Hearing the World

My hearing aids were lost for a while. They'd been annoying me on our last visit to San Francisco, which I put down to the head cold I'd been battling. The air pressure, the internal swelling, the itchiness I couldn't shake all led me to take them out on the plane home and put them someplace safe.

As usual, putting them someplace safe meant that I couldn't find them when I got home.  I searched everywhere. I stuck my hands into pockets of my suitcase that had not been touched since the lint in my palm was a full sheet of paper.  

I remembered worrying, as I hid them, that the plastic tubing would be crushed by the space they were occupying. I just couldn't remember where that space was.

I opened travel cases.  I poured out the contents of my dop kits - the one with the wet stuff and the one with the dry stuff.  I went back to the garage and dumped the suitcase out all over again. I opened the hidden compartments in my wallet, though there was no way that the devices would have fit there.  For a while, I thought about phoning Southwest Airlines and asking if they had been turned into the lost and found; for some reason, I never made the call. 

Actually, I knew exactly why I never made the call: if they weren't in the SWA Lost and Found then I was on the hook for replacing them.  I also knew why I'd lost them: the audiologist had explained the replacement program/insurance for lost or damaged devices at my last visit, two weeks before we flew.  

I'd never considered the possibility that I would lose them since I made a promise to myself that I would wear them all the time, unlike Daddooooo who kept them in his breast pocket as often as he inserted them in his ears.  If I only took them out at night, I would always know where they were.  Though this plan led to several near escapes in the shower, I'd never misplaced them. Not once. For those who are intimately acquainted with my behavior, this must come as a shock.

I found them last week as I was taking G'ma's checkbook out of the zipper pocket of the leather purse I'd forgotten I'd taken on my trip.  There they were, entwined together, in fine fettle.  All they needed were new batteries.  The world was alive once more.

Helen Keller wished for hearing more than sight, when asked which sense she'd most like to retrieve.  When everyone is laughing and you haven't been able to decipher the punch line through the teller's giggles.... when the kids in the backseat accuse you of not being interested when you really didn't hear them at all... when the television's volume control is set at 30 and you still can't figure out what Don Draper is saying.... then you understand the loneliness of the hearing impaired. Luckily, my damage is only in the upper ranges; I'm well within normal limits (and what a nice sound that is to hear) except for high pitched tones.

Beethoven composed symphonies without hearing a note, or so they say.  I think he heard each and every one of them inside his head, the same way I hear the Cuter's individual "Hello"'s, even when they are thousands of miles from my ears. I tilt my head a different way for each of them.  

G'ma's "Hi, Suz" has a richness that the rest of her words lack.  There's love and, for the moment, a real connection to the outside world. The way it's delivered is so much more potent than the words themselves. 

Mr. 8's "Hello, Crazy Susan," a throwback from my college days upon which he stumbled one afternoon, has always been accompanied by a devilish twinkle in his eyes.  Today, after two hours of testing me and re-calibrating my hearing aids, with the help of the UofA's Audiology Clinic and three of its finest students I can hear the high pitched glee that's in there, too.

I'm finding the keyboard keys' clacking very annoying.

What used to be a hum is now a gale force wind emanating from my desk top's tower.

The air conditioner turns on with a click loud enough to startle me.

The world is a very noisy place. I'm so glad to be here to hear it.

The Bionic Woman

I have a headache from the sound of the keys clacking.

I had to flee the sound of the carts clicking over the concrete outside Wally-World this morning.

I am becoming my father....... and I really need to become my mother. I've been saying that I should take lessons from G'ma on aging with grace; perhaps this is one of them. I am wearing bi-lateral hearing aids.

From the front and the side they are basically invisible.  I'm not concerned about a change in my appearance. From the back, I think they blend into my hair quite nicely. They have a handy dandy silver travel case, and the UofA Audiology Clinic set me up with a few weeks of extra 312 size batteries.

Apparently, batteries have numbers as well as letters. Who knew?

Did I mention that my camera makes all kinds of interesting clicks and whirrs and beeps that I noticed for the first time just now when I took that picture of my ear? Let me be quick to reassure you: there are some definite upsides to these things.

There are flutes in the opening music to whatever TBG has on everyday at 5:30. Who knew? There's another note in the early morning bird songs, a higher, sweeter tone than I ever remember hearing here before. TBG says that my voice is softer and more modulated.

I was fine for conversation before I added gadgetry to my wardrobe. Normal adult voices were well within the excellent range on my audiometric exams, and as long as I was paying attention I had no problems. No one knew that I was slightly impaired. But last night I went into the bathroom, down the hall and through the bedroom from the living room, and I could hear the words on the tv back where TBG was still lounging on Douglas. That was a new experience for me.

Are you wondering about the volume on the television? I asked TBG to set it at the lowest possible level for his own personal comfort. I was fine, with the devices inserted or with them resting for a viewing in the palm of my hand, as long as I was in the same room. This distance hearing thing was quite interesting and brand new.

This afternoon  Messers 6 and 8 sat in the back of my car, chattering away as we drive to buy new backpacks for school.  I could hear every single word.  They sat at a high table, away from Elizabeth and me, yet I heard every word they said.  There were kids playing inside the gerbil maze at Mickie D's; I couldn't see them but I could hear their laughter.  I began to fall in love with these things right about then.

But I wonder, still.  Can I teach this old dog new tricks? Can I take the time that Ellyn and Olga reminded me to give myself as I accustom myself to the annoyance of having something in my ear? I like to travel light. My morning routine takes 7 minutes if I am in a rush - and that's from bed to car. Will I resent them?

This is where I have to make a choice. Am I Daddooooo, who wore them with annoyance and petulance and made them the center of his existence and therefore the center of the existence of anyone and everyone who was within his orbit? Or am I G'ma, who, in the same situation, would put a smile on her face, insert them and forget about them so that everyone else could forget about them, too? Having lived my life out loud for so many months, it's a more layered question than you might imagine.

I'm leaning toward my mom, with a dash of Dad for a little spice. After all, they are pretty cool little things.