Showing posts with label hearing aids. Show all posts

Off the top of my head I can think of two medical exams where I actually need to use my brain: an eye-exam, and a hearing-test. But it's the hearing-test that I have honestly felt stupid, and even humiliated at times.

I got my hearing-aids when I was in pre-school. I vaguely remember my dad having to wiggle them into my ears with one hand, and with the other arm holding me still as I squirmed away. I also remember that they were attached with a red string, the kind of string that holds a librarian's glasses together - one loop around the left hearing-aid, and the other loop around the right hearing-aid. In my pre-school mind the only thing that string was good for was to easily yank them out the second I got home.
This means that I have had plenty of audiology tests in my life. Back when I was a kid there were fun blocks and toys to play with, and a Sesame Street puppet that danced in a window box as I turned my head to whichever speaker I thought was playing the tune. I don't remember when things got incredibly less fun, and incredibly more 'test-like' but it happened before I finished elementary school.

Soon there was one spot that I would have to stay very still in. There were all kinds of strange headphones placed at various angles around my head, and on my ears, and right behind my ears - and the only movement allowed was to raise my hand every time I heard a beep.
Wait did I really just hear that beep? Or did I just remember that tone from the last beep from a few seconds ago? OMG brain, please focus dammit!

Oh god not the annoying static at that annoying-as-all-hell pitch! And she wants me to listen for that tiny beep... with all this other noise in the other ear? Well that's just obnoxious!

Wait I didn't actually hear that low beep, but I definitely felt it vibrate from the headphones. Does that count? Should I raise my hand? Dammit, what the hell - I'll just raise my hand anyway. 

What will I have for lunch after I get out of this hell hole? Forget lunch, I need a straight up beer after this nonsense!

During this whole time it's just me in a sound-proof room with the audiologist in the other room, looking at me through a window as she fiddles with her dials and jots down on a piece of paper all the made up noises I am hearing. And in my paranoia, or lack of confidence in my hearing abilities, I am desperately searching her face for clues of whether or not I'm getting anything right!

But the beeps and noises are nothing. The toughest part of this for me is always the "say these words back to me.." part of the test.
Her: Say hot dog
Me: hot dog
Her: Say sailboat
Me: uhh..mail moat?
Idiot! That's not even a word. What the hell is a mail moat?
Her: Say cupcake
Me: uhh.. cake.. fuuhhc..wait. Oh, cupcake!
Context clues helps! 
Her: Say mat
Me: crap. Is it mat or bat? Wait did we already use either one of those words? Ugh just go with "bat."
Her: Say letter
Me: feather
Her: Say weather
Me: weather
Her: Say sweet
Me: uhh.. fleet?

It also drives me nuts because the audiologist hides her mouth during this part behind a piece of paper. My natural instinct is to say "I have a hearing-loss and lipread most of the time, can you move your hand?" But I can't. I can't because she is hiding her mouth on purpose and my gut says: you are a cruel cruel human being. But of course I know that's not really who she is... she just happens to get to be intentionally annoying as a professional career... and I try really hard to think to myself: this is for your own good. All while I am repeating:
"..pleather?"
"uhh.. waffle?"
"ban Kate?" "..no wait, wait, I meant pancake! Did I get it??" But she has already moved on without responding.
Her: Say bleacher
Me: creature

Oy vey. I consider having "passed" a hearing-test when at the end of it I am not taken away to the loony bin because I am "hearing things."

...Is when I'm not in my wheelchair.

Even though during the day I rarely take conscious note of my chair, it is still something that appears as the tiniest blip on my radar even on my best days. The attention drawn to my chair by others is always there during the day when I'm going about my business. On a usual day I've grown to be able to keep that attention faded to the background; unless someone comes up to me and starts a conversation about it or why I'm in it - the stares and points (on a good day) pretty much are a non-issue and remain as standard as traffic lights that dot the scene of my day-to-day environment. The light changes color and I move along: nothing fascinates me about this interaction, and it's something that I just expect to happen.  We all know it will happen.
But like I said, even on my best days, even on days when the fact that I sit in a wheelchair is something in the background - it is still there in my mind. I can't avoid it and it's not something I have the desire to avoid either, that route just seems pointless anyway I look at it.

Still though, it can be tiring. It's tiring to wait for someone to come help me get un-stuck from a snow bank because the curb cut is not plowed. It's tiring when I sit in this one position all day. It's tiring when finally I think I have a minute to myself when a gaggle of kids on a field trip are all gawking. It's tiring when someone thinks they're being so original with their car-related comment i.e. "you'll get a speeding ticket!" "Has that passed inspection yet, where's your sticker?" "Don't drink and drive!" "Do you have a license for that?" It's tiring to hear about how Sally's grandmother has the same chair as me. All of those things are tiring to deal with which is why usually I don't. My eyes typically glaze over and I nod, and I smile but really I am doing anything but paying attention. I don't really allow myself to think about how annoying the chair is, because I know that it's not the chair's fault. But there is a part of my thinking that says there are too many irritants out there to 'deal with' one by one - and the chair is just one thing... and if only I could change that. But I can't.
The most that I have figured out to do is learning how to not let those irritants get the best of me. I relegate them to the background noise of my day, sometimes with significant effort and other times with as little as a shrug and a smile.

The best that I can explain being out of my wheelchair as being my favorite part of the day... would be to compare it to when I take out my hearing-aids at the end of the day. Some of you might be hearing-aid users and others not so I'll do my best to explain:
Hearing-aids serve to amplify the sounds in your environment. Depending on settings and personal hearing-loss they might be amplifying higher pitches or the tones that might be lower. There are hearing-aids that focus on individual voices, those that can block out the background noise of a heater or a classroom fan - but still, these noises are amplified to the wearer.
For me when I first take out my hearing-aids there is this immediate vacuum of silence that rushes into my ear canals. And it is the most relaxing noise for me, even more so than the sleep machine app on my ipad that makes waterfall sounds. That shush of every sound in my environment creates a stillness to the end of my day that I appreciate (particularly after stressful and busy days!)
What I'm experiencing when I take out my hearing-aids for those few seconds or minutes is an adjustment period. My ears have just been pummeled with amplified sounds for 9-12 hours of the day and suddenly everything seems muted, it is bliss I tell you! Then my ears will adjust and I will begin to hear my environment again at my usual hearing-loss-level decibels.

But that is what being in my wheelchair during the day is like, and then being out of my wheelchair at the end of the day. During the day my wheelchair amplifies itself to my environment, making it and my differences known to those who have the urge to take note of it however they choose. At the end of the day, when I am out of my wheelchair again, there is a certain silence to the attention it brings - it is in the absence of it.