• Tag Archives ear

  • Trust Your Senses?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                  Bee Hiving Moon

    I’ve reached the age when hearing that I have mild cataracts counts as a good thing.  Eye exam today.  Playing space invaders (visual field), still good in both eyes in spite of the glaucoma (eye drops).

    My ophthalmologist of 20+ years retired last year so this is only my second time with Dr. Brown.  She’s about 5 feet tall.  That’s with platforms.  She’s bright. “I see a stable eye today,”  she said.  A stable eye.  A good thing at any age.

    Every time I to go the ophthalmologist (which I cannot spell) my thoughts turn to epistemology.  Today I got to thinking about medical specialties that focus on senses.  ENT.  Dermatology. (sort of) Ophthalmology.

    Dr. Brown said to me today, “This visual field test tells me that your optic nerve is in good health.” A lot of ink has been spilled in philosophy over the degree to which we can trust our senses–since they stand between us and the world out there–but it occurred to me today that we never consider less than optimal senses.  What kind of information does an unhealthy optical nerve give me?  Does the degradation of visual stimuli correspond to a diminished or corrupted reality for me?  Ditto for olfactory, taste, touch, hearing.

    I know my world is different from yours acoustically.  With only one ear bringing in sound data I cannot easily find the source of sound.  My aural world is less rich than yours.   I don’t know that it’s less real, but it’s different.  In some critical instances, very different.

    Two examples.

    Emergency vehicles.  When I hear a siren while I’m driving, I can’t tell where it is.  That’s different than the experience of a person who hears normally.

    Vehicles approaching in a manner other than customary.  In England where they drive on the left I had to constantly remind myself to pay very close attention.  From the left is where I don’t hear.

    Anyhow, I’m curious about sensory data.  And what it can and can’t tell us.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Health 📎and tagged

  • Strummed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

    I have a pediatric illness:  an ear infection.  Well, of course, if I have it at 63, it’s not technically a pediatric illness, but my in-house pediatrician recognized it with her very own otoscope. I have a lot more empathy for her young crying patients now.  The damn thing hurts.  And right in your ear!

    It’s in my left ear, which is deaf already, so it can’t do any damage to my hearing.  But wow.  When the pressure strums the nerve, it gets your complete attention.

    I’d felt off for the last couple of days and the ear ache presented itself this morning, just as the bee guy came and the electrician who restored power to the honey house and the playhouse for Ruth and Gabe.  Kate’s really good with managing pain and illness.  I’m not.  I’m more like a dog; I want to crawl into a kennel and sleep until its over.  Fortunately, it began to drain this afternoon which relieves the pressure.  No strumming after that.  At least for now.

    I forgot to mention that Dave Schroeder also said, “You’re not a beekeeper until  you’ve been stung.”  I’m a beekeeper several times over!

    This afternoon and evening passed in a haze with pain and narcotics.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Health 📎and tagged

  • Aurals

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring           Full Seed Moon

    The audiologist works in a 17th floor suite in the Medical Arts Building.  Downtown Minneapolis spreads out toward the west and the smaller buildings look faraway.  Todd has very white teeth, a bright blue and white striped shirt, black  pants and shoes.  There is no one else in this oddly empty space.

    After clucking a bit about my deaf ear and gathering some pertinent information, Todd took back to a small room within a room.  It has acoustical tile on the walls and ceiling, a small window through which I can see Todd and a chair for me.  Todd puts a red earphone on my right ear and a taupe earphone on my right ear with a careful, practiced movement.

    “Click this if you hear a sound,” he says, handing me a small plastic device with a button.  Then he closes the thick door.  Oops.  A bit of claustrophobia.  I close my eyes.

    Warbling sounds, the aural equivalent of sine curves ping out of the headset.  Then, spaces of time when I wonder if he’s not sending me anything or if I’ve lost whole chunks of hearing. Ah.  A sound.  Another.   Now a sonar like ping.  Then a washing noise with the warbling sounds fainter under it.  In giving myself over to the test I’ve forgotten my claustrophobia.

    That was my right ear.  He then puts a static noise, like cellophane crumpling over and over, in my right ear so it won’t help out and give a false reading.  In my left ear, nothing.  Then, mild pain that I feel, but do not hear.  One or two low warbling sounds, faint and far away, but heard in my right ear in spite of the static.

    “Let’s look at the results.”

    As I thought, I’ve lost hearing in the high ranges in my good ear.  The sibilants are harder to distinguish in challenging environments, s, f, th.  Yes, I’ve noticed that.  In my left ear, “You have no functional hearing.”  Oddly, this pleases me.  I guess it confirms my reality, again.

    There are options for me, but not really bang on good ones, at least not at the level of difficult I have now.  Maybe later.


    📂This entry was posted in Health 📎and tagged