Too Close For Comfort

I stepped on to the packed 18:50 train with 5 minutes to spare, and flattened myself against the glass divider screen just inside the door in a vain attempt to avoid being pushed to the back of the carriage against my will. Five minutes later, I had been pushed to the back of the carriage against my will and was wedged uncomfortably against a pole amidst a sea of people, including The World’s Tallest Man and The World’s Most Assertive Man. As the train moved off, The World’s Tallest Man stretched his arm behind my head from about six feet away to hold on to the pole, while The World’s Most Assertive Man reached across my face to do the same thing, effectively trapping me in a headlock. Had the situations been reversed, I would have felt that pushing my arm against a stranger’s face was a bit rude, but The World’s Most assertive Man was clearly used to having his own way. I prayed for one of my mind-blowing sneezing fits to come on and sort him out, but it never came.

As the train wobbled shakily over the points on the track, The World’s Tallest Man decided to establish an even tighter grip on the pole, and consequently, my head. Worse still, the armpit of his GoreTex jacket was now rubbing noisily on the microphone hole of the hearing aid with every tiny movement, and I felt an overwhelming urge to throttle him. Not even the spouse gets that close to the microphone hole and, frankly, no one other than an audiologist ever should. I vowed to prevent this unwelcome intrusion on public transport in future, by developing a new improved version of the EarShot speaker. It would work by hijacking the speakers of the train PA system, and using wireless technology to broadcast the sound output of my hearing aid to all and sundry. If that idea became a reality, no stranger would ever get away with rubbing the microphone hole of my hearing aid with their GoreTex jacket again. My fellow passengers would be forced to step in and wrench the man’s arm from my ear without me having to do a thing.

“Hey, you, stop rubbin yer jacket on that wumman’s hearin aid, that noise is pure doing ma nut in”, they’d say. “And you, Mr Assertive, take yer elbow oottae her mouth, as well, that’s really rude”, they’d continue, once the hearing aid scenario had been brought to their attention.  But all of that was in the future. I needed help now.

“Hearing Aid Avenger!” I cried, “Save me!”

I waited, but nothing happened.

At the next station, the man released his headlock and I staggered off the train into the darkness and driving rain.

“You’re getting sacked, Hearing Aid Avenger”, I muttered.

Hearing Aid Superhero

Meet Hearing Aid Avenger. He’s tiny, he’s beige (of course) and it’s his duty to come to my rescue whenever I’m in audiological trouble. He didn’t quite get there in time when I forgot to remove the hearing aid before pouring oil into my ear the other week, but he’s certainly made up for it in the last few days. On Monday, he solved the mystery of why I had been getting feedback and distortion ever since replacing the tube after my ear-oiling exploits. I thought it was something to do with a visible kink in the tube, or the slightly larger dome I had been given, but Hearing Aid Avenger fixed it instantly with an extra turn of the tube. It seemed that I hadn’t screwed it far enough on, because I was worried that it was already so tight that I might twist the hearing aid innards out of their casing by accident.

On Wednesday, I swiped my security fob on the door to our new office space and grimaced, yet again, as the over-loud ‘enter’ beep, followed by the grating squeal of the door hinge sent the hearing aid into its usual two minute round of entrainment meltdown. As I had a nice cup of tea at my desk to get over it, I pondered whether I could fashion a two foot extension wand for my security fob to get my ears further away from the beep. It was certainly possible, I decided, but I would still need to get some WD-40 to silence the squeaky hinge. Just as I was wondering where the nearest hardware store was, there was a protracted bout of hinge squeaking and a colleague’s voice rang out in response to an unheard enquiry from the head of department.

“JUST OILING THIS HINGE FOR MOIRA”, he shouted discreetly down the corridor, “SHE SAYS IT MAKES HER HEARING AID GO FUNNY…”

“Thanks, Hearing Aid Avenger”, I said, “any chance you can do something about that security beep?”

Unplugged

It was good news and bad news as the nurse peered into my ears in preparation for my appointment with the dreaded ear irrigation apparatus.

“The good news is you’ve done a great job with the oil,” she said, “that right ear has cleared itself almost completely. We never irrigate if the eardrum can be seen, and I can see yours quite clearly.”

