Today I Want to Blow My Head Off

You want to know what living with a brain injury is like?

Today, for example, I simply want to blow my head off.

Why? It’s not because I’m angry or I want to hurt myself. It’s because the ringing in my ears is so loud, so all-consuming, that it eclipses every other sound around me.

I suppose it was funny, earlier, when I mentioned to my husband that my abdominal muscles were sore. We’d been working out at the gym, and I’d been back at the crunch machine. It’s my favorite machine for ab work, but I can never remember the name of it. Because I awoke with a severe bout of tinnitus this morning, I thought I heard my husband refer to it as ‘the domino machine’. I started giggling, because I can’t imagine what a domino machine would do other than make me fall over.

“Domino machine?” I responded. “What is a domino machine?”

He looked at me strangely (as he often does) and said, “Ab-DOMINAL machine!”

I had woken up only a few minutes previously, and I’m afraid in my pre-coffee state, I couldn’t stop giggling whenever I imagined a domino machine at the gym, on which people would fall over and into each other. I imagined it taking over, knocking everyone down and leaving a serpentine trail around the perimeter of the gym.

But the unfunny part of this? I can’t hear when my injury-caused tinnitus is at its worst. Words get garbled, meanings are misread, the TV volume goes up, and I must ask everyone to repeat themselves.

Worse is the constant buzzing, the ‘wah-wah-wah’ vibrations that accompany the high-pitched squeal of the pealing brain bells. The reverberations make me blink; I can feel them pulse in the corners of my eyes.

It feels like someone is banging a hammer against a metal plate inside my brain.

Oh, I’ve been given medical recommendations and suggestions from other sufferers. Noise-cancelling headphones ‘sound’ like they might work, except that the moment I switch on the noise cancel feature the ringing has no escape and my head feels like it will explode.

One doc mentioned that low-volume radio or music helps. I understand the theory—that anything that creates some distraction from the incessant ringing might mitigate it. I suppose that might work for some, but my brain has to really focus to write, and I can’t concentrate if there is electrical noise (for example, radio or TV) playing in the background. Too many stimuli—and my noggin gets overwhelmed.

Supplements don’t seem to help much—I’ve tried several over the years. Physical therapies didn't fix anything. My ears aren’t blocked by waxy detritus; apparently (as advised by every doc I’ve seen) my ears are incredibly wax free.

Fact is, if you have a brain injury, you likely live with tinnitus at least part of the time. My ears ring all day, every day. It coincides with hearing loss, also as a result of my injuries. Later this week I’m having my hearing tested again. Last time I learned I had 25 per cent hearing loss in one of my ears, more like 30 per cent in the other. I expect there will be some change this time around.

Perhaps one of the most challenging issues associated with my severe tinnitus is balance. My vestibular dysfunction is worse on days like this, and I can feel myself leaning a little, or at least wobbling, when I stand up quickly. If I lean to one side, let’s say, to pick up dog poop on the sidewalk, my brain doesn’t react quickly enough when I bend down so I’m in danger of falling over. I’m falling up stairs and into walls. It’s disconcerting.

That’s why I’m back at the gym, running on a treadmill instead of getting out on my beloved road runs. After my last trip and fall, when I hit my face and head, I’m deathly afraid of losing my balance on the road. See, I’ve tripped probably hundreds of times in my running history, but I’ve always caught myself or mitigated harm by learning to fall correctly.

When I say that on days like this I want to blow my head off? What I’m really saying is I want some relief to the pressure; I need the hammering, the squealing, and the ‘wah-wahs’ to cut me some slack. I’m heading out to the gym now, where the music will be blasting and I can do some reps on the ‘domino’ machine. So, if you see me there and I’m giggling, I’m really just trying to keep myself from falling down.