加载中…多伦多第一次医院就诊
(2019-03-21 10:37:42)
标签：
急诊就医多伦多突然听力下降 |
分类： 成长日记 |
Tony
noticed that he lost some hearing in his left ear last Friday
morning. We didn't get alerted. He said he had had this problem
quite a few times before, but would get the hearing back after a
day or so. Might be water from a shower getting in the ear? We
thought.
Last
night, Feng left for scouting, I was home "alone". Tony had moved
to his room, meaning that we wouldn't see him in living room
anymore unless he was eating with us together, which was getting
rarer. So I was literally alone.
I got
on my cellphone just because I didn't have anything I had to do at
the moment. And then the thought "sudden hearing loss" came into my
mind, so I googled it. What I read alerted me right away. It said
that "sudden hearing loss" was a medical emergency. Many people
missed the best window, within 72 hours, for treatment because it
didn't hurt and they didn't put much thought to it, and therefore
lost the best chance for recovery, and left the hearing loss
permanent. "Medical emergency" sounded urgent and
serious.
All
the symptoms described there sounded the same with what Tony was
experiencing, such as "found out after woke up in the morning",
"most likely happens only in one ear", "unknown reason", "ringing
in the troubled ear". It was Tuesday night. Tony found the problem
last Friday. Meaning that five days had passed. I got a bit
anxious.
We
didn't have any experience with hospitals in Toronto, luckily. So I
googled right away where to go to get him checked and treated.
"Sunnybrook hospital" was what I got, and I liked it. This hospital
was a prestigious one and it sounded promising. Their website said
that we needed a referral to see a specialist called a
Otolaryngologist, or ENT for ear, nose, throat.
"Medical emergency", yet you need a referral.
That didn't make sense. However, we started planning for that. We
would go see our family doctor first thing in the morning to get
the referral. Then what? Just sit home and wait for the call? It
hurt me to think how long it might take to get the call to see an
ENT. If our family doctor Liung wasn't available, we would see
whatever doctors available there in that clinic. Or we would go to
Sunnybrook Emergency department directly. That might be a better
idea. I just wanted to get Tony checked as soon as possible,
ideally, tomorrow.
When
Feng got home, I told him my findings about "hearing loss" and my
plans. He agreed with me a hundred
percent.
The
next day morning, troubled by how much precious time we would be
wasting on family doctor and referral and the uncertain waiting for
the call from ENT, I decided that we should give a call to the ENT
department. We didn't know what to expect from them or even what to
ask them with this call, but we would call and see. Just in
case.
Feng
made the call. He simply told them what happened and we didn't know
what to do. The nurse on the line was super helpful. After a couple
of exchanges, she made an appointment for us with an ENT at 1:30
the same day, without asking for a referral. We were very thankful,
and also once again being surprised by how flexible they could be.
Humanity.
It
turned out what caused the hearing problem was just earwax, a lot
of earwax, seventeen years of accumulation of it. Feng watched the
whole process how they removed the wax. Earwax was just what I had
wished to be the cause. So nothing was wrong and we were
relieved.
I
felt we wasted their time and the rare hospital resources, but the
nurse said we were right to take action right away and to take him
to the Emergency. They were really thoughtful. We both took a day
off from work for this. We made a bit of fuss about this. So
what.
The
result was so good, and the whole time with this hospital was very
pleasant. We were very happy and felt blessed.
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