“Phew, thank goodness for that!” I said, glad that the thin film of almond oil coating everything within a 2m radius of the bedside table was going to be a thing of the past. Although I was relieved that the irrigation was off, I was slightly disappointed that the wax plug had simply melted away into my pillow instead of blowing dramatically out of my ear like a champagne cork. Moreover, I had been excited by the prospect of a miraculous increase in hearing ability after reading this paper which examines the gory correlation between the size of wax plug and increase in hearing ability after removal. Now I’d never know how big my plug had been unless I could subject the pillow to a detailed forensic analysis. Hmmm. Maybe I…

The nurse cut in before I could devise a suitable pillow vaporisation protocol.

“The bad news is that the left ear is now completely blocked.”

It struck me for a second that perhaps the original plug had not dissolved after all and had just migrated across the vacant space between my ears. Either way, I was going to have to make sure I could maintain a couple of clean canals to co-incide with my appointment at the hearing aid clinic in two weeks’ time. Given the capricious cerumenous activity of the previous week, this might prove more tricky than I had previously thought.

“We’ll just turn you round the other way and get that left ear cleared”, said the nurse enthusiastically, as I was ceremonially draped in paper towels and given a metal receptacle to hold under my ear. “Ready? Okay, here we go…”

The ear irrigation machine sprang into life and the patients in the GPs waiting room were treated to a series of disgracefully loud shrieks interspersed with hysterical nervous laughter, as the pulsed water jet pummelled the offending wax plug into submission. When it was all over, I eagerly awaited some speech to test out my new hearing.

“All done. You’ll be relieved to get that out of your ear!” said the nurse, putting something in the bin. Strangely, nothing sounded any different, apart from a disturbing sloshing noise in the left ear when I bent forward to pick up my handbag. I thanked the nurse, who had been genuinely lovely, and made my way home through the park, sans hearing aid and with a slightly wet t shirt. I noted that my footsteps were still well and truly absent and, for a moment, felt slightly disappointed.

But only for a moment. I just stamped my feet a bit more heavily as I walked, and enjoyed the sound of the birds tweeting loudly in the sunshine instead.

My unofficial hearing thresholds captured on the very handy Equal Loudness Contours site one week before, and immediately after wax removal. Left ear was irrigated. Right ear was confited in almond oil. 

Things You’re Unlikely To See #1

It’s A Miracle!

My hearing aid service yesterday turned out to be the fitting of a nice new tube. I was slightly disappointed that it wasn’t a complete dis-assembling of every component under an electron microscope as I’d imagined, but I was also slightly relieved, because that meant no trace of my temporarily removed illegal self-adhesive bling would be found.

“Have you been shown how to clear the tube of wax?” said the hearing aid lady cheerfully, as she noted that my last visit to Clinic O had been in 2010 and I seemed to be somewhat clueless about basic hearing aid maintenance.

“Yes, but I’ve never had to unblock it even once, my ears don’t seem to produce much wax”, I announced proudly. I was glad that cascading cerumen was at least one problem I didn’t have in the hearing aid department. Now that the conversation was flowing, I seized the opportunity to casually drop in my desire for stereo hearing.

“I was wondering if I could try two hearing aids, my sound localisation is absolutely crap”, I opined eloquently, watching carefully for a potentially negative reaction. There wasn’t one, so I pressed on. “I teach a group of fifty students…I can’t tell where voices are coming from in discussions….it’s worse with the hearing aid than without…in fact, I wonder if you can tell me why they’ve given me the aid in the marginally better ear…wouldn’t that accentuate the difference between the two?”

I thought I detected a slight frown. I had to tread carefully.

“Of course, there’s not much difference between the two ears…the right one sounds different to the left one, but the audiograms are similar…” I decided to quit while I was ahead.

“Do you mind if I look in your ears?” said hearing aid lady, reaching for her otoscope after verifying onscreen that both audiograms were indeed similar.

“No, not at all”, I said, glad that things were going so famously.

“Hmmmmmm”, said hearing aid lady, there’s no wax in your tube because it’s all stuck inside your ear canal. The right ear is totally blocked and the left one is partially blocked. I can’t see your right eardrum. You’ll need to get that cleared out.”

