Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Tag: Hearing Loss and Cochlear Implant
Return
Disability depresses. It struck me today how deeply I sank into a chronic state of melancholia over the past few years. My ever-worsening hearing disability ate away at my optimism and tested my ability to right myself. I became an Emily Dickenson figure in blue jeans,… Continue Reading “Return”
Five Thoughts On Tuesday Night
It’s 3 degrees here and getting colder tonight. There is frost on my office window so thick I can barely see the street though the streetlight and Christmas lights on the house across the way are shining. Like I have 500 times before, I see… Continue Reading “Five Thoughts On Tuesday Night”
Happy to Come Home
I am just running around town hearing things like a fool. Maybe I could be happier but I’m not sure how. A colleague said to me at the end of a meeting today, “You’re back!” I am. I’m back. I started to remember today… Continue Reading “Happy to Come Home”
Birds on a Wire
I made a phone call today. And when my husband answered, we had a three-minute conversation during which I said the word “what” only once. He seemed a little flummoxed. It has been at least five years since we’ve talked on the phone. Since… Continue Reading “Birds on a Wire”
Thinking and Rethinking
I came down the stairs from the ear surgeon’s office and sat on the bench by the front door. “My time as a pitiful person is coming to an end,” I wrote on my phone, wanting to capture the unbelievable, the incredible in one… Continue Reading “Thinking and Rethinking”
Just When
Just when I started sinking, just when it became clear that the cochlear implant surgery was a mistake, just when I started planning my days around long walks by myself, just when I’d resigned myself to having my children speak to me in three-word sentences… Continue Reading “Just When”
My New Life with Adele
What am I going to do when I can hear better, when my cochlear implant is activated and I’m getting all kinds of sound and decipherable speech in my ear, when I might know what instrument is being played without seeing it and… Continue Reading “My New Life with Adele”
Ten Things I’m Sick Of
The list took some culling but these are the items that floated to the top of the detritus of my miserable, self-pitying existence today. I am sick of eating soda crackers. Related to this and not deserving of its own place on the list,… Continue Reading “Ten Things I’m Sick Of”
Recovery Room
All is well with me. The implanted portion of my cochlear implant is implanted. I have a big white bandage over my ear with gauze wrapped around my head reminiscent of the wounded Revolutionary War soldier playing the drum in the picture that hung… Continue Reading “Recovery Room”
No to the Negative
No make-up. No polish. No jewelry. No lotion. No food. No water. No pills. No coffee. No time. No thoughts. No worry. No more.
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
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