ponderings on hearing loss from a professional sound guy, chapter 2: the drama

DISCLAIMER:

Most importantly, let me assure you the reader now that my hearing is not currently compromised in any way.

I'm not going to post this at the same time I'm writing it. Another thing, I'm not experiencing permanent hearing loss. Yet. But I am getting to an age and in the business I'm in, every time my ears get plugged with wax I start thinking "is this it?" The whole idea in writing it is to document my experiences of my hearing as I go through little hiccups as I have recently. Being a professional sound guy, I'm concerned about damaging my career by even talking about it, which is why I don't publish as I write, have written and will continue to write some of these ponderings with paper and pen to transcribe later.

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ponderings on hearing loss from a professional sound guy
chapter 2: the drama

I can't remember the last time I could hear properly. It feels like months, probably been weeks, maybe even days. I know it's getting bad when I seek professional help to clean the wax out. I don't really trust other people with my ears. I've had a few bad experiences, but nothing really dangerous. The worst was an audiologist who used a metal scoop to dig out wax. Sure, she used water, too, and even water mostly, but the metal scoop was another go-to tool in her arsenal and it hurt. Worse than the use of metal, though, was her complete lack of compassion over the pain and fear I was experiencing.

So I usually get to this point where I'm on the verge of panic, my mind running around and spinning on the dangers of permanent hearing loss. I'm sure I'm going deaf, positive this is the time it's not just wax, that I'm really loosing it for good. It's only after a day or two of that kind of panic that I call the doctor's office for a lavage. (Pro tip: skip the audiologist and find a good MA who does ear lavage.) I had that lavage yesterday and I still can't hear out of either ear. I mean, I can hear, just not very well. I figure I'm loosing about 20-30dB above 1kHz. That's pretty serious. The standard reply (even from a good MA who is good at ear lavage) is "sometimes it takes a little while for your hearing to come back. And that's a standard response because it's true. My ears suffer trauma just like any other part of my body, and sometimes it takes a little while to really feel relief of symptoms after trauma. Still and all, there's always a really great moment in a good lavage for me. An a-ha moment. It's like that moment when you're swimming and the water drains out of your ear. A sort of crackly aural sunrise. A beautiful feeling of getting back what was feared to be lost. I never had that feeling on this lavage, but I took the MA's word for it: she could see my ear drums and it might just be water and would clear soon. It didn't.

So a few days later, here I am, back in the doctor's office. My regular doc (actually a CNP, but what the heck, she's a healer, so I'm good with "doc") is listening to my paranoid ramblings very patiently. You see, I've been "researching" my condition. You know, the kind of research where you sit up late at night staring at a computer screen (or your phone) and decide you must certainly have cancer. (In my case, it's vestibular cancer.) Finally, after listening to my panic, she patiently gets up with her ear-looker (what's that thing called?) and takes a look. My right ear is totally clogged with wax again. The other one has a massive infection on the ear drum that wasn't showing a few days ago. Undoubtedly the fluid was already behind the ear drum, and that's why it sounded like I still had wax in front of the ear drum. What none of us understands is why I haven't felt any pain, but no matter, antibiotics are prescribed, prescription is filled (after a bit of shopping around to find out who takes my insurance because I evidently I haven't filled a prescription in awhile, or maybe I just never noticed how much they cost), and the course is begun.

Oh, and the right ear gets another lavage, and this was the best part of the appointment, because I did get that beautiful aural sunrise I love so much. It's almost worth letting the wax build up now and then just for that beautiful feeling of hearing again. The world was so loud, and sounds that usually bother me (most notably traffic) were gloriously and beautifully and overwhelmingly loud.

ponderings on hearing loss from a professional sound guy, chapter 1: ancient history

DISCLAIMER:

Most importantly, let me assure you the reader now that my hearing is not currently compromised in any way.

For professional reasons, I'm not going to post any chapters in this series at the same time I'm writing them, and some portions are written long after the fact. Another thing, I am not experiencing permanent hearing loss. Yet. But I am getting to an age and in the business I'm in, every time my ears get plugged with wax I start thinking "is this it?" The whole idea in writing it is to document my experiences of my hearing as I go through those "is this it?" moments, as I have recently. Being a professional sound guy, I'm concerned about damaging my career by even talking about it, which is why I don't publish as I write, have written and will continue to write some of these ponderings with paper and pen to transcribe later.