You could have knocked me over with a feather.

“I knew it!” I said, “I always knew there had been a terrible mistake!” My heart soared as I saw myself pictured on the front page of next week’s Metro newspaper. I was clutching a ball of earwax in a specimen tube in one hand, and a no longer required hearing aid in the other. The headline was sensational:  EX-COOKIE BITE WOMAN WEEPS AS SHE HEARS HER BARITONE VOICE FOR THE FIRST TIME AFTER GETTING EARS SYRINGED. “ENT CONSULTANT, 3 GPs AND HIGH STREET HEARING CHAIN ALL TOLD ME I HAD CONGENITAL HEARING LOSS, WHEN IT WAS WAX ALL THE TIME” SAYS STUNNED 45 YEAR OLD LECTURER.

“Steady on”, said hearing aid lady without even seeing the front page of the Metro. She was detecting the familiar sound of straws being clutched. “It might not make that much of a difference to your hearing, but it’ll probably make some. Make an appointment with your GP to have the wax removed and then make an appointment with us to see about fitting a second aid.”

It’s Raining, it’s Pouring

The Isle of Arran’s Sleeping Warrior with a light dusting of snow on Saturday, seen from near Dunagoil on Bute during a brief respite in the rain. We’d hoped for an icy winter wonderland this weekend, but were glad of the higher than predicted temperatures when we discovered that the Buteshack and its contents had been soaked through by the recent storms. Since the electric fire was knackered, we were forced to take refuge beside the log burning stove in the local pub…it’s a hard life.

Two Ears Are Better Than One

Bored with my very successful experiment to see how long I can make a single hearing aid slim tube last, and motivated by sensational reports of increased hearing ability from my cookie bite buddies with two hearing aids, I decided to phone Clinic O to see if it was possible to investigate the possibility of hearing through both ears on the NHS. I dialled the number on the back of my ‘What can I expect from my new hearing aid?’ leaflet, noting the use of the singular ‘aid’, and prepared myself for a life changing conversation.

“Oh, ear day linit”, said the person at the other end of the line.

I paused for a second while the cookie bite cortex deftly reassembled the sounds into ‘Hello, hearing aid clinic’. Satisfied I was through to the right place, I continued in my usual assertive manner.

“Errrrm…I…er, I was given a hearing aid from you a couple of years ago, and errm, I wonder if it’s possible to make an appointment to see if I could try two…I’ve got similar loss in both ears, I’ve heard two are better than one…”

There was a pause from ear day linit, and the sound of computer keys rattling.

“You don’t seem to have had your hearing aid serviced…”

“Serviced?” I spluttered, “Oh! I didn’t know I had to get it serviced…nobody told me that…”

“Oh yes, you’re supposed to get it serviced every six months. I’ll book you in for a service, you’ll find you’ll hear much better with it after that.”

Not in the right ear I won’t, I sighed to myself, reeling off my date of birth and anticipating a nice quiet Monday afternoon next week.

The Power Of Suggestion

“Have you had a Visual Field test before?” said Sahid the cheery optometrist, as he carefully placed my giant handbag out of harm’s way. I’d ended up in his chair clutching an ophthalmology referral letter, after a conversation with a very quietly spoken young doctor about migraine aura earlier in the day seemed to have got out of hand.

“Erm, yes…I think so…is the visual field test the one with the flashing lights and you stick your head in a booth?”

“Aye, that’s the one”, said Sahid. I must warn you, though, it’s really boring…REALLY boring. Isn’t it Tracey?”

“Uh huh. It’s boring”, replied Tracey as she handed me a fetching black eye patch to cover one eye for the test. I had a fleeting impulse to say “Ah haar, shiver me timbers”, in my best pirate voice to liven things up, but I reckoned they’d have heard that one before. I concentrated instead on trying not to catapult the hearing aid at Tracey as I stretched the elastic of the pirate patch over my ears.

Next, Tracey gave the chin rest on the booth such a good going over with a disinfectant wipe, that I began to wonder who had been in previously. I placed my outstretched chin on the damp patch and we were off.

