Hearing

Just over sixteen years ago, I was sitting at home in my living room, grading students' school work. I was home alone, when suddenly, I heard a huge roaring sound.

That night, I lost my hearing. In the beginning, I was completely deaf in both ears, hearing nothing at all but that atrocious roaring. Within the first three days, the hearing in my right ear recovered, but my left ear was completely, profoundly, stone deaf.

I went through a very long, very challenging period of rehabilitation to learn to stand upright, to learn to read people's faces and lips, to learn to live well in my half and half world between the deaf and the hearing.

The best guess of the medical professionals that I saw at the time, and since, was that some sort of viral infection had damaged the auditory nerve. It has come to be the norm of my world. I simply do not hear on that side, and I've learned to cope pretty darn well.

Last night, around 11:00 PM, I was sitting in the living room talking with Master when suddenly there was a sensation in my deaf ear, much like the sort of popping that happens when our ears adjust to pressure changes. Suddenly, His voice was deeper, lower, more resonant and booming. I shook my head and shifted my seat, but the sensation remained.

Somehow, after more than a decade and a half, some part of my lost hearing has returned. Tonight, about 24 hours after the initial event, I am slowly accommodating the shift.

Last night, sleeping snuggled into His side, I discovered that I could hear the rhythmic in and out of His C-pap machine. Most nights, as I drift off to sleep lying on my good ear, I lose the ability to hear His machine making its noises, and I frequently wake up afraid because I haven't heard Him "breathe." None of that last night... I HEARD Him breathing even as I slept comfortably on my hearing side.

Today, the sounds in the school seemed layered. Always I've been aware of the "rumble" of the school around me, but the sound has never been differentiated. It is just the roar of my world. This morning, as I stepped into the hallway, I could tell that the 8th graders down the hall to my right were humming away, discussing some bit of history with their teacher. Down the central stairway, I could detect the sweet, young voices of a group of 2nd graders reading with an aide in the hallway, and off to my left, there were 5th graders making excited sounds in their classrooms that are away and around the corner from me. All of that is about direction; the where of sound, and it is an awareness that I've not had for a very long time.

Tonight, driving in the car, listening to the radio, I was able to stop up the "good" ear and feel the sound shift to a lower volume, and away to my levt and behind me. Now, I know the sound isn't moving around me, but this business of having sound "sound" different based on coming into one ear or the other is a "new" experience.

Now, as I sit here, writing this bit of a story, we have the stereo on, and I am surprised about the subtleties I've been missing. There are base notes, and resonances, and amazