Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Whispers
We were driving across town today and, just like that, my cochlear implant died. So instantly, in the space between one stoplight and another, I was back to being deaf.
Not hard of hearing, not hearing impaired, deaf except for maybe 10% of sound. We were picking up our son to go to lunch. He got in the car and I could hear murmurings of conversation between he and my husband but I looked out the window with no sense of what they were saying. None. In minutes, I had become cargo.
This has happened to me only once before. It was at a meeting to discuss kicking off a project to tell the stories of women who are homeless. The person I was meeting with, a long time colleague and wonderful person, was excited to move forward and I was encouraged by her endorsement, her great willingness to be the connection between me and women she was working with. She would be the person who would give me the legitimacy I would need to begin.
But then my implant died. Like today, it was a problem with the battery not charging adequately overnight. And so, right in the middle of our very intense conversation, I went deaf. And I couldn’t continue. I tried to explain but it is so peculiar to be a person whose life in the hearing world is so dependent on a battery. “I’m sorry but my battery died.”
My battery died so I have to run home because I have suddenly become a fawn in a forest full of cougars and bears because I can’t hear them sneaking up on me and I shouldn’t even be driving a car because I can’t hear people beeping their horns or a siren or know where the siren is coming from, I am a hazard to everyone, a witless, unknowing, unaware, incompetent former whole person.
It is just a technical problem.
At home, I switch to another battery, this one perfectly charged. The sound doesn’t immediately activate so I unscrew the battery and try again, all the while imagining that maybe something worse than a battery is broken. Maybe the mechanical stuff in my head is broken and within seconds I am on the operating table while they swap out the defective parts and put in new ones but this time they don’t have to drill a hole in my skull because it is still there, hidden behind my right ear.
All is well now, though. I hear myself typing on my keyboard. I hear the music downstairs, my chair creaking, and the dog standing to rearrange herself in her bed. I don’t take any of it for granted.
7 Comments on “Whispers”
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Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “At the Breakfast Bar” on WUWM Lake Effect
Jan’s essay “The Parish Hall,” on WUWM Lake Effect
“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
I got my first set of hearing aids last year, I don’t wear them often but I am amazed how many sounds I no longer even expect to hear. I’m so sorry you had the misfortune to be left out of the conversation with your son.
I can hear the frustration in your writing–I’m sure it’s hard to be completely reliant on something outside of yourself to feel fully functional. I’ve had poor eyesight since I was a kid–my prescription is quite high. Fine if I have contacts or glasses, but without them, I can’t even see the large E on the eye chart:). Here’s to modern invention, right?!
Jan, I’ve been a newborn hearing screener for about 3 years. As you continue to mention your implant in various posts I always pause for a moment and wonder about babies I’ve screened, most especially the ones who I’ve had to refer on to advanced audiology testing and diagnosis. It doesn’t happen often, and I typically have no knowledge of their diagnosis once referred. There is only 1 recently who I have learned has profound hearing loss in both ears. I can only hope that he will have the same opportunity as you to hear the sounds surrounding him in the future.
Jan. Love your C.I. battery story. As Marilyn notes, I had to get new batteries (just arrived) because the old ones (5 months wear) are holding a decent charge. The battery warning sounds like the loud “Bleep” sound used on TV when someone is using profanity. I was watching Colbert the other night and there ws frequent bleeping of a guet that was driving me bonkers. All in all, I am enjoying the big bump in quality of life from my CI.
Good to hear, Garry!
Jan, my typos reign. Meant to say the batteries aren’t holding a good charge. I wear it all day. Some evenings, I get simultaneous battery warnings from the CI in my right ear and the hearing aid in my left ear. the I feel like a punch drunk fighter.
Funny about that. Garry had to exchange batteries because one of them can’t hold a charge. And they are just 6 months old.