On Taking Things for Granted
My pretty ruby red Naida CI Q90 next to my Dark Sienna Harmony processor
You know, one of the reasons my posts slowed down here was because things just became … normal. I woke up every day, put on my CI processors, heard my world in a way that felt normal to me, and that was about it. Once you get past the early days where every new sound is a revelation and it’s just so freaking cool to HEAR again, there’s not much to say. And, um, you kind of start to take things for granted.
This past Saturday I expected to be like any other day. I put on my right processor … beep, I can hear, good to go. (Actually, with the new processors I can switch them up and it doesn’t matter which ear they go on – another really helpful improvement.) Put on the left, start applying my moisturizer, finish my moisturizer and hey, I can’t hear. WTF?! I took off the processor, pulled the battery off and put it back on, and watched the LED lights to see what happened. Usually I’ll see four flashes to indicate a full battery, and then a quick green light. This time I saw nothing for a long time, and then a solid red light that didn’t go away. Fuck.
I still wasn’t too nervous; I figured maybe somehow my battery didn’t recharge overnight. So I tried all the others, with the same result.
It’s funny how entitled I feel now – how dare I not be able to hear?! This is ridiculous and awful! And then I remember that it was my reality (only worse, because I couldn’t hear AT ALL) for so many months when I first went deaf.
Dave was still sleeping so I began quietly opening dresser drawers, trying to remember where I put my old Harmony processors, batteries and battery charger. I never expected to be using my backup processor so quickly but at least I had it. Since my left ear is much stronger, I put the new Naida CI on that ear and put the Harmony on my right. (Which meant I had to figure out which processor went on that ear; with the Harmony, if you put the wrong processor on the wrong ear, it will not work at all.)
I came downstairs to use the computer and see if other people had experienced a similar issue and if it was, indeed, a fault in the processor. It wasn’t too bad, really – I could tell that I was hearing differently on the right side but it wasn’t really jarring. But the house was silent, and once Dave woke up and came downstairs, it really hit home how differently I hear with the Naida Q90 versus the Harmony.
My right ear is weird – I have electrodes turned off on that ear, and high pitched sounds make me really dizzy. With the Harmony I was always turning the volume down or covering the microphone if there were sudden loud noises. It wasn’t until Saturday morning that I realized I hadn’t had to do that once with the Naida.
Dave pulled out dishes to feed the cats, filled the metal vacuum pot and put it on the stove to heat for coffee, coughed and cleared his throat … and I immediately had to pull the Harmony CI off my ear, look at the volume wheel and turn it down. All of those high-pitched sounds were unbearably sharp to me, almost painfully so.
As I went about my morning, I remembered that my headpiece cable for the Harmony was frayed, which meant sound was cutting out every time I turned my head or smiled. So I’d smile, suddenly hear nothing, after a second there’d be a loud WHOOSH of sound (because remember, the Harmony doesn’t activate ClearVoice right away), and finally the sound would moderate to a comfortable level … then I’d turn my head and the whole thing would repeat. It was maddening.
I thought hey, maybe I can wear the new headpiece with my old Harmony! I went upstairs to check, but the connections aren’t compatible. Then I remembered I’d received some old equipment from a fellow who had upgraded quite a while back, and there’d been a headpiece cable included. I never even opened it because my headpiece and cable for the Harmony is a one-piece unit. But I figured I’d check and YES, this cable worked with my Harmony! So I do have one functional unit using that cable and the new magnet headpiece that I wear with my Naida.
My email to Advanced Bionics was in vain because it was the weekend, but I did hear back on Monday afternoon. I have to admit I’ve noticed a difference in the Customer Service response compared to my early days of wearing a CI. The customer service reps often seem confused and not as knowledgeable as they used to be. The person who helped me asked for some information, which I provided, and then said she entered a processor replacement request, gave me an RMA number and referenced my old audiologist in Illinois, even though I’d just given her my new Michigan audiologist information. That really gave me pause. I corrected her, but come on, really?! This is pretty important stuff here!
