Hi, friends, and welcome to the final bite-sized bish of 2025. I dropped some pretty heavy

information on people on my last podcast with Mandy on our M&M hour, and I realized that it

probably freaked some people out. So I thought it would be prudent to share an update now that I have

gotten some medical attention and some treatment and let you all know what is going on. So for those

who didn't listen to the M&M hour, I had a major issue with my right ear, went to urgent care,

they thought it could have been a stroke. And so

the long and the short of it is that I finally, I used my big loud voice to self-advocate because

I tried making an appointment and they wouldn't let me make the appointment without a referral

for my PCP. And then the PCP was like, we need to see you first. Can you come in

February? And I was like, well, I'll be deaf by then. So no. So I went to urgent care and that helped

the process along. And then once ENT became aware of the issue, I was seen on Monday. So I have developed

something called sudden sensory neural hearing loss or sudden deafness,

which is a rapid, one-sided hearing loss occurring quickly.

Sometimes it has an unknown cause, but sometimes it's due to infections,

sometimes it's due to autoimmune disease, which I have all of the above.

So the long and the short of it is that I'm going to be getting an MRI

to rule out that they don't think it was a stroke, but there is a small chance that it could be

a tumor in my ear. And so on Friday, January 2nd, I'm going to be getting an MRI. And so this

year in 2026, I will have broken a record for

meeting my deductible on the second day of the new year. So I'm going to get the MRI to rule

that out. And currently the treatment is very high-dose steroids. I am on 60 milligrams of prednisone for the next 10

days and then doing a taper after that. The prednisone is making me literally insane. I can't sleep.

...