Monday 2 December 2013

Hearing

Alright: on the bullet I have bitten. (No preposition at the end, you will note.) The particular bullet on which I have bitten is, in truth, about the real size and shape of a bullet but soft and malleable. I have , at last, put the hearing aids the NHS so generously gave me to their proper use, that is, in my ears. You have no idea what a noisy world we live in. On my return from the audiology department at my local hospital I was in the bathroom when I heard the loudest most racous meow I had ever experienced. I tore back down the stairs - well, lumbered actually - to see what harm had befallen my beloved cat to find her standing there, merely trying to establish where she could find me. The bedside clock has been banished  to a distant drawer and the radio reduced to about 50 whatevers of volume: (around 72, since you ask.) Turning the pages of the newspaper makes a  sound like a ship's cable being pulled through the door which houses the anchor. I am more than somewhat disillusioned. I thought of cat-faced-darling as having a very ladylike turn of speech. In fact, she sounds like an inebriated young supporter of a losing football side. Don't get me wrong. I still adore her. I just wish she would talk a bit less - and quietly. I have yet to put this development to the Hospital Enquiry Desk test. I am hopeful that I shall hear my enquirers the first time they ask me something  Up until now, I have been relying on guesswork and hope.

Life management has had to change. Get up at least ten  minutes earlier than erstwhile to allow insertion time. Hair spray before they go in and wait until it dries,  so as not to contaminate the little dears, of course. No adjustment to styling once equipped otherwise I might catch the relevant bit in the brush and have it speared on a bristle. My aids appear to have no controls other than in or out, loud or louder.  My colleague at the Enquiry Desk has three adjustments, one of which cuts out extraneous background noise. She acquired her aids from the same source so I shall have to look in to my seeming deprivation. Talk about " you gave her a bigger slice of cake than you gave me". Along with "you said" that must be the most frequent of childhood complaints. Another extraordinary happenning: having experienced the greater clarity and underlying scratch of everyday life, I somehow expected to be seeing better, too. This was absolute nonsense, of course, but I keep telling you directly or by implication how both complex and straightforward is the inner world and here is yet another example. All this started only five days ago and I am rather proud of how I have adapted. The instruction book tells me to try an hour or so at a time, inside and out, but I have had them in all day every day since the beginning. Oh dear: I was tempted to say 'ab inititio', a phrase I havent thought of since I left University. Perhaps my sight is unaffected but my superiority complex is not.  Sseriously, though, without having, anyway consciously, noticed a dampening effect on my confidence of the nodding and smiling response which goes with a degree of deafness, I do seem to have grown cheekier in the last five days. "There's nowt so queer as folk" as they say up North...".nothing so odd as people", for those of you in Mountview California. Bore da

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

So nice to get such a witty and interesting piece smong all the dreary emails. Thank you

lifecaredotbz said...

Is it just coincidence that your most excellent sketch of your technologically enhanced world comes accompanied with a discrete ad for hearing aids?!!

Anonymous said...

I'll say it quietly:Purrrrr...
Splendid (and I say that ab initio). Thank you