“Here’s your clicker, just press it when you see a light” said Tracey. Clicker? Ah, I was in my element now. I set about clicking with great vigour. After about twenty clicks, I realised I hadn’t had this particular test before and it seemed to be going on for a long time. I kept myself amused by aiming for the fastest response time they’d ever seen in a Visual Field test. After about forty clicks, a slight touch of boredom began to creep in right enough, and I was getting trigger happy with the clicker on the bits with no lights. I hoped this wouldn’t affect the results. I could hear Tracey sipping a cup of tea behind me and reckoned I’d be needing a tea break soon myself. Finally, the first eye was done. How LONG did that take, I thought, my train ticket home was going to be out of date if it kept up like this. I pulled the eye patch round on to the other eye and began again.

Flash. Click. Flash. Click. Flash. Click…………Click. Flash. God this WAS boring. My mind was beginning to wander to my Moussaka For One portion in the fridge at home, and the last Mr Kipling’s French Fancy (a pink one) in the cake tin. Yum. All washed down with a nice chilled glass of wine in front of MasterChef on the telly. I was losing the battle to stay in the here and now with the Visual Field test machine.

“It’s trying to wear me down”, I said to Tracey through clenched teeth, forgetting my chin had no room for manoeuvre on the chinrest. Please let it finish soon, I mouthed silently into the void. Suddenly, three loud beeps announced that my wish had been granted.

“All done”, said Tracey, “Sahid will give you the results in a minute. How did you find that?”

“Boring, really boring”, I said, thankful that it was.

Lost

As I scuttled along a dimly lit side street in a desperate rush to catch the train home from work, I felt the familiar loosening of a shoelace, a scenario which only happens when one is in a hurry to catch trains. After weighing up whether I could run the last 200 yards using an exaggerated leg movement on the side contralateral to the flapping lace in order to avoid tripping, I decided to be sensible and stop.

I still had the 18:53 train in my sights, so I decided to cut corners by attempting to tie the lace without first removing my gloves. This, as always, proved to be a mistake, but I persist in doing it anyway in the hope that one day it will work and I won’t have to touch a dirty wet shoelace with my bare hands. Hope abandoned, I removed my now wet gloves, gave up on the 18:53 and tied the offending lace into a pulsatingly tight triple knot, swearing loudly as I did so. It was while I was crouched on my haunches in the pouring rain that I spotted a familiar beige object sitting in a pool of water amongst the fag ends at my feet, and my heart sank.

“NOOOOOOOOOO!” I shrieked, clutching a disbelieving hand to the left ear. This was all I needed now. To my surprise, a blast of feedback and the familiar scrunch of hair on mic confirmed that, bizarrely, I had just stumbled upon someone else’s hearing aid, and mine was still safely tucked behind the ear. Phew.

A closer look at the drowned and beheaded blob on the pavement told me that some poor soul was now walking around the west end of Glasgow, half deaf and wearing only their earmould and tube. There was every chance that they would soon be wondering what had happened to the other half of their hearing aid, and I can reveal that it was last seen in West Greenhill Place, beside the parking ticket machine opposite the Citroen Garage…

Here, Kitty Kitty…

The spouse and I went to pack up our things after staying overnight at his dad’s, and found a furry interloper on the bed. I now felt glad that I had taken the precaution of hiding the hearing aid in my specs case overnight and removing the bedside water glass.

As I engaged with the highly risky business of stroking Mitzi, my father in-law’s contrary tortoiseshell cat, I kept a close eye out for signs of feline irritation. She usually likes to attack us as we sleep, but experience has shown that a clawed swipe can happen at any time. As I watched her tail and ear movements carefully, I noticed that the fur on her throat was vibrating, and I suddenly remembered that cats purr. Strangely there was no sound coming out of Mitzi.

“Is she purring?” I asked the spouse, “I can’t see her lips moving from here.”

“Yes, quite loudly”, he replied, whilst carefully using the spike of a folded golf umbrella to retrieve his socks from the fur-lined nest Mitzi had kneaded from his clothes.

“Hmmm”, I said thoughtfully, adding cats’ purrs to the list of noises which have disappeared into the Cookie Bite Bermuda Triangle.

With the exception of Smokey, the cat with the world’s loudest purr at 67.7 dB…