All is Well: Tomorrow

There is a scab that runs down the back of my ear.

It won’t be there much longer. I can wash my hair now in the shower and let the water rain down on my head. It is the best part of a shower, that immersion. And I missed it – that cleansing – and also the thinking that is done standing under the water. You have to find somewhere else to rehearse all your speeches when you can’t shower.

Tomorrow, my second cochlear implant gets activated. I’ll get a new brown receiver which will lay over my left ear, over the scab for a while, and the receiver will connect via magnet to the electrodes inside my cochlea. And then it will be turned on and I will hear a lot of things. There will likely be a big racket at the beginning. I’ve been warned. Eventually, all the sounds will get sorted out.

There will be two devices on my head instead of one. I am lucky to have them, for sure, but one feels a spectacle sometimes with people seeming to wonder but not wanting to ask – what are those things on your head? Or do they already know? Or not care and I just think they do?

There is a man at the dog park who maneuvers the muddy trails using two metal crutches that he handles like they’re permanently attached to his arms. He has a small fluffy dog and a big husky who run ahead while he plants his crutches a few feet ahead and then swings his body forward. Nobody asks him about his crutches, at least I don’t think they do. They just secretly admire that he is there every day, rain or shine, swinging down the trail.

I’ll make him my role model. Or not. It’s winter and, for a while, I can just wear a hat.