problem remained undiagnosed.)

A couple of weeks ago, Dennis went back and said, "Look, there's something wrong with my neck and head and ears and you have to figure out what it is." So that day, the doctor ordered a CT scan, and lo and behold, they discovered that Dennis had an ear infection that had developed into mastoiditis. The doctor prescribed a round of antibiotics and then a round of anti-inflamatory meds. Now the lump is a little less swollen and the pain in Dennis's neck is better -- but still not gone. (Finally, a diagnosis and some semi-effective treatment.)

Today he went back to the doctor again, and now the doctor thinks that he may have some lingering nerve damage from his fall. He pressed on a nerve ending in his neck and Dennis he nearly went through the ceiling with pain. So now Dennis is taking a round of steroids to reduce inflammation. The first day he takes 6 pills, the second day 5, the third day 4, and so on. 

Dennis asked the doctor if there were any side effects to taking this drug, and the doctor said he should expect to be quite irritable. "Don't fire anybody," the doctor said. I told Dennis that if he gets any customer complaints at work, he'd better let his boss handle them. Dennis on steroids -- oh, brother!

The doctor has been documenting the Workmen's Comp aspects of this so Dennis can get any benefits he might be entitled to, but I really hope that he's going to get over all this and feels OK again one of these days.

Concerns about the lump on Dennis's neck (thought to be a lymph gland) were not resolved until 2018 when an ear, nose, and throat specialist determined that it was a lipoma (a fatty benign tumor.) He removed it at the same time that he operated on Dennis's sinuses.