Thursday, July 25, 2019

It's Even Weirder Putting On Hearing Aids In The Morning

Hearing Woes, Part II

Do you remember the scene in SINGING IN THE RAIN when Ms. Lamont, she of the squeaky voice, is miked up for her first foray into talking pictures?  You could hear her every move, the crinoline creaking, her too loud steps across the stone floor, her breathing.  That's what my world sounds like now.  The BANGING of the keyboard.  The ROAR of the air conditioner.  Anyone's CRASHING steps across our wood floor.  When the refrigerator turns on, it is agony.  I stepped outside to get the paper and when I went back inside, the SCREECH of the screen door made me look quickly behind me to see which of our sadistic neighbors was strangling his cat.

This experience will not last, the hearing lady at Kaiser assured me.  After some initial testing, some adjusting, and perhaps a cochlear implant, I will be pleased with the results.  Again, the hearing lady assured me.  I put a little pressure on her when I told her if my world was going to sound like this from now on, I would surely kill myself.  I was only semi-joking.

The thing is I developed tinnitus about 35 years ago when Katherine was going to grad school in Greeley.  I didn't really tell anyone; I just coped.  I've been coping all that time.  I did go to Dr. Kaufman a few years ago (maybe 10) and told him about my ringing ears.  He just laughed and said that it was just Nature turning up the volume.  Some consolation.

Lately, it has been getting worse.  If I am in  a crowded room, I can't make out anything anyone says. I have an impossible time hearing the speaker at the drive-thru at McDonald's.  Katherine has to translate almost everything to me.  My children, I am sure, are making jokes behind my back.  And the thing that drives me the craziest, the thing that probably drove me to the damn audiology department in the first place, is that I can't hear my grandchildren when I am taking them for rides in the car.

So, to make a long story short, I have loaner hearing aids and they are tuned as loudly as I can stand it in an effort to acclimate my brain to hearing things again.  After a month or so, I will go in for more consultation, get my little surgery (big surgeries), get new hearing devices adjusted and be good as new.  And they will look so attractive too.

The thing I am being a little shocked by is how horrible the world sounds.  I guess it has been 35 years since I've really heard the daily din assaulting us.  I have been blissfully ignorant of the true horrors of leaf blowers, and out of tune cars, and planes flying by overhead, and neighbors talking to each other, and laughing, and yelling.  Not to mention the droning electric sounds coming from our television.  Was Mayberry really that loud?

How did you all stand it all those years?

I live in constant fear that something will set off our smoke detector.

Oh well, I can't take the sound of the computer humming anymore.  I'll keep you posted.