DO YOUR EARS HANG LOW?

Almost three months have passed since I got my hearing aids. Time flies when you’re having fun? Or maybe it flies because now I can hear.

The morning of the 19th of April I went to the audiologist for my new ears. The first 45 minutes were spent learning about the devices, proper maintenance and how to insert them. “Stick it in your ear!”, takes on a whole new meaning.

Once I had shown the audiologist that I could insert and remove the hearing aids without asking for help, he hooked me up to his computer.

He clipped a transmitter, with a blinking red light, around my neck. It links to the hearing aids and sends the signal to the computer. While the transmitter is operational, the audiologist has complete control over my hearing aids. So I am sitting in the chair with a transmitter hanging from my neck feeling like I was one of the androids in the Star Trek episode, “I, Mudd”. “Harcourt Fenton Mudd!”

Once the transmitter, hearing aids and computer were linked, the audiologist started pushing buttons on his computer and sound came into my ears. Magically. All sorts of beeps and blips and burps. When the audiologist was satisfied that I was hearing and that the sound was balanced I was free to take on the world of those who hear. He promised me that I would hate him for the next two weeks as I tried to get used to the hearing aids. (I made it until 4 that afternoon. I was back at the audiologist’s office to have him turn the volume down. It was too loud and he had set it at 80% of full volume. He turned it down to 75%.)

When I left the audiologist that morning I headed to my wife’s school to see her. I figured I owed her the first hearing. She saw me coming to the front door of the school and met me there. “What are you doing here? Oh! Your hearing aids!” She checked out my new ears and gave her approval. Then, just to make sure that the hearing aids were working in the real world, I had my wife say something to me at a close distance and again at about 15 feet away. I closed my eyes and she spoke in a quiet voice. I heard her!

I didn’t respond with, “What?” I answered her statement. She said, “It is sunny outside.” I said, “Yes, it is.” I should have repeated her statement to just prove that I heard her exact words. It turned out okay, though. I scored big points by going to see, and hear, her first.

My daughter, always a person of great insight, had this to say on her Facebook page, “My Dad is getting hearing aids today. Somehow I think this makes him terribly adorable. He'll hate hearing that.” Her cousin responded with, “At least he will be able to hear it.”

The two most important women in my life are pleased with my having hearing aids. My wife thinks I’m sweet and my daughter thinks I am terribly adorable. Life is good.

I have been back to the audiologist several times to get my ears tweaked. The hearing is better each time and I have graduated to Remote Control Operator: Level IV. I have the basic volume control and three new buttons for controlling range, direction and effects of the sounds coming at me. This means I get to listen to whomever and whatever I want!

Learning to hear again is an interesting experience. I had forgotten so many sounds. They are coming back to me now and they are wonderful. Birds really do sing pretty in the early morning hours!

EARS TWO

I went out for my morning constitutional about 5 o’clock. The air is finally full of that early morning springtime crisp, cool air that allows sounds to travel well. The birds are singing to greet the day. It is, as Neil diamond says, a beautiful noise.

I wonder though, “What I am missing?” Since my visit to the audiologist last week I have been more aware of what I have missed from the high frequency sounds of life. Tomorrow morning will be different as I will have my new ears in then. Will there be more beautiful noises from the birds? Or will there be all sorts of background sounds that I haven’t heard from some time? It is all unknown.

Sleep last night consisted of a lot of tossing and turning. Worry about the visit to the audiologist this morning kept me from useful slumber. I am sitting here now, yawning up a storm I cannot hear. Maybe tomorrow I will be more alert, not yawning and hearing more. I have been told that I will sleep tonight. I will be exhausted from the work of listening to all those noises and sounds I have forgotten that existed.

In a few more hours I will have my new ears. The sounds I am looking to hearing the most are the ones from my wife. I will be able to have a conversation with her that doesn’t begin with my asking, “What?!”

'EARS TO YOU!

“You have ears to hear but you hear not!,” Father Ignatius would tell us in English class when we asked what the assignment for tomorrow was just moments after he had told us what the assignment for tomorrow was.

My wife thinks like Father Ignatius. She believes I can’t hear; that I am losing my hearing. My children will tell you that I just don’t listen.

It doesn’t matter. I get my new ears next Tuesday. A new one for each side of my head.

I spent two hours at the audiologist this morning. I was there to keep my wife happy and to prove to her that my hearing is fine and that she needs to speak up. She is right, I am wrong.

The testing proves that I can hear lower frequencies. It is the higher frequencies that I do not hear. Female voices. No wonder my wife thinks I can’t hear her. I can’t.

When the audiologist said he had a variety of hearing aids for me to choose from I immediately thought of the huge, flesh colored molds that fit in your ear and have size ‘D’ batteries attached to the back of your ears. A passing thought, fortunately. Analog is dead! I am getting the top of the line digital hearing aids. The particular model I am getting will best suit what I am doing work wise as well as listening to my wife wise. And it comes with a remote. I can casually slip my hand into my pocket and turn the hearing aids, and the speaker, off.

The audiologist is giving me (supplying, at a nominal cost) hearing aids that go into the ear tube but do not block it. My ability to hear the lower frequencies is fine and he doesn't want to interfere with that. And, with all these new techno things, he can adjust for all sorts of gain and frequency and hertz. The only real hurts that he can't fix will be how my pocketbook hurts.

My wife says she is excited for me. She says I won’t be so cranky because I can’t hear her. I figure she won’t be so cranky that I’m cranky because I can’t hear her.

I asked my wife if she would still love me with my hearing aids. She said she would love me even more. Gee, if I had known that…

BREAKFAST OUT

This morning, just to have some fun by myself, for myself, I went out for breakfast that I didn’t have to fix at a local old-fashioned restaurant, one with a counter. I decided to sit at the counter, just to be old-fashioned. There are six stools and I chose on from the end of the counter. That put stools between me and the patron at the other end of the counter.

My wife doesn’t know I went out to breakfast without her.

After I had ordered, an older gentleman in his eighties sat down on the stool next to me. So much for creating my own little space.

He was all by himself. I began to wonder. Was he out for breakfast without his wife? Was his wife was still alive. I soon found out.

The man’s cell phone rang. I heard his side of the conversation.

“Hello?”
“No, she isn’t in right now.”
“Can I take a message?”
“Then I will have her call you.”

Ain’t technology grand? I found out that his wife is alive and she definitely wasn’t in right now. The gentleman was telling the truth.

INSTRUCTION MANUALS

My son and I were walking home from a trip to the coffee shop yesterday. We were talking about nothing in particular when he asks, “Did God give you instructions for me when you got me?”

I thought a moment before I answered. “No. We didn’t get instructions for your sister either.” After a few moments of silence, I added, “Love ‘em, feed ‘em, change their diapers until they don’t need their diapers changed anymore.” Beyond that, it is one adventure after another.

Children don’t come with instruction manuals or trouble shooting guides. They should. That way when your child says, “You ruined my whole life!” you can refer them to the manual God gave you. It will be his fault.