I’m supposed to have a new processor in two business days but I’ve heard nothing since – no tracking information, etc. I don’t know if my processor will arrive already programmed or if I have to take it in to have the programming put on. (I know I could ask but eh, I figure I’ll know soon enough once it gets here.) In the meantime, I’m realizing how much I’d already gotten used to my new hearing. I can’t really use the ComPilot – it only works in one ear (the Naida) and everything sounds really uneven, so I prefer just to do without for now. I’m back to wearing headphones and using an MP3 player at the gym.
And I know, boo hoo, poor me — “You want some cheese with your whine?” I am still a deaf person who can hear! Totally not complaining. But I can’t help but compare and realize how much I really did take my bionic hearing for granted, especially with the improvements since I upgraded. I guess it made more of a difference than I realized!
What’s New
Naida CIQ90 on top (Ruby Red) and my old Harmony CI processor on bottom — the Naida is so much smaller and lighter!
Oddly enough, the way the processors bring in sound when I first put them on is the biggest change for me between my old and new CIs. I had my Harmony programming (called a ‘map’) put on my new processors and it works really well, so things sound pretty much the same. I do find that I never need to adjust the volume with these processors; on my old ones, I usually had to fiddle with my right processor (my worse ear, the one that’s been deaf longest and has some high pitched electrodes turned off because they make me dizzy). I asked about getting specific hearing strategies put onto these processors (I have five slots per ear for different programs) and my audiologist told me that everything is pretty much automatic now. They’ve found that people really don’t like to have to switch programs for different environments, although that’s still an option for the future if I decide I want them.
Speaking of my audiologist, I just LOVE her. The whole clinic, actually. I’m going to the Audiology Clinic at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, a town I had never been to before my Nov. 30 appointment to have my new processors activated. I thought it was really far away but honestly, the drive is about as long as it took me to get to my Illinois clinic in Hinsdale … and the drive is a lot less stressful. I was always a bit uncomfortable knowing I had no audiologist in Michigan after we moved, and it’s a big relief to have that sorted out and to be working with someone who really listens to my feedback. It’s obvious that quality of life is important to her, and my visits have been helpful and informative. She even gives me encouraging feedback during those dreaded hearing tests, which makes them a bit less onerous.
The activation appointment was really not as big a deal as I expected it to be. I had two huge backpacks full of parts and accessories and the processor parts themselves, and I wasn’t sure what to actually bring. I ended up fitting just about everything (except the extra/backup parts and some accessories like the TVLink) into one backpack and I brought that, just to be safe. It took no time at all to put the programming from my Harmony processors onto the Naidas, and after that we just went over some of the basics (how to change certain parts) and how to pair the ComPilot to my phone and the TVLink.
The Phonak ComPilot almost deserves its own post, but I’m planning to write an entry focusing on music (which ties in to this topic) so I’ll just briefly explain what it is. The Naida processor is Bluetooth-capable, and the ComPilot is a streamer that you wear around your neck so you can get stereo sound from things like cell phones, MP3 players, tablets, laptops and computers. No more headphones! I also use it with the TVLink device – again, it turns my CIs into wireless headphones and puts the TV sound right into my ears; there’s also a small clip-on mic that I can have someone wear so I can hear them better (a presenter/speaker in a seminar, a dining companion in a restaurant, etc). Although I do have to have the ComPilot hanging around my neck, it’s a far cry from the wires I used to have to use to get this kind of sound, and the quality of sound that I get is truly remarkable. It’s my favorite feature of my new CIs, by far!
When Things Come Into Focus
Every day I have a moment where I go from being deaf to actually hearing sound. It’s not when I first wake up – my cochlear implant processors are nowhere near my head at that time. Generally I get out of bed, grab a couple of rechargeable batteries off the charger, carefully pick up my CIs (I’ve learned the hard way that the cord connecting the headpiece to the processor is fragile) and carry them with me to the bathroom. Sometimes I put my CIs on right when I get out of bed, but usually I wait until I’ve had time to fix my hair. That involves sliding my hands up under my hair, against my scalp, and shaking to get the curls going and fix any areas that got pressed down or wonky overnight. If I do that when I’m wearing the CIs, I basically would fling them right off my head!
