More Noise, More Hearing Loss, More Isolation

I lost my hearing one early spring day shortly after my 30th birthday. I heard the phone ring, but when I put it to my ear no one was there. “Hello?” I said. “Hello???” I tried the other ear, the right. It worked just fine.

I tried other calls, first the right ear, then the left. The left seemed inexplicably dead. I was more puzzled than distressed. I went over the possible explanations that come to anyone with sudden hearing loss. Maybe I had wax in my ear, or an infection. Had I forgotten some loud noise that might have temporarily deafened me? Once before, I had lost my hearing (in both ears) after being at a rock concert in Madison Square Garden. The Who, March 1976. That time it came back on its own. So would this, I thought. Or a doctor would fix it.