[cicero]

In January 2018, when a lot of people at the school where I teach were getting flu and colds, I got a "stuffiness" in my left ear that I figured would just go away. I talked to other people, including my dad, who had similar symptoms and then got better. Then I developed dizziness symptoms, so I went to an ENT and started treatment. Apparently, an unidentified virus caused permanent damage to my left ear resulting in hearing loss and dizziness. After about 18 months the dizziness has gone away as my brain readjusted, but I still have the hearing loss.

All of this is to say that while viruses were going around causing cold and flu symptoms for most people, for some reason it hit me differently. These things happened in the pre-COVID world. I think that COVID-19 is undergoing unprecedented scrutiny, so it may be appearing more unusual than it really is.