Before I upgraded to the Naida Q90 processors, I had to brace myself for this moment. It’s overwhelming, going from total silence to a rush of sound all at once. My Harmony processors had a program called ClearVoice that would compress any steady background sound and kind of mute it. So if, for example, I had the fan on in the bathroom, my first sound would be the roar of the fan and then ClearVoice would kick in and the sound would get compressed down to a less overwhelming level. If Dave were to come in and start talking to me at that point, his voice would be the main thing I heard and the fan would fade away to the background – hence the ClearVoice name. It helps you hear when background noise is present.
Even though I’ve had the Naida processors since the end of November, I’m still not used to the difference when I first put them on. I still inwardly cringe and wait to be bombarded with sound for that first few seconds before the compression program takes over. Now, though, what happens is this: I hear nothing for a second or two, and then I hear a beep. After that beep, I can hear. Generally I’m in a quiet environment so there’s not a whole lot going on noise-wise, but there’s always slight sounds happening even in a quiet room. It’s like everything gets clicked into focus, the difference between A and B in a vision exam where A is the blurry lens and B is the one that lets you read that last line on the eye chart.
But the way these processors activate each time I put them on is such a relief. There’s no overwhelming loud sound coming in first and then getting compressed. The first sounds I hear are already compressed. That alone is a huge improvement. But there’s also that beep, which (for me anyway) serves to prepare me for hearing. I focus on that and I know I’ll be hearing in a second. My little warning tone, I love it so.
Unexpected Gifts
When we first walked through the house in April, it was basically empty – no furniture or window treatments, nobody currently living there at the time. After we decided that yeah, we were gonna take a shot at buying this house built in 1900 (!), we came back and took a closer look. I’d found out the hard way, from a house we’d signed a contract on a few weeks earlier, that it was a good idea to open those cabinets, look in the closets, really take your time and decide if you can make this place work. (We backed out of the other house after the inspection turned up some Bad Things, but I also hadn’t realized that the kitchen cabinets were actually horrible inside – I never bothered to open a door or drawer. Doh! The market was insane at that time and we were basically jumping at any house that hadn’t been sold out from under us.)
As we slowly inspected each room, opening cabinets and drawers, we realized that there was actually quite a bit of stuff still here. Pots and pans, dishes, silverware, lace curtains (still in the packaging from the dry cleaner) hanging in the closet. The upstairs storage area, which I call the attic but really isn’t – it’s just a small room at the end of the upstairs hall with lots of space for storing things – had some holiday decorations in the back. There was a propane charcoal grill on the back deck. Stuff like that.
We tried to piece together the story of these left-behind items. The seller hadn’t lived in the house since 2011 or 12. I found a whole kitchen cabinet filled with inkjet cartridges, markers, first birthday invitations, even photos, and our seller was not in any of them. Leftover invoices in the same cabinet had somebody else’s name, a couple with a small child from the looks of things. I assumed they were renting the house and, for whatever reason, took off in a hurry and left a bunch of stuff behind. I also assumed it would all be gone once we actually took possession in June.
But it wasn’t gone. We opened the door with our new key, walked in, and found all these things in the same places we’d last seen them. So I ended up with a couple of new pots and pans, donated most of the dishes, gifted to Paige all the things she needed for her new home, and tossed the junk in the trash.
I pretty much forgot about the holiday stuff. I mean, it was June and the holidays were the furthest thing from my mind. Once November rolled around, though, I started eyeballing potential spots for a Christmas tree. You might remember my dilemma when we moved to the little house in Niles, a house so small that there was no possible place for a full-sized tree. (I actually considered not having a tree that first year, until Dave insisted that we look at some pencil trees.) To have multiple possibilities for tree placement was a novelty for me; even in Illinois, there was only one real option for where to put the tree (and I still had to move furniture to fit it in).
“We need to buy a tree this year,” I reminded Dave. “I hate to spend the money, it would be cheaper to buy it after Christmas, but that pencil tree is just not big enough. We’ll put that one out on the front porch.”
He held up a finger to stop me. “Hang on.”
He went downstairs (we have a Michigan basement here, so I try to stay out of it as much as possible). A few minutes later I heard something thunking up the stairs, and then a six-foot Christmas tree appeared in my kitchen.
He peeked around from behind it. “It was downstairs! It has lights on it and everything. It’s from Bronner’s!”
I mean, what are the odds?! This tree is the perfect size for the family room, and it is gorgeous.
I did suggest that we buy a second tree during the after-Christmas sales and put it up in the living room or dining room, but Dave shot that down. Can’t blame a girl for trying! 😉
(Nearly) Ten Years of Deafness
I haven’t posted in forever so I’m sure nobody’s reading this anymore, but for the first time in ages I actually have cochlear implant-related news. In April 2018 it will be ten years since I went deaf (and ten years since I started this blog, geez). I can remember getting my cochlear implants and thinking they were all I ever needed – I couldn’t imagine needing to upgrade. But ten years on, and I’m down to one headpiece that functions well, one that is okay for the most part, one that doesn’t work at all and one that cuts out every time I smile, turn my head, etc. (the cord is frayed and loses connection). I think the only functioning T-mics I have are the ones on my two processors; the backups long since stopped working. And I received a letter from Advanced Bionics this spring telling me that my Harmony processors are now obsolete and no longer covered. When I called last year to get a replacement headpiece, I was told they don’t make that style anymore and I should really upgrade.
“Oh, I’ll wait until we move,” I said. “I want to see how our finances look at that point.” I had no idea how expensive it would be to upgrade, and it made me nervous. A house was more important to me than hearing at that point.
So now we have a house. (Yes! We bought a house in June, in Michigan. I really need to start writing here again.) My headpieces really started acting up, so I contacted Advanced Bionics with my long list of questions. And I’m shocked to say that less than a month later, I’ve been notified that my insurance approved the upgrade, they are accepting my two backup processors as a trade-in to cover the 20% balance I owed (which leaves a big fat ZERO due) and my new processors are being shipped to me today!
I also had to find a new clinic since I haven’t been mapped since I lived in Illinois, so I’ll be going to Western Michigan University to have these babies activated and mapped. I can’t even tell you all the new features I’ll have – I’m getting the Advanced Bionics Naida Q90 in ruby red – so I have some learnin’ to do.
Isn’t she pretty?!
But I’m pretty sure I can listen to music wirelessly with the ComPilot (which I’ll wear around my neck) and Bluetooth technology. I used to have to hook all these wires up to have the music go right into my CIs, so I’m really excited about this!
What a difference (almost) ten years makes. I’m still reeling.
Teamwork
I went to a new dentist last week, for my regular cleaning and updated x-rays. I’ve never been fond of the dentist to begin with, but since I got CIs it is extra challenging because being reclined makes my CI processors (aka my “ears”) fall off.
I’ve tried many things over the years — wig tape, headbands, scarves, even a knit cap. Nothing is foolproof (although the knit cap worked the best, since it also helps to keep my magnets where they need to be). However, I am not about to pull out a knit cap in August.
This time around I used something called a Snuggie from Advanced Bionics, basically tubing made to fit my Harmony processors that fits snugly around my ear. It works perfectly to keep the processor from being pulled off my ear as my head is reclined back. The only issue that remained was keeping the magnets from being knocked out of place by the headrest.
Advanced Bionics Snuggie for the Harmony cochlear implant — the clear tubing goes around the ear
I played around with a scarf tied strategically over both magnets, but eventually decided it was too fussy. I figured I’d just deal with the magnet situation if and when it arose.
In the end I didn’t have too much trouble; they were able to adjust the headrest so that my magnets stayed in place during most of my visit. They did slip off when I was told to turn my head to the side, but those instances were brief and my other magnet stayed in place so I had enough hearing to still follow instructions.
What really impressed me, though, was when the dentist came in for the exam portion. She had a bit of an accent, and originally asked me a question when her back was turned (she also had a mask over her mouth, just for an added challenge). I had no idea if she was talking to the dental hygienist or me, so I stayed silent. She turned back to me, and I met her eyes and said, “I can hear you, but I also read lips to understand what you’re saying.”
Her face lit up and she pulled the mask down. “Thank you for telling me! That’s very good to know.” Then she turned to the hygienist and asked her to repeat everything for me — although the dentist kept her mask on, everything she said was repeated by the hygienist so I could read the hygienist’s lips. I’ve never had anyone in the medical profession do that for me before and it made a huge difference.
Not only did I get a clean bill of dental health, I came away feeling like my needs were met with respect, kindness and ingenuity. It almost makes me not dread going to the dentist again!
