Last Monday, Pam and I went to Indianapolis to see a specialist for my Meniere's Disease. I wasn't happy with the guy I'd been seeing in Fort Wayne. I asked my family doctor for a recommendation, and he referred me to someone several other patients were seeing.

Dr. Jerry House was great. He clearly understood what I was experiencing, and relieved some of my anxiety over the two issues confronting me:

1. My continued vertigo and how to deal with it.
2. The hearing loss in my left ear. I basically can't hear anything from that ear anymore. Might Meniere's also invade my right ear?

He pretty much recommended that I try one of the two low-risk options he explained. One involves a shunt behind the ear. It won't eliminate vertigo, but will probably greatly decrease the number of vertigo episodes, perhaps by 90% (plus stop the hearing loss). Sounds good to me. I'm considering having that done in early 2009.

As for the hearing loss: I'm at 40% in the left ear. The constant humming makes it seem like 100%, but that's not the case. A hearing test administered before seeing Dr. House provided the data.

Will Meniere's spread to the right ear? That happens in only 1-2% of cases. I am, of course, an exceptional specimen of a human being, so I could potentially fall within that privileged 1-2%. But should I turn out to be merely ordinary, my right ear doesn't appear to be threatened.

For the first time, my ailment and my options were explained clearly to me. So the trip to Indy was well worth it.