Bute Newt

With the days finally lengthening and warming up, it was a wildlife extravaganza on Bute this weekend. The daffodils were out, a green carpet of wild garlic leaves had sprouted in the woods at the back of the house, and white-tailed deer bounced gaily out of the undergrowth on the side of the Suidhe hill, as we climbed our way laboriously to the top.

“Quick, I’ve found a tiny snake!”, I shouted excitedly to the spouse, after a fleeting movement in the grass underfoot caught my eye. A closer inspection of the stripy brown reptile hiding in the greenery revealed that the snake had four legs and was actually a common newt.

“Dunno what made me think it was a snake”, I said, suddenly noticing the hiss in my ears again.

ssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss

Oh dear. A week, as they say, is a long time in politics, but it’s an even longer time in hissing hearing aids. Ever since allowing myself to be persuaded by Clinic O that the abominable static noise emanating from the circuitry of my newly acquired Danalogic i-FIT 71 aids might be something which could be conquered by the neural plasticity of my auditory cortex, ie I’d get used to it, I’ve somewhat regretted it.

Although it is a marvellous coping phenomenon that my brain fashions the hiss into the phantom noise of a shower when I am in the bathroom, and the noise of a deep fat fryer when I am in the kitchen, its creativity is stumped when I’m in silence. In quiet surroundings, the hiss sounds just like an annoyingly hissing pair of hearing aids. It’s loud enough to mask other high frequency sounds, and I’m worried that an escaped rattlesnake could sneak up behind me undetected.

Demented in the empty office at work on Wednesday, I sought solace in the perfect place to escape from the hiss. The studio. “Budge up!” I said enthusiastically to a student, who had been reclining comfortably on the sofa with her book until my unexpected arrival with my laptop disturbed her. I listened for a bit to make sure that the soundscape was to my liking, then sat down to attend to my daily mountain of emails. Ah, this was more like it. The hiss was slightly less audible. The studio was only half full of students, but they were working in groups so were producing plenty of chat. I was slightly disappointed that there was no loud music, but was heartened to hear the reassuring rumble of the extraction system overhead. The noise of 60 feet of exposed industrial ducting was going some way towards drowning out the hiss but was not eliminating it entirely. I was on the verge of asking someone to open a window so that the noise of the nearby motorway could help out a bit, when an even better solution presented itself in the form of some impromptu furniture moving by students. Several chairs and desks were dragged mercilessly back and forth across the bare concrete floor, producing a rich variety of soothing scraping and grinding noises. Ahhhh. That’s better I said to myself, I can’t even hear the hiss now when I listen out for it. Maybe they were right at Clinic O after all!

Then it all got spoiled. Without warning, a heavy 6 by 4 foot sheet of mdf was knocked over by accident, causing a very loud bang. Although the bang itself was extremely acoustically satisfying in the bare concrete space, it was followed by a pregnant silence as everyone waited to see if there had been a casualty. This was all the hiss needed in order to sneak back in to my consciousness. Ssssssssss. Then to my relief, a round of shrieking and laughter began, followed by a purposeful bout of hammering to fix the damage. Phew.

The studio door banged open and shut with a pleasing regularity throughout, and every so often, the plumbing let out its usual foghorn blast every time a tap was turned on. As I basked in the racket, I reflected that the only thing that could possibly make the ambience more perfect for masking unwanted hissing noises from hearing aids, was the sounding of the twice weekly fire alarm test.

“Can I talk to you about my project?” said a student who had just wandered into my field of vision.

“Certainly”, I said, hoping there was going to be plenty to look at.

A New Dawn

As I trotted down the corridor at Clinic O yesterday behind the hearing aid chap in scrubs who had just called my name, I noticed he seemed to have his hands full.

“Take a seat, Mrs Dancer”, he said, carefully releasing his pile of stuff on to the table beside the silicone ear model. What was in those boxes? I watched intently as some familiar wires appeared from the drawer…it couldn’t be, surely?

It was.

“Today, we’re going to fit you with a second aid, but technology has moved on plus Siemens no longer hold the NHS contract here, so you’re getting two new ones…do you have your current aid?”

Holy Smoke, this was a turn up for the books. Like Christmas and winning the Lottery all in one. I handed over the Siemens Chroma S, and felt a slight twinge of betrayal anxiety as I saw it cast aside, with its nearly new dome pulled inside out by its hasty removal. It looked like a beige beetle on its back with a defiant leg in the air, and I wondered if I might come to regret parting with it so easily. Being the fickle sort, I was soon distracted by the opening of the boxes, and I leant forward eagerly to see what was inside.

The first three majestic notes of Also Sprach Zarathustra rang out in the phantom music department of my auditory cortex as some tissue paper was unwrapped on the table in front of me. Da…daa…daaaa… Gosh, this was exciting. An earhook and some unidentifiable bits fell out first and were put to one side, then another earhook and some more unidentifiable bits. The tympani section of Also Sprach pounded away dramatically inside my head while another tissue paper package prepared to be unwrapped. It took a while. As Also Sprach reached its dramatic climax, the first Danalogic i-FIT 71 emerged slowly from its cocoon. Then the second. I could bear it no longer.

“What colour are they, what colour are they?”

An outstretched hand gave me my answer.

“Ah. New NHS Beige”, I said, not realising that colour was going to be the least of my concerns in half an hour’s time.

The Wanderer Returns

“Wow, look at that rainbow!” shouted the spouse as he rushed to get his camera at the Buteshack this morning. I put down my tedious attempt at writing a project for the students and leapt to the window.

“Never mind the rainbow, Hun”, I shrieked, “Look! Pegleg’s back! HE’S ALIVE!”

My eyes tracked a familiar dangly-legged gull as he swooped across the fleetingly sunlit scene. I’d been looking out for him for months with not a single sighting, and feared that he’d finally gone to the big lamppost in the sky. Only that morning, I’d come across a perfectly preserved single gull wing attached to a bare ribcage on the beach, and had speculated with sadness that it could easily have been Pegleg. “You’ll never know which one’s him unless you find the legs”, said the spouse a tad unsympathetically.

I was now glad to know that the unfortunate wing on the beach belonged to some other gull and that I could look forward, once again, to plenty of Pegleg spotting opportunities when out and about in Kilchattan Bay.

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.