Repost: How Farrah Fawcett Almost Ruined My Childhood
It’s almost summer, and that means dealing with humidity and frizz for those of us with curly hair. In light of that, I thought I’d repost this entry from 2013 (with an updated final photo that’s more current).
I’m also considering a fairly short haircut for the summer, thanks to this inspiration:
I think my face is a similar shape to the girl in the white tank, and I could probably pull it off. We’ll see.
* * *
In 1976, I was 12 years old. I had a head full of wild brown curls and a body full of hormones that were wreaking havoc on said hair. All the magazines I read gave advice on how to care for your hair, but they assumed that everyone had stick-straight tresses. Following their advice, I would brush my hair over and over to make it sleek and shiny. Instead, I ended up with this:
Not exactly sleek and shiny
Later that year, Farrah Fawcett’s famous red swimsuit poster came out. It was everywhere. There she was, in poster-sized glory, with her gleaming smile and those lush, voluptuous…feathered bangs. While all the boys studied other aspects of the poster, all the girls were asking, “How can I get that hair?!”
Pretty soon, just about everyone in school had feathered hair. You couldn’t walk ten feet without seeing somebody whip out a comb from their back pocket and run it through their hair, which would ripple and settle into a beautiful feathered pattern.
I was in 7th grade that year, just starting junior high at a brand new school. I was desperate to fit in, and I begged my mom to take me for a feathered-hair haircut. I think I vaguely remember the hair stylist telling me that she wasn’t sure my hair would cooperate, but I was young and naïve. If you just got the right hair cut, your hair would look like the hair in the picture…right?
Um….wrong. Here’s my class photo:
Huh…how come I don’t look like Farrah Fawcett?!
I ended up with wings. I could take flight with the things sticking out of the sides of my head. It was the first truly disappointing and embarrassing hair moment of my life, and I had to go through a whole school year like that.
By the time I reached high school, my hair was growing out and I was learning to use a curling iron to straighten it. (Yes, young whippersnappers, they didn’t have flat irons back then.) Instead of curling my hair around the curling iron barrel, I would snap the barrel over my hair near my scalp and then slide it straight down to straighten it. After going through my whole head of hair to straighten it this way, I would go back and curl the sides back in a big flip. It was the closest I could get to the feathered hair effect.
Since my hair was so curly, if it was humid my hair would immediately begin to curl and lose the shape I had worked so hard to achieve. Forty-five minutes of hair styling could be undone by a five minute walk outdoors in the humid summer weather. I bought a portable curling iron as my weapon against humidity, and I kept it in my purse all the time. You pulled the top of it and a plug would magically pop out of the base. In between just about every class, I would stop off in the bathroom, pull out my curling iron, plug it in and fix my hair. After my friends and I went out for a walk around the neighborhood, I’d stop back in their bathroom to fix my hair. I probably spent more than half my day trying to keep my hair straight and feathered.
Here’s hunch-shouldered photographic evidence of my hard work, circa 1980:
Looking at this photo, I can tell humidity was getting to my hair. Time to fix it (AGAIN).
In my junior year of high school, something magical happened. Curly hair started to be popular, and people were getting perms. Perms! I wanted to embrace this new hair movement, but I was still absolutely clueless about taking care of curly hair. I had clued in to the fact that you never, ever use a brush on curly hair (I used picks) but I had no idea how to use hair products to help tame my curls. In their natural state, my curls were still unruly and not uniform – definitely not a pretty sight.
By now, my mom was working as a hair stylist and she came up with a way to give me a perm that wasn’t a full perm (since I already had some curl). I’m not sure what voodoo she worked but I think it involved a shorter processing time, and maybe she used less of the chemicals. The end result was magical. I had uniform curls, all over my head. No longer did I have a curl spinning in one direction away from the others, or a section of my hair that was merely wavy and not curly.
Behold the hairstyle I rocked for many years, starting in 1981:
It’s actually hard to tell but it’s all CURLS here!
Finally I was free of the straight-hair envy I’d been fighting for so long. I totally embraced my curly hair, and even when perms fell out of fashion and straight hair came back, I stuck with my curls. I was older and wiser, and happy to be different from most other people hairstyle-wise. I felt so much freedom compared to my days of spending over an hour doing my hair. I had discovered hair products that helped keep my curls in check, and doing my hair now took all of 10 minutes.
