Oh, the whooshing!

In March 2011, I came down with a cold.  It was the standard head cold--plugged nose, scratchy throat, and occasionally plugged up ears.
It lasted a few days and went away, except for one symptom: noise in my ear.  Not just any noise, not a ringing or a roaring, but a whooshing sound, like the sound of a heartbeat on an ultrasound.  Very distinct, and sometimes loud enough that I couldn't concentrate.
So I saw my doctor, who basically told me it was because I had a blocked eustachian tube that was keeping fluid in my ear.  The tube was blocked because my tonsil was swollen, from being sick.  She told me to give it a few weeks and hopefully it would clear up.
I waited a few weeks, which turned into a couple months, and when I went back for my physical in the summer, I told her the noise was still there.  Her reaction was basically a shrug and she told me to wait longer still, since those tubes can be tricky.

I waited.
And I waited.
And I waited some more.
The noise never went away.  Sometimes it was quieter, and if I forced myself to concentrate on relaxing and breathing carefully, it would almost disappear.  And sometimes, generally at night, it would get so loud that I'd be unable to get to sleep.
When I saw my doctor last summer for my physical, I told her again of the noise and she told me that maybe I should get my hearing checked, to make sure I hadn't had any hearing loss.  Yes, the noise was that loud--it drowned out the sound of other things unless they were really loud, too.
Well, I went one better:  yesterday, I saw an Ear Nose & Throat specialist.  He looked in my ears and mouth with some funky instruments--and couldn't find anything visibly wrong.  He looked at the MRI I had done when I had the eye drama and didn't see anything wrong with my ear in that, either
But, he gave me a name--veinous hum (which sounds like "venus hum", which sounds like a sex trick to me--but I'm a perv).
Apparently I have a blood vessel pressing up against something in my ear, and the flow of blood is causing the noise.  My options for treatment are surgical; I can have them tie off my jugular vein on the right side, but he said that more blood vessels would grow in, so it's not likely to work in the long run.  Or he could try to find the blood vessel, which is likely minute, and "disconnect" it.  The possibility of that working is even more unlikely because there's so many blood vessels and some are microscopic, so he wouldn't even necessarily be able to locate it.

So frustrating.  I'm beginning to think the right side of my head is going on strike.  At least I don't hear voices in my ear, though...

yet.