Last summer, in reaction to various allergies I was suffering from, defensive mucus flooded my inner right ear and confused, frightened, and unmoored me. My allergies had never been this severe. I could barely hear a fucking thing with that side, so I had to turn my head in order to understand what my two sons, ages eight and ten, were saying.
“We’re hungry,” they said. “We keep telling you.”Embarrassed. I understand.
I was embarrassed.
And then he woke at 3 AM one morning and realized he had no hearing at all in one ear.
OF COURSE he was afraid — panicked — who wouldn’t be? To wake with significantly reduced hearing is alarming to say the very least.
Ten years ago in the dark, frozen, early winter predawn hours, I woke and slowly, very slowly realized that my sound system wasn’t functioning at peak, can-hear-azaleas-breathing levels.
How could I tell? Morning’s are always quiet here on Valhalla. We’re off on a peninsula — 13 miles from the loud nights of Boston and almost four miles from the hardly pastoral Quincy Center. I don’t think, of all the places I’ve lived, anyplace could match the peacefulness of the Neck.
The usual AM, I’m-the-only-one-up-even-the-cat’s-sleeping, John Cagian soundtrack was missing. My slippers didn’t scuff as I walked across the hardwood floors. There was no sursurrant fuzz when I pulled my fleecy robe off the bathroom hook. That ominous, redolent of horror movies, creak didn't sound when I when I hit the first floor landing. I was getting suspicious. And then the coffee maker didn’t sing those happy, hopeful percolating notes.
Yeah, panic was bubbling but I didn’t feel I had a right to it. To my mind, panic wasn't OK or understandable. After all, I was mostly deaf in one ear already and had a 30% loss in the other. AND I’d known that I was hearing on borrowed time since I was 22.
Still, knowing that the day would arrive when I’d no longer be able to hear the sweeping intricacies of Jeff Beck’s guitar work on Shapes of Things or the slow, brilliant, creeping explosions of Ravel’s Bolero or The Amazing Bob’s midnight FM jazz DJ voice, his honey dipped gravelly laugh and then actually entering Deaf Station are two different things.
I went in to see my Beach Boy Neurotologist, Doctor Michael McKenna. Like Alexie, I got a 'script for prednisone. Doc McKenna had prescribed this twice before — my brain’s swelling had reduced and hearing came back up. Third time was not a charm.
It’s one hell of a challenge to remain calm or calm-ish at a time like this but we try. Alexie, for the sake of his kids and his wife who was away on long planned holiday with her mother in Italy.
Me? I knew this day was due — it didn't come outta nowhere. I had to face it sans freakout. I’d prepared hadn’t I? Laid in bed listening to Fanfare for the Common Man, amongst other masterpieces, again and again in order to embed each note in my memory, hadn’t I? Gone to every live show and concert I could manage. Had TAB read to me. I needed to hear all this even if just inside my head.
Knowing and being aren’t the same.
Alexie’s hearing happily came back up. Over the course of investigations a meningioma was discovered. Hey, I’ve got those too! These aren’t the hearing loss cause for either of us (in my case those are the schwannoma bastids). These benign meningioma fuckers are mostly decorative. Mostly. Mine are getting up to a point where Doc Plotkin’s telling me that he’s “concerned” and “we’ll need to keep a close watch” on them/me. Big fun.
Just like the morning my hearing fell, I’ve totally legit reasons to panic. Just because I get that extreme fear is understandable — even for me — doesn’t mean I want to feel it. To go all Spock-ish, it’s illogical. Accomplishes nothing.
When my next big surgery day is pronounced, will I freak? Eh, not so’s anyone’ll notice. Except TAB — TAB always knows.
When Alexie’s wife, who naturally cut short her vaca to be with him, came home he said to her:
“There was a rumor that I’d grown a tumor, but I killed it with humor.”
“How long have you been waiting to tell me that one?” she asked.
“Oh, probably since the first time some doctor put his fingers in my brain.”Go read the whole story, War Dances by Sherman Alexie.
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