Sunny, calm, and clear is the best way to describe the day. Gracie and I have had a mostly uneventful day puttering about the yard, planting the last of the marigolds--to keep rabbits with their sensitive noses away from the vegetables--and putting mint seeds--surprisingly small--in a bottomless flowerpot buried up to its rim as suggested by the excellent garden book I found at the nearby used bookstore. Without the flowerpot to contain the roots, mint can overtake the garden, the book warned. We were only interrupted twice as we worked: first by Bruce with invitation to walk with him to the bakery and then by the neighbor's four year old girl who has fallen in love with Gracie and rushes out every time she spots us outside. I feel a little selfish keeping this wonderful dog to myself, but those are the rules! I want to keep Gracie a great dog and that means following the rules!
So, how did I get so lucky, our little neighbor girl might ask? How did I come to lose enough of my hearing to qualify for a Hearing Dog? That's a good question, one that I have spent a lot of time trying to answer.
I discovered I wasn't hearing what others were hearing when our oldest son--now nearly thirty--was less than a year old. I sent away for an electronic busy box for him. When it came, I thought it was broken because none of the songs it was supposed to play when the buttons on it were pushed, played.
"Are you kidding?" Bruce said when he came home later that day. "They're playing," he said, "and they're awful! If you can't hear them, you're lucky." Instead of feeling lucky, though, I started to wonder what else I might not be hearing.
"It's probably wax," my mother-in-law said. "Go in. Get your ears cleaned." This seemed an easy solution. I made an appointment.
"No wax," the doctor said. "You're ears are clear. Let's give you a hearing test." After the hearing test, he said, "We better schedule an MRI." He didn't say anything about a brain tumor but, when I told Bruce and his mother that the doctor had suggested an MRI, they did. Fortunately, the MRI was clear too.
"You can try hearing aids," the doctor said at the appointment to go over the results of the MRI. "If you want, I'll make an appointment for you with an audiologist." At that point, all I wanted was to be able to hear all the things I hadn't been hearing and didn't even know I hadn't been hearing: birds singing, music, conversation, whistles, sirens, and so on. I wondered how long I been like this. The doctor couldn't say. I began to think of things that might have caused me to lose my hearing (hearing loss, after all): a year of chronic ear infections when I was ten; listening to loud rock music on headphones while in college. Whatever it was that caused my to lose my hearing, it had to be long before the arrival of that toy because how I was hearing at that point had seemed normal to me.
The long quest for hearing aids began; although, at the time, I had no idea what a long quest it would be. Hearing people say, "Get hearing aides." They--or many if not most of them--think getting hearing aids is like getting glasses. It's not! My first pair only made everything louder, especially my infant son's amazingly loud crying. I would no sooner get the hearing aids in then I would have to rip them out. My next pair was made to turn themselves down in the advent of a loud noise. By then, I had another son and was exposed to even more sudden loud noises. I was constantly turning them up only to have them turn themselves down. Frustrating!
On the bright side, I discovered that I knew how to read lips--a clue that I had not been hearing well for a long time, maybe forever. If I had never heard what others hear, I didn't have hearing loss then. Impaired hearing? That seems to imply the potential at least to be repaired: wax removed, various parts replaced, something. Nothing like that was an option for me. I could struggle with hearing aids or struggle on unassisted, harder now that I knew I wasn't hearing what others could hear.
Meanwhile, I decided to go to graduate school to earn an MFA in Creative Writing. Knowing I couldn't hear well and knowing that I could read lips, I made sure to sit up front in my classes, particularly the literature classes I was required to take. The challenge came when I became a teaching assistant.
"Should I tell students I can't hear well?" I asked the TA director.
"Never admit to a weakness!" he exclaimed. "Never ask students for sympathy or understanding. They'll turn on you."
Thankfully, the dean at the community college where I am currently teaching composition doesn't agree with this approach. "Tell your students about your hearing," she's told me more than once, and I do. I am also on my second pair of digital hearing aids--better than the old analog ones but not issue free. Yesterday I got a button in the mail that I ordered online. The button says: "Look at me so I can see what you're saying." Hopefully, students and others will both understand and be understanding. I haven't exactly been in the closet about my hearing issues, but now I am definitely going to on stage belting out that 1960s song, "Hey, Look Me Over."
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| Gracie smiling at the cabbages in our garden. |
I discovered I wasn't hearing what others were hearing when our oldest son--now nearly thirty--was less than a year old. I sent away for an electronic busy box for him. When it came, I thought it was broken because none of the songs it was supposed to play when the buttons on it were pushed, played.
"Are you kidding?" Bruce said when he came home later that day. "They're playing," he said, "and they're awful! If you can't hear them, you're lucky." Instead of feeling lucky, though, I started to wonder what else I might not be hearing.
"It's probably wax," my mother-in-law said. "Go in. Get your ears cleaned." This seemed an easy solution. I made an appointment.
"No wax," the doctor said. "You're ears are clear. Let's give you a hearing test." After the hearing test, he said, "We better schedule an MRI." He didn't say anything about a brain tumor but, when I told Bruce and his mother that the doctor had suggested an MRI, they did. Fortunately, the MRI was clear too.
"You can try hearing aids," the doctor said at the appointment to go over the results of the MRI. "If you want, I'll make an appointment for you with an audiologist." At that point, all I wanted was to be able to hear all the things I hadn't been hearing and didn't even know I hadn't been hearing: birds singing, music, conversation, whistles, sirens, and so on. I wondered how long I been like this. The doctor couldn't say. I began to think of things that might have caused me to lose my hearing (hearing loss, after all): a year of chronic ear infections when I was ten; listening to loud rock music on headphones while in college. Whatever it was that caused my to lose my hearing, it had to be long before the arrival of that toy because how I was hearing at that point had seemed normal to me.
The long quest for hearing aids began; although, at the time, I had no idea what a long quest it would be. Hearing people say, "Get hearing aides." They--or many if not most of them--think getting hearing aids is like getting glasses. It's not! My first pair only made everything louder, especially my infant son's amazingly loud crying. I would no sooner get the hearing aids in then I would have to rip them out. My next pair was made to turn themselves down in the advent of a loud noise. By then, I had another son and was exposed to even more sudden loud noises. I was constantly turning them up only to have them turn themselves down. Frustrating!
On the bright side, I discovered that I knew how to read lips--a clue that I had not been hearing well for a long time, maybe forever. If I had never heard what others hear, I didn't have hearing loss then. Impaired hearing? That seems to imply the potential at least to be repaired: wax removed, various parts replaced, something. Nothing like that was an option for me. I could struggle with hearing aids or struggle on unassisted, harder now that I knew I wasn't hearing what others could hear.
Meanwhile, I decided to go to graduate school to earn an MFA in Creative Writing. Knowing I couldn't hear well and knowing that I could read lips, I made sure to sit up front in my classes, particularly the literature classes I was required to take. The challenge came when I became a teaching assistant.
"Should I tell students I can't hear well?" I asked the TA director.
"Never admit to a weakness!" he exclaimed. "Never ask students for sympathy or understanding. They'll turn on you."
Thankfully, the dean at the community college where I am currently teaching composition doesn't agree with this approach. "Tell your students about your hearing," she's told me more than once, and I do. I am also on my second pair of digital hearing aids--better than the old analog ones but not issue free. Yesterday I got a button in the mail that I ordered online. The button says: "Look at me so I can see what you're saying." Hopefully, students and others will both understand and be understanding. I haven't exactly been in the closet about my hearing issues, but now I am definitely going to on stage belting out that 1960s song, "Hey, Look Me Over."
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