By Morenike Euba Oyenusi
My struggle with tinnitus started on Monday, November 25, 2019. I remember that day distinctly because it was my daughter Oyinade’s 19th birthday. I had begun to experience extreme dizziness the day before, so much so that I could not walk initially, and by Monday morning, the dizziness was accompanied by horrible nausea and stomach pain. I urgently implored Tunji, my late husband, to drive me to the nearest emergency room, where I was diagnosed with vertigo.
Later that day, the tinnitus symptoms started, and they have been continuous since then. Two weeks later—by which time the other symptoms had thankfully disappeared—I was diagnosed with a partial hearing loss and tinnitus.
The tinnitus was a traumatic ordeal for me. I found myself just writing down my thoughts to cope with the terror. This evolved into a poem, which continued to get longer and longer.
I became decidedly fascinated by the sounds in my ear—each individual and distinguishable, but with all the noises working together to make a complex, incredible sound, just like instruments in an orchestra. There is no other way to describe it. That began the notion of writing about tinnitus as an orchestral performance.
My first thought was to have my epistle published as a poem in a literary journal. I sent it to an academic journal, but I had no response. The rejection (or failure to reply) was a marvelous blessing because, several months later, God gave me the idea of turning the poem into a short graphic novel for preteens, teenagers, and young adults.
The idea was to create an approachable way to educate these age groups about tinnitus and how tinnitus can
be caused by loud noise and hearing loss. (The doctors speculate that, in my case, infection rather than loud noise was more likely the cause of tinnitus and hearing loss.)
I was captivated by this vision and looked for an illustrator to help me implement it while working on turning the very long poem into a story. The result is “Isaiah and the Orchestra of Sounds,” with illustrations by Kerry G. Johnson. Our hero, 15-year-old Isaiah, starts to hear terrifying and strange noises in his right ear on a normal, regular day in Baltimore. The story follows his battle with tinnitus.
Even though Isaiah is not dealing with musical tinnitus (and I learned only later that there is such a thing), he expresses his experience as that of an alien orchestra performing in his ear. I use the musical performance theme and musical references throughout the book, and
I am quite pleased with how all that turned out. I also include resources to help people with tinnitus and advice for noise avoidance. My hope is to have the book in doctors’ offices, schools, and libraries to help teach that loud noise is a very real threat to hearing health and well-being. This is an acute concern given the prevalence of headphone use and loud concerts, and how little cognizance there is of the dangers.
The irony is that music is beautiful and pleasant to listen to, but if you listen to it too loudly, you can experience a ghastly orchestra, as Isaiah does, and one that may never stop playing
Morenike Euba Oyenusi is a Nigerian-American lawyer, author, and minister who lives in Maryland. Her first book, “Chasing Butterflies in the Sunlight,” was a finalist in the 2021 Next Generation Indie Books Awards. For more, see paradiserestoredpublishing.com.
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My hearing loss was defined as “moderately severe, sloping upward to mild”—which basically means I don’t hear at all at the exact frequencies of my husband’s voice.