November 2nd, 2014 by Rachel | Tags: Peace Corps | No Comments »
I had my first Cameroonian medical experience a few weeks ago. No, I didn’t have food poisoning. I was experiencing pressuring pain in my right ear. Based on how the pain felt, I knew it was likely due to lots of ear wax and some sitting on a sensitive spot in my ear. However, I wanted to take precautions by checking to make sure there was no infection. So, I went to a hospital in Ebolowa.
Shortly after I sat down with the doctor, I explained to her about the pain in my right ear. She asked me if I was experiencing difficulties in hearing. I told her I have cochlear implants. As expected, she has not heard of them and asked me what they were. I pulled a sound processor off my ear to show it to her and explained what it was. Once she saw it, she understood well that it’s a hearing device for people who are deaf as the device looks similar to a hearing aid.
The doctor pulled out an otoscope and changed the batteries. Once the batteries have been changed, it would not turn on. She took batteries from a clock and put them in the otoscope. It turned on finally. I really appreciated her commitment to get the otoscope to work.
As she examined me, she whispered in my ear and asked me to repeat what she said. I passed the test. I wanted to giggle but I didn’t want to because it was understandable that the doctor didn’t have any background in cochlear implants. To be fair, there are many doctors in the US who have never heard of cochlear implants too. People who hear with cochlear implants do not hear through the ear canal like people who hear normally. They hear through the microphone on the device that that sits behind the ear lobe. No matter how much ear wax we may have or infected the ear may be, it does not determine how well we can hear. The cochlear implant bypasses the outer ear, middle ear and most of the inner ear. The sounds travel through our sound processor and then into the computer chip and electrode array that sits inside our head and sends signal directly to our hearing nerves and brain. This means that no matter what happens in the ear, we, people with cochlear implants, can still hear very well.
The doctor was very patient with me and took time to examine the ear closely. As expected, she saw lots of ear wax and no infection.
I got the ear wax removed by Peace Corps’ own nurse a couple days later. I felt better.
The pain in my right ear came back about two weeks later along with a sore throat. The Peace Corps’ nurse took me back to the same doctor at a hospital in Ebolowa. She examined the ear very carefully and saw absolutely nothing abnormal. The nurse also looked and saw nothing abnormal. We agreed that it was probably just fluid, and I was probably coming down with a cold.
A week later, I still haven’t had a cold but I was still experiencing intermittent sore throat and pain in the right ear. I was feeling something was pressuring inside my right ear. It felt like I wanted to stick my finger inside it.
I made a trip to Yaounde to be examined by a Peace Corps medical officer at the headquarter and an ENT at a hospital in Yaounde. The hospital where I went to was very clean and in a very good quality. I had to wait very little time to see the ENT. Once I entered her office, I immediately noticed a poster with an Advanced Bionics logo. As a cochlear implant recipient, I was incredibly excited to see a logo of a cochlear implant manufacturer, Advanced Bionics, in Cameroon. Cochlear implants are not done in Cameroon and so, I thought I would never see a person with a cochlear implant and let alone, meet a Cameroonian who has heard of the technology. However, the ENT who I saw has heard of them and told me that there are a few Cameroonians who have received them by traveling to Europe or Middle East.
The ENT found my ears to still have lots of ear wax and an infection in my throat. So, she prescribed me some medications. We shall see how I do in the next few weeks.