After I had my first baby, my hormones once again went wild and my hair became much more curly…so much so that I no longer needed the ‘light’ perms. My hair was doing naturally what I used to need a chemical to achieve.
March 2016
I haven’t straightened my hair since I was 19. It took a while, but I learned to embrace what God gave me and not fight it. I’m proud to be a curly girl!
A Change Would Do You Good
I was wandering through Goodwill back in 2012, and a couple of chairs caught my eye. The upholstery fabric was a terrible pastel 80s pattern, ripped and torn in spots, but the color of the wood and the line of the chair itself were really striking. There were just two, marked at $3 each, and I pointed them out to Dave. “Really?” he said, wrinkling his nose.
“Yes! We can totally change the fabric. I love them. They’re only three bucks – come on.”
Dave is the one with the reupholstery experience; once I got him to look at the chairs themselves and not the horrific fabric, he was sold.
We decided to use them with our double computer desk; we were trying to streamline everything and get away from the big, bulky office chairs we were currently using.
I found some fabric that I loved (as Portlandia encourages, we Put a Bird on It) and the chairs served us well. It’s been four years, though, and they get heavy daily use. The fabric was getting worn away and faded; it was really not upholstery fabric to begin with, just some good-quality cotton. Time for an update. I conveniently had a large piece of actual upholstery fabric that I’d picked up a couple years ago for $1 at Goodwill. (Can you tell I love that store?) It’s been in the closet waiting for a chance to shine, and this was that chance.
When I tell people that we reupholstered these chairs (and the kitchen chairs), I usually get a dramatic reaction along the lines of, “Wow! I could never do that!” But really, it’s so easy. Like, stupidly easy. I’m gonna show you how.
These chairs are super simple – just four screws on the bottom of the chair that hold the seat in place. We flipped the chair over and removed the screws, then took off the seat itself.
The fabric is simply stapled to the bottom of the seat. We decided to just put the new fabric right on top of what was already there, but you could certainly take off the old fabric first if you wanted to.
Lay out your new fabric and lay the seat on top. (I wanted to make sure certain flowers were in the center area of the seat, so I have the fabric right-side up.) Once you get your placement figured out, cut around the seat and leave at least three inches of extra fabric (more is better; you can always cut it off). If you removed the original fabric, you could also use that as a guide – just cut a new piece of fabric that matches it in width and length.
Fold over your cut edge, then bring it around to the bottom of the seat and staple in place. Don’t pull too tight, but also don’t leave it so loose that the fabric wrinkles.
Staple every inch or so, all the way around the bottom.
Screw the seat back onto the chair, and there you have it.
The possibilities are endless!
There Was an Old Lady Who Got a Tattoo
A while back, I casually told Paige that if I were to ever get a tattoo, I’d get some type of spiral. “Something that symbolizes the cochlea, for my cochlear implant,” I explained. Then I forgot about it entirely.
She asked about it again last month at Easter dinner, wondering if I was still planning to do it. “Oh no!” I laughed. “I’m too old for that kind of thing. I’ll leave it to you kids.”
And then I kept thinking about it. I started searching online for possible images, thought about the size and placement. Originally I wanted it right where my inner wrist begins. “I don’t know about that,” Dave cautioned. (He has two tattoos, one on his right arm and, well, basically his entire back.) “You’re going to see it all the time.”
“But I want to see it!” I argued. Still, he had a point. And there’s all those veins right there on your inner wrist; that would be painful, wouldn’t it? So I decided maybe further down, my forearm rather than my wrist.
I came up with a rough idea of what I wanted, after rejecting a few things. I knew I wanted it to be mainly black and then to gradually change to a reddish orange inside, to symbolize how my cochlear implant brings color to my world. I knew I wanted it to be about the size of a quarter or silver dollar. (Originally I wanted it teeny tiny, but I rejected that fairly quickly.) And I wanted it to be kind of rough looking, not smooth, perfect lines.
After I settled on what, I started checking out where. I read a lot of reviews and it didn’t take long to settle on a place called The Parlor Tattooing in St. Joseph, Michigan. I liked the work that they did, the place looked clean and spoke to me aesthetically, and the reviews were all positive. Dave called and they said I was welcome to come by for a consultation; because it was small, they might even be able to fit me in the same day. Otherwise, they were booked out until June.
