Please excuse the sense variation on the rather obvious mondegreen for the Star Spangled Banner, but today has truly been a remarkable day for me.
Some of you will recall that I had a very serious accident on my bicycle in February of 2012. Quite a few things were broken and damaged, three surgeries resulted. Most are very impressed at my recovery, but one consequence lay forever outside the influence of my will - the damage to my hearing caused by the skull fracture suffered in the accident.
More below.
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As long as I can remember I have been ‘hearing impaired.’ I had chronic ear infections as a child that resulted in nearly total hearing loss in my left ear. My right ear has always compensated. But as Murphy would have it, it was on the right side that the skull fracture happened, and the permanent nerve damage to my hearing, as well.
Even after the accident I could STILL hear better on my right side, but my hearing loss was very difficult. People had to speak very loudly for me to be able to hear them. And they had to be facing me, so I could do some lip reading, as well.
In the time immediately following the accident, the doctors believed that my hearing loss could be surgically repaired, so plans were made on that basis. Before doing that surgery, my surgeon wanted to give me a hearing option on the left side. He recommended something called a BAHA (for bone-anchored hearing aid). It meant implanting a screw in the bone of my skull, to which an ‘abutment’ would be attached, and a hearing aid attached to that. The hearing aid would pick up sounds and transmit them directly through the bone to my ear.
I think the surgery for that was in August, roughly, with a two month healing period before fitting the device. I was surprised to note that it did give me some functional hearing on my left side for the first time since I was younger than 10. It helped!
After that device was fitted, additional testing revealed the damage to the nerves in my right ear to be permanent and irreversible, so plans were made to fit me with a hearing aid on that side, which happened, best I can recall, about a year after the original accident, say Feb. 2013.
The last year or two have been somewhat difficult, because the BAHA - for whatever reason - devolved into a state of maddening feedback, where I couldn’t hear anything but hideous whistling whenever I wore it. This was most notable when we went to concerts or plays or shows, because I had to rely exclusively on the hearing aid in my right ear. It meant missing dialogue in plays and shows, as well as in a severely compromised musical experience during concerts. Most problematic was trying to cope in work and social situations, because I could hear next to nothing said behind me. I couldn’t follow multiple conversations at the same time, I had great difficulty with telephone calls, and extreme difficulty with ANY conversation if there was significant, competing ambient sound.
Many others have written far more eloquently than I about the difficulties of extreme hearing loss. Of having to ask people to repeat themselves over and over, of simply missing things outright that there was no hope of capturing, of friends and loved ones having to monitor my environment for things I missed. Sometimes people might think that I was ignoring them on purpose, whether from spite or whatever.
I regret that, but at least my conscience is clear. I never ignore anyone. Ever. I never ever pretend to not hear something. So I always respond if I DO hear something. It’s the only fair way.
But I know it’s hard on others, and I know it has caused frustrations I have no way to prevent or make up for.
Then, today, I got two new hearing aids, for the first time ever! When I was being tested for them before I ordered them, the audiologist was astonished to learn that my speech comprehension and appreciation in the ear I have not relied on in over 50 years was actually BETTER than in the ear that has done all the work in that time! So he recommended a pair of hearing aids of a brand he felt offered the best solution for speech functionality. The fitting and initial setup of those hearing aids was today, and it marks a new chapter in this fight.
I am still experimenting with settings. They can be controlled (delightfully so) by an app he downloaded to my phone. I can adjust between several programs, for quiet environments, for noisy environments, for musical environments. I can make some adjustments within three sound frequency ranges. I can adjust volume within a pre-set range. In three weeks, after a chance to really try them out, I will return to tweak any of the base settings that need it. (They will go a bit louder, I know that much already.)
I will try them at work tomorrow, but I know already that my hearing is dramatically improved on the left side, and speech is much clearer than it was with my old hearing aid. These hearing aids are very light, and very comfortable. So far, my evaluation is that it is a major upgrade to my quality of life!
I will tell you tomorrow if it helps with Daily Kos diary hosting! But for now, I am happy, and pleased.
Please excuse my indulgence in so personal a diary this evening, but it is what is on my mind, and I sincerely hope it will allow avenues of political engagement that I have had to abandon during the last three major election cycles. Exciting!
On to tonight’s comments!
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Re: The NRA, by necturus. From Laura Clawson’s Domestic abusers keep turning into mass shooters. The NRA keeps fighting to let them have guns.
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