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ponderings on hearing loss from a professional sound guy
chapter 1: ancient history

I've had a long relationship with my ears. When I was young, I was young (ob) and did foolish things young people do. For one thing, I didn't know I was going into a career using my ears. For another, I was young and stupid and bulletproof. Or so I thought. There were rock concerts, of course. There were clubs. A little bit later there was mixing live rock and roll without any regard for my ears. There were messages such as this one: Delicate Butterfly of a Man Wears Earplugs at Hardcore Show. I was a punk. And unlike my punk sensibilities of today, I was a conforming punk. I was not going to be the only "delicate butterfly of a man" wearing earplugs. Or standing farther away from the speakers than my friends. That was not happening. Kids, don't listen to shit like this. It's bullshit to imply that taking care of your hearing is somehow not punk or not manly or not cool. Being able to hear well for as long as possible is punk and manly and cool. Ear plugs are a drag, no doubt. I still don't like to wear them. There are some that are better than others, both in comfort and in the quality of the listening experience through them. I don't have any endorsement here, but if you don't like one, try another one. Protect your hearing, though. That feeling the morning after a concert when the world sounds flat is not normal and it's not healthy.

There were other stupid things I did. The one which occasionally comes back to haunt me is a particularly misguided skin-diving incident. I was in high school. My family was on vacation in the British Virgin Islands on a sailboat. (Yeah, I know, poor me, right?) I noticed a wreck in about 100' of water on the charts and read about it in the guide book, and I wanted to see it. We were anchored a few hundred yards away, so I snorkeled out to the spot, as best I could, and looked. No way I could see through 100' of water--at least not on that day, not in that bay. So I dove down a bit, and still couldn't see anything. So I took a huge breath and dove down as far as I could go. I still hadn't seen anything (maybe I was in the wrong spot?) when my left ear screamed at me in pain. No one had ever taught me, and I'd never bothered to learn, that I needed to equalize the pressure in my ears when diving deeper than a swimming pool. Oh, that hurt. It hurt a lot. I immediately turned back to the surface and forgot completely about the wreck, snorkeled back to the boat and tried to ignore the pain, hoping it would feel better soon. It didn't. The next morning I had a whopper of an ear infection, the most painful one I ever remember (although I did have one more on my honeymoon that came close; more on that later, I'm sure), and we were getting on an airplane that day, or maybe the day after. Needless to say, it was a pretty painful flight, and I went on antibiotics as soon as possible, which cleared up that pain and emboldened me to think I hadn't done any permanent damage.

Still to this day, I have no evidence of permanent damage, I've had plenty of experiences to indicate there was more to that injury than one infection. The first time I remember feeling that one come back to haunt me was shortly after moving onto a houseboat. I was 28 years old, living in Portland, OR, working as a sound guy. (Minor digression here: living on a houseboat is awesome. I highly recommend it for everyone at least once in their lives, especially when you're young, single and/or childless. If you have this opportunity and all of those conditions apply to you, take the opportunity and thank me later. If you're not single nor childless, the calculation might be a little more complicated than that, but give it some serious thought.) I'd been living on the houseboat for a few weeks and had water skied at least a dozen times in the Wilamette river when my balance started to feel funky. I didn't think much of it because I was living on a houseboat and thought it was simply a case of "sea legs." When I went (temporarily) deaf in my left ear, though, I went to see my doctor. He diagnosed me as having a viral infection in my inner ear which would clear up on it's own. He figured I'd fallen hard on the left side and gotten some river water pushed through my ear drum in the process. It did clear up, and I figured he'd nailed it, but it's also pretty likely I fell at least as hard on the right side and never had an infection on that side.

So that's the history. At the time of the houseboat, I was working in the sound business, and I wasn't unconcerned about going deaf, even though it was temporary. I was still pretty young and stupid and bulletproof. I lost my stereo image for a week or so, but I could still hear fine out of my right ear, so I worked with my head slightly turned and trusted meters and instinct for any stereo imaging concerns. Life went on, my ear went back to normal, and my career as a professional sound guy marched forwards....

The Landscape of Fatherhood

A friend of mine on the facebook (one I've actually met IRW) posted this blog about being a mommy writer and it's great. There were three things that really struck me about it:

1. It's about dads, too. 
2. It's about all creative endeavors, not just writing. 
3. It also applies to reading. 

I'm a dad. Obviously. So I don't have some of the same biological explanations that moms do for how having a child has changed me. Women carry the cells of their babies for the rest of their lives, and vice versa. As far as I know, other than the genetic material I supplied to get that process started, I don't have the same kind of physical connection with my son, but there's still an undeniable connection. I don't feel his cry in my body the way my wife does, but I still feel it. His presence in this world has made an enormous difference in the landscape of my inner self. I've also grown closer to his mommy, my wife. I've loved her deeply since the day we met (as with so many men, it took me awhile to figure this out, but I really do believe it was there from the start), but something changed when she starting making our son from scratch inside her belly. Again, as is sadly typical of men, it took me awhile to figure this out, to honor it, to trust it, but it's been there for almost 9 years now. While the author of the aforementioned blog writes she "once held fast to the feminist narrative that having children wouldn’t define" her, I totally understand what she means. The masculine narrative that having children won't change us seems ancient and instinctive; it's similar to the tired old yarn that being in a relationship won't change us. Neither of these notions serves us. We are denying a reality we can't change. Being in a relationship changes us, whether that relationship is a new friend, a co-worker, a lover, a spouse, or a child. To quote a pastor speaking to the newcomers every week in her congregations, "we are different when you are here." Furthermore, we are different after we've met you. No one can stand in the same river twice, and humanity is a river with a very powerful flow. 

