Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Seed Moon<\/p>\n
The audiologist works in a 17th floor suite in the Medical Arts Building.\u00a0 Downtown Minneapolis spreads out toward the west and the smaller buildings look faraway.\u00a0 Todd has very white teeth, a bright blue and white striped shirt, black\u00a0 pants and shoes.\u00a0 There is no one else in this oddly empty space.<\/p>\n
After clucking a bit about my deaf ear and gathering some pertinent information, Todd took back to a small room within a room.\u00a0 It has acoustical tile on the walls and ceiling, a small window through which I can see Todd and a chair for me.\u00a0 Todd puts a red earphone on my right ear and a taupe earphone on my right ear with a careful, practiced movement.<\/p>\n
“Click this if you hear a sound,” he says, handing me a small plastic device with a button.\u00a0 Then he closes the thick door.\u00a0 Oops.\u00a0 A bit of claustrophobia.\u00a0 I close my eyes.<\/p>\n
Warbling sounds, the aural equivalent of sine curves ping out of the headset.\u00a0 Then, spaces of time when I wonder if he’s not sending me anything or if I’ve lost whole chunks of hearing. Ah.\u00a0 A sound.\u00a0 Another.\u00a0\u00a0 Now a sonar like ping.\u00a0 Then a washing noise with the warbling sounds fainter under it.\u00a0 In giving myself over to the test I’ve forgotten my claustrophobia.<\/p>\n
That was my right ear.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 In my left ear, nothing.\u00a0 Then, mild pain that I feel, but do not hear.\u00a0 One or two low warbling sounds, faint and far away, but heard in my right ear in spite of the static.<\/p>\n
“Let’s look at the results.”<\/p>\n
As I thought, I’ve lost hearing in the high ranges in my good ear.\u00a0 The sibilants are harder to distinguish in challenging environments, s, f, th.\u00a0 Yes, I’ve noticed that.\u00a0 In my left ear, “You have no functional hearing.”\u00a0 Oddly, this pleases me.\u00a0 I guess it confirms my reality, again.<\/p>\n
There are options for me, but not really bang on good ones, at least not at the level of difficult I have now.\u00a0 Maybe later.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Full Seed Moon The audiologist works in a 17th floor suite in the Medical Arts Building.\u00a0 Downtown Minneapolis spreads out toward the west and the smaller buildings look faraway.\u00a0 Todd has very white teeth, a bright blue and white striped shirt, black\u00a0 pants and shoes.\u00a0 There is no one else in this oddly empty … Continue reading Aurals<\/span>