To Hear

or

Not

Genetics are fickle, but predictable.  In each of us they are a random shaker jar of billions of combinations that spit out the code into each of us as we are formed, born, and grow.  Hair color, eye color, height, all randomly, but not so randomly, doled out.  Case in point:

Hearing

My mother and my sister, ten years my senior, all had a magic switch somewhere imbedded in them that caused a 50% hearing loss in their right ears. At age forty. Really, on the dot. I really didn’t pay much attention.  I had dealt with my mother’s hearing issues for years.  Annoying but not uncommon in an elderly woman, one who I didn’t see all that often, so the impact was blunted by the infrequency of its effect upon me.  I saw even less, nothing really, of my sister.

I eventually discovered with my mother that her default mechanism for dealing with her hearing loss was to develop a standard, automatic, reply whenever you spoke to her, “Huh?”.  At which point you, in a Pavlovian instilled playback loop, repeated what you had just said, more loudly. It became increasingly annoying. 

One day I tried something different.  I knew that she was hard of hearing (nice for deaf?) but I suspected that her “Huh?” response was an automatic one for her and that she did, in fact, hear more than she let on.  I began to subtly challenge her and would simply pause quietly and say, “You heard me the first time.” No judgement, just a statement of fact.  Oh, it flustered (angered) her but she would eventually answer my question with a distinctively irritated response.

And Then I Turned Forty

I have always had a severe case of Tinnitus, so much so that I have to have background noise on at all times to blunt the cicada-like buzzing in my ears. I used to keep the TV on in any room I was in but then politics and world un-peace became a psychically destructive force, so I turned off the news and Spa radio became my default noise blocker.  It plays all day.

Somewhere in my fortieth year, I suddenly realized that my right ear was ringing less loudly, maybe?  Someone who studies tinnitus should study this. Seriously.  I thought little of it, I could still hear what I needed to, and humans are quite the adaptive creatures.  I did notice that at night, as I rolled over to sleep on my left, or good, ear, there was a more tranquil degree of silence, a deadening of the world noise a little.

The decades tumbled onward. I suppose I was adapting along with the years, but I really did not notice anything dramatic that would prompt an intervention on my part.  I am not sure why I went to an audiologist other than my doctor probably said, “You should have your hearing checked.”  (at your age, implied) And again, I suppose I should not have been particularly surprised after my time in the soundproof booth when the audiologist said,

“You are profoundly deaf. In both ears.”

As with every diagnosis I have ever been given, my first question is always, “Can you fix it?” and if the answer is yes, then, “Let’s do it!” is my next response. So, off to Ye Olde Hearing Aide Shoppe.  In the ensuing years that I was apparently stumbling around in the growing silence in my head, again, the volume of the tinnitus only increased with the less I was really hearing, so masking was in full action mode.

They ordered the new-fangled, next-gen, hearing aids and called me when they were in.  Phone-Apped, adjustable, almost invisible, these little puppies are really miracles, nothing taken away from Miracle Ear, they just got the name first.

While I sat in the chair, the specialist unpacked my new ears and tried them on to check the fit.  She had them attached to her computer screen.  She told me she was going to do two things before turning them on, crinkle a piece of paper and click a ball point pen.

Control module completed; she then turned them on. And then she repeated the crinkle and the click.

I burst into tears

The realization of just how much I had been missing stunned me.  My mind suddenly felt more alive, my vision improved, my wrinkles disappeared. Seriously though, it was a major turning point in my life.

Everything seemed new and crisp and fresh.  Because it is such a drastic change, she had to adjust the little buggers so that every morning, after they were charged and I put them in again, they automatically ramped up the treble just a little bit.  If you go full-monty right off the bat, with my degree of loss, they would drive you crazy, but your mind adapts rather quickly and within a week or so I was full blast.

I was hearing!

One thing stood out as distinct evidence of exactly what I had been missing.  I noticed that the microwave appeared to be malfunctioning. The beep was suddenly a two-toned, odd sounding, notification.  I finally mentioned it to Dave thinking the mechanic in the house would agree that something needed looking into.  He looked quizzically at me. “That is the way it has always sounded.”

Aha Moment

The rest has been a joy of discovery.  I can turn down one ear if there is a noisy table of diners to my right, say, allowing our table talk to be heard but the neighbor’s buzz to be blunted.  If I’m in a loud bar, still not an ideal place but that’s more age-related than hearing, I can turn them off completely.  Where were these when I was blasting my eardrums at the Stones concerts in the 60’s?

On a checkup after a couple of months the technician downloaded my usage, battery life, etc.  She said that I wore my devices more than any other patient in their practice.  I literally put them in when I get up and take them out when I go to bed.  In a nod to Aerosmith,

“I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing”

This morning, I am in Barga, Italy, a small, I mean Small (200 people) city.  I forgot I was out of milk for my Macchiato, so I tossed on my clothes and did the million-step trudge down the hill to the market.  It has been cloudy, misty, cool, and drizzly for days. This is also a city of mostly elderly, long-generationally rooted folks and the rhythms in this Italian city are slow to start and quiet even on busy days.  Something about the stone streets, the moss-covered walls looming on all sides, seems to naturally muffle a lot of street noise.  There are also almost no cars allowed into the old walled city where I am.

I was struck today, though, by the utter quiet.  The cloud cover, the lack of sanitation jitneys, the hour, all of this seemed to be wrapping the buildings in cotton batting.  It was quite peaceful. I was remarking in my head how lovely and quiet and lazy it all seemed.  Just what I came here in search of.  Be careful what you ask for.

I had forgotten my hearing aides