Two weeks ago Saturday morning, I was going to put in my hearing aids before coming to the office for a few hours.
Curious thing, though. The charger for the aids on the kitchen was knocked on its side and the aid for my left ear was a few inches away.
“Maybe someone knocked it over on accident,” I said to myself.
Myself was strangely quiet, as if pondering the notion that darker forces were at work.
I looked all over the kitchen, but couldn’t find the aid for my right ear. So I did the thing that made the most sense - texted Kindra to ask if she could help me find it when she got home from work.
You may recall that crickets drove me to get hearing aids last summer.
I lost a lot of hearing in my left ear back in my 20s. It went from being normal to fairly bad in a matter of days.
During the hearing exam for the aids, the doctor said the sudden hearing loss was likely caused by a virus chewing its way through the nerves and whatnot.
For the next several decades I cheerfully went through life listening mostly with one ear. Sometimes I would have to position myself on the specific side of a conversation in order to hear all of it. Restaurants and places with heavy background noise were problematic, but I made it ok.
Until the crickets started. I enjoy the sounds of the crickets and frogs along our creek, but they seemed to be getting louder over time, and one night I noticed the crickets were in full throat on a night that was too cold for them to be out.
It was then that I realized the crickets were all in my head. My left ear, to be specific.
Finally I scheduled an appointment with an audiologist, who confirmed that the crickets were indeed all in my head.
The good news, she said, was that hearing aids could help. Might take up to six months to notice a difference, but the crickets should fade away over time.
$2,500 later, I had a new pair of hearing aids that brightened up the sounds of the world and made my guitars sound better. They even had Bluetooth, so that my telephone conversations would be piped though my hearing aids.
Frankly, they hadn’t done much to chase away the crickets, but I was committed to using them.
$2,500 brings out that kind of commitment in a person.
Naturally, I was eager to find the missing aid. My right ear has a bit of hearing loss, but not enough to cause a lifestyle problem, so I put the left one in and went about my business.
Before I left for the office, I walked through the bedroom and - hey! What’s this on the floor?
Why, it was my missing hearing aid. With the ear bud part chewed off the earpiece.
It was then that I remembered having seen Reno sniffing around the kitchen cabinet the previous night and then dashing off to the bedroom the way that he does when he has something he is pretty sure he’s not supposed to.
I’ve been making it fairly well with one aid in and one aid out.
I have a followup appointment scheduled in a week with the audiologist, so I’ll see what - if anything - can be done.
Maybe the aid can be repaired. If not, Reno is going to have to get a job and buy me a new set.