No. 691 – Do You Feel Like We Do?

Performer: Peter Frampton

Songwriters: Peter Frampton, Mick Gallagher, Rick Wills, John Siomos

Original Release: Frampton’s Camel

Year: 1973

Definitive Version: Umm, you think it might be the one from Frampton Comes Alive?

In March 2011, when I went to the doctor for a physical, I got the word that anyone approaching his or her 47th birthday wants to hear—a clean bill of health. Little did I know that that would be the first of about seven trips to see a doctor in the next month.

Less than a week later, I had a familiar scratchy tickle in my throat, so I liberally applied orange juice and Listerine to fend it off. Sometimes I catch it in time. This time I didn’t, and by that evening, I had a raging sore throat.

Oh well, you get colds; you deal with them, right? Except a funny thing happened: I didn’t get a cold, and the sore throat never went away. By the third day, which was unprecedented for me to have a sore throat for that long, I started reading around online, which is never a good idea. Steve Dahl is right: Health websites do a great job of making you think that whatever symptoms you have, you’re probably going to die.

Aside from the fact that I probably was going to die, I learned that a sore throat that lasts more than three days should be looked at by a doctor, so back in I went. My doctor did a strep test; it was negative. She gave me a bunch of drugs, just in case, because why not? My sore throat finally started to go away about a week after it started, but as soon as that improved, my right ear shut down.

For the previous year or so, I’d had this odd condition where when I worked out, my right ear would close up, producing a muffled rumble that sounded like when you put your ear to a seashell that pulsed to my heartbeat. When I would bend over, it would almost instantly reverse itself, and my hearing would come back as though I were slowly waking up. This would last only for 30 seconds at most, and that would be the end of it.

That was exactly the situation this time, except this time it didn’t end. Leaning over provided only temporary relief. It was as though my ear were clogged with wax, but that wasn’t the case. This was a real problem.

My doctor gave me real good news when I went back a third time: There was nothing she could do about it, so it was time to go see an ENT. I went to one ENT, then another. I got audiology tests at both places, and the results were the same: I couldn’t hear worth a darn except when I were bent over.

Both ENTs said I had eustachian-tube dysfunction but didn’t know the cause. However, the second ENT didn’t use the word “surgery” after his diagnosis, which is why I went to a second ENT in the first place.

He also actually looked into my ear and snaked a tube down my throat to see what was up there. He thought the problem was GERD and gave me prescription-strength Prilosec and a saline solution to clear up my throat, the soreness of which had returned. He told me to come back in another week for another hearing test.

When I went back—now more than a month after my sore throat started—I was still having problems but feeling a bit better. The sore throat was finally gone. I got another hearing test, and the audiologist was encouraged apart from the fact that she said I had … terrible ears.

The eustachian-tube dysfunction was one thing, but she said I showed a hearing loss that went beyond that. She said we might need to talk about hearing aids, words no one approaching his or her 47th birthday wants to hear. On the other hand, you do want to hear … something.

She said I didn’t them as long as I were getting along OK without them. There’s no question I have trouble with my hearing. I have had a soft, persistent ringing in both ears the past two decades. I can’t hear Laurie if she speaks softly and I’m not paying full attention. If I’m in a bar that’s loud enough, voices are a wave of cacophony.

This is all Peter Frampton’s fault. When I got Frampton Comes Alive in 1976, I played it all the time at night with my headphones on … and the stereo turned all the way to 11. The first time I pegged the volume on my stereo was to this song.

Now here I was, and the damage has been done. Damn you Peter Frampton and your magical talkbox! Damn you to Hell!