So, yeah, being a dad has changed me. No doubt. And who I am goes very directly into everything I create. It's somehow comforting to think my creative voice somehow transcends this, but there's really nothing comfortable about my creative voice; never has been, and (hopefully) never will be. I've grown out of the youthful, romantic notion that I have to suffer for my art, but that doesn't mean I'm every truly comfortable when I'm in a creative state. The best work I've ever done in my life, starting from a young age, are when I'm not sure whether it's good or not. It's a constant struggle. That's why I push myself to do and try new things, to write when I'm more comfortable working with sound, to work differently within the medium I am (relatively) comfortable in, why I shy away from using templates for the final mix on a project (which is, for me, the most creative part).... 

One of the great changes I've noticed is that my attention span has changed. It's not that it's gotten shorter or longer, it's that my brain has gotten used to interruptions. These can be literal interruptions, as this morning when I was trying to finish reading the blog post and my son was literally standing on my office chair behind me and tickling my neck with his (or my) hair. The more surprising ones, though, are when I'm at work, in a dark room, far from the literal distractions of fatherhood, and I find myself deep in thought about my wife or my son or our dog. The landscape of fatherhood follows me everywhere I go. And it's a good view. 

semi-annual writing push

It's time once again for my semi-annual (or perhaps it's annual, maybe even bi-annual or less frequent than that) push to write more. Of course, as always, this urge, this pressing urge to express myself in writing, comes when I don't have time for it. Especially not today. Or this week, really. But here it is and here I am, getting in a few lines while the eggs cook on the stove, hardly the right way to write. But when have I ever done things the right way? I suppose I have, I suppose there is a "do it right" voice in my head, and that's why I feel as though I should wait and write when I can sit down in 'the writing chair' (as a friend who is a bona fide, published writer, calls it) for 8 hours a day and just write. Well, I am in a writing chair, and at a keyboard, not my stoopid phone, so that's something, right? And if the eggs get burnt, I'm the one who has to eat them, so here I am, consciousness streaming away, vomiting my words out onto this blog where probably no one will read them.

So this guy is walking down the street, sees a perfectly good tennis ball on the curb, so he picks it up and puts it in his pocket. A few blocks later, he runs into a woman he knows and they stop to chat. He notices she keeps starting at the tennis ball in his pocket and he self-consciously says "oh, it's just I've got a tennis ball." She says "that must really hurt. I had tennis elbow once and it was really painful."

I love tennis balls pic.twitter.com/DpC43wFhTn

— Life on Earth (@planetepics) February 13, 2016

I could use this dude's services....

There are times when we get so busy at Hear Kitty Studios that someone inevitably jokes we should clone ourselves. I think I've finally found the guy who can help us:

I just wish he'd put his phone number on the tailgate....

From Gordon Eagleheart:

Last night [the night of September 27th, 2015] was a powerful night. Our Mother’s shadow was revealed on Grandmother Moon while we prayed and offered music to Fire, Air, Earth and Water in the Rio Grande Bosque. During sleep time powerful feelings joined me. All the feelings of living with plague in the land enveloped me. We were one grand sensation of great suffering. It was the dark ages in the current moment. The taste of death was everywhere. I clearly got that I am plague. I am part of this consuming darkness. I got that the message I offer is unwanted by those living the modern consumerism lifestyle. My message is a plague to their way of being with the world. If people awaken and realize the death they are bringing to life on this planet, their beloved lifestyle will die. They avoid hearing relatedness like the plague and strive to maintain separateness. They do not want to hear that the modern way of life is a plague that is consuming life on our beloved Mother Earth. The modern socioeconomic system is a plague raging on and is a consuming darkness. Yes, the shadows of the Mother were shining bright last night on Grandmother Moon.

I walk forward knowing that Life's intent is strong and nurtures the continuity and sustainability of Life. Eventually the plague will come to an end. I know not how much beautiful Life will be consumed while the plague rages on.

His words perfectly and beautifully express a feeling I've often had. I'm not going to try to restate them in any way. If you want more clarification, read them again, meditate on them, whatever it takes to understand.

What I do want to expound on is the way a similar idea to Gordon's has been and can be expressed in popular culture. The Walking Dead has revealed (several seasons ago, so I don't think I have to put any "spoiler alert" on this) that all the heroes of the show are infected by whatever it is that's turned most of the world's population into zombies. It's in them, too. In some dormant state. What if that "whatever it is" has been in us for generations? Since the plague? Longer? What if that "whatever it is" is, in fact, who we are?