Oddly enough, I didn’t think too much about whether it would hurt. I did do a search on the most painful places to get a tattoo, and one site said the wrist would be painful … as in, do that for your second or third tattoo, not your first. Other people were like, “Eh, no biggie.”
So yesterday, April 14, I realized it had been eight years since I went deaf. This used to be kind of a sad anniversary for me, but it doesn’t bother me anymore. I used to feel like I was the only person who’d gone through this horrible situation but now I know that I’m one of many, and we all just do what we gotta do. I have my CIs and I hear better with them than I did with hearing aids, after all. Instead of being maudlin, I decided to have a strange man permanently ink my body to commemorate the day. Why not?!
Now if you’re just a boring non-cool, non-hip person like me, going to a tattoo parlor is a little intimidating. As we drove there, Dave asked if I was nervous. “About getting the tattoo? No. I’m nervous about making small talk with the tattoo artist.” Yep; other people worry about whether it will hurt. I worry about whether I’ll be able to hear over the music and sound of the tattoo … machine? Gun? And what will I say to this person I probably have nothing in common with? Or will they even talk to me at all?
We got there about 20 minutes after they opened. I wasn’t sure I’d actually get a tattoo, but I figured I’d at least find out how much it cost and set up an appointment. The shop itself is really cool; lots to look at, the kind of color and décor that I usually gravitate to. There was a very tattooed, pierced, bearded guy standing outside when we walked up, and he nodded and smiled at us. Then he followed us inside and asked if he could help us. I explained what I wanted and he said, “You know, I can do it right now if you want.” No turning back now.
I showed him the image on my phone, and then came the scariest moment of the whole experience. “Oh yea, just email that to me,” he said casually as he handed me a form to fill out. “Oh fuck,” I thought. How do I email this thing? I’m not to the point where I’d try to text using my calculator or anything, but I don’t just casually email random images to people either. I nodded slowly as my brain frantically ran through the possibilities. I touched one button on my phone and … yea, that’s not the right one. I glanced around casually, hiding my panic as I tried to figure out how to do this without looking like an idiot. Finally I found the right button, clicked on Gmail and looked up at him. “Oh here, I’ll enter my email address while you fill that out.” He took the phone and I breathed a sigh of relief.
In case you’re wondering (I always did), they make a transfer of the image you want. They put it on your skin and then use that as a guide when they do the actual tattooing. “Do you want the edges rough like this?” he asked. I confirmed that I did, and he agreed that it looked better that way. Then we talked about the color. I was under the impression that switching colors was a big deal, so I was only planning on getting two colors. But he suggested having the color gradually go from dark red to orange, which I loved.
The whole thing lasted for maybe 40 minutes, and it never became painful. (The whole visit, from when we walked in until we walked out, took about an hour.)
And you guys, this kid was so nice and friendly. (If you ever go there for a tattoo, ask for Preston – you won’t be disappointed.) We chatted the whole time, and even Dave chimed in from the couch he was sitting on. There were three guys working there and they were all like that – friendly and open. The whole shop had a very casual, non-judgmental vibe.
I also noticed that every single client was a woman. There was a younger girl in her 20s getting her shoulder or upper arm done, me, and then someone a bit older (but younger than me) getting a tattoo on her ankle. I thought that was pretty cool – girl power and all.
So it’s done, and I absolutely love it. I do have to say that it takes some getting used to, because it’s a tattoo that I can see as opposed to something on my shoulder or something, where I’d have to use a mirror to see it. Yesterday I’d move my arm and think, Oh my god, what is that on my arm?! before I remembered, Oh yea … tattoo. In the winter I’ll rarely see it unless I push up my sleeve, but it will definitely be on view in the summer months. Since it’s on the inside of my forearm it’s not quite as noticeable, but it’s very colorful and it’s not small. The important thing is that it’s exactly what I wanted, and it has a lot of meaning for me. I smile whenever I see it. If somebody else doesn’t like it, they can take a hike, man.
