Creatively Congested

Thanks to the hay fever from hell, a bi-product of dry, desert winds unimpeded by tall buildings and aided by drought conditions, coupled with the Coachella Valley being nature's tunnel down which all the L.A. smog blows; I can't hear out of my left ear.
At least, I can't hear anything but the swarm of summer locusts buzzing in my left lobe. The low, electrical humming of an air-conditioning unit. The exaggerated ringing of a cartoon character's ear drums after a blow to the head.
I'm stuck on a loop of metaphors rewriting the sound in my head because that is all I can hear and concentrate on. All efforts at further creativity are as hopelessly blocked as the nasal cavity pressing against my Eustachian tube.
For lack of anything else to do, I printed up the 275 pages of my novel, hole-punching them into a Jolly Rancher pink binder. Dutifully, I propped myself up on the couch, cuddling my ridiculously soft blanket, and fixing grammatical errors and rewriting sentences that need to be shifted from passive to active voice. Of course, I admired my sentences in love with my own words and turn of phrase as most writers are realizing that these are probably the darlings I'm going to have to cut.
But I found myself struggling to get away from the "to be" verbs. Surely, there are times when "was" or "is" must be used. I tried vainly to rewrite some of these sentences losing the meaning and sounding pretentious. Then I listened to my audible recording of Hollow City on the drive to pick up my 3rd grader. Ransom Riggs couldn't escape from using "to be" verbs too.
This confirmation made me feel better on a day when I am disoriented and creatively ill. My equilibrium swings violently like a chandelier on a capsizing ship. My mind a fuzzy invasion of Tribbles, consuming all rational thought.

Pool or swamp?