Dave talked to my mom last night and he told her to sit down before he broke the news. (I figured she’d be upset about it.) Instead, she said she’s been thinking about getting one on her shoulder. I think I know just the place to take her the next time she visits. 🙂
A Picky Eater Grows Up
The year is 1974. My family is making the annual pilgrimage from Illinois to Florida in our trusty Oldsmobile, Mom and Dad chain-smoking in the front while my brother and I fight for prime real estate in the back seat. We finally arrive in Georgia, and I put my family through a familiar scenario:
We pull up to the drive-through window of McDonald’s. My dad calls out the orders, three variations of hamburgers-with-everything plus French fries and drinks. Then he adds, “And one plain hamburger.”
My brother groans and slumps back. My mom taps her nails on the window trim. The inevitable request comes. “Uh, sir, can you pull over and wait?”
This was no ‘have it your way’ situation. My plain hamburger meant that we waited an extra 10 or 15 minutes for it to be cooked and slapped between a bun sans all the junk that turned my stomach.
I’m sure many people can tell tales of their childhood food aversions. If you’re a parent, you probably deal with this sort of thing from your own children. What we often don’t talk about, though, is when this pickiness extends into adulthood.
I’m 51 years old, and I still don’t eat salad (or raw vegetables of any kind). If you try to sneak Parmesan cheese into my food, I will smell it and push it aside. I’ve come a long way, though. Mushrooms, fennel, balsamic vinegar and Havarti cheese all now have a place in my life. It was a long, nose-wrinkling process, however, and some foods still didn’t make the cut (sorry Gruyère – you just smell too nasty).
I was lucky enough to visit France in my late 20s. After days spent wandering Versailles, visiting the Eiffel Tower, and watching artists at work in Montmartre, I was often famished. I am ashamed to admit that the restaurant that most frequently got my business was none other than McDonald’s. I was thrilled to tuck into an order of chicken nuggets with a side order of barbecue sauce. Some days it was all I ate, after a breakfast of coffee and toast.
In front of Notre Dame Cathedral, 1988 – most likely thinking of the Mickey D’s I’d eat that night
I don’t know what it’s like now, but Paris in 1988 was a challenge for someone who didn’t speak French. Add a hearing loss and inherent shyness to that, and ordering from a restaurant was fraught with peril. After ordering a pizza that inexplicably arrived at the table with a topping of runny eggs, I avoided cafes and looked for the golden arches.
Things started changing for me around the time I had my cochlear implant surgery in 2008. It’s fairly common for the nerves that control taste to be damaged during surgery, and I was not spared. For about a year and a half, things like bread, cookies and cake had a strange, spongy texture and no flavor. Water was oily; most flavors were flat. The front center area of my tongue was most affected, so I tried to skip that area and quickly get the food to the back of my tongue. I drank beverages through a straw.
I found that adding heat and spice livened up some of the dead flavors, so for the first time in my life I gravitated toward hot, spicy foods. (I kept that preference once my taste buds were back to normal.) While I was busy looking for ways to burn some life into my taste buds, we also started watching more cooking shows on TV. I learned how to prepare and cook things I’d never even heard of before, like jicama. I discovered Ruth Reichl’s books, and found myself curious about some of the more exotic dishes she described.
As I slowly started trying things that were new to me (and enjoying most of them), I decided to really push myself out of my comfort zone. I signed up to become a recipe tester for Cook’s Illustrated, with the caveat that I had to try recipes with at least one new ingredient. Testing a recipe means I have to follow everything to the letter – the ingredients, cooking method, pan size, and so on. Instead of, say, substituting Greek yogurt for sour cream, I have to use exactly what the recipe calls for.
I admit that just last year I sat in a restaurant, ordered a dish that had pasta salad on the side (something I’ve never eaten because I hate mayonnaise), and told myself that if my kids could follow the ‘just take one bite and try it’ rule, then so could I. It was made with aioli, which I’d never had but assumed tasted like mayonnaise. For whatever reason, I loved it. Maybe I like aioli better than mayonnaise, or maybe aioli tastes nothing like mayo, or maybe I actually don’t mind mayo anymore. Who knows. But I tried it!
So I’ve come a long way, food-wise. In all honesty, I still wouldn’t order a burger with everything on it. But ordering it plain wouldn’t even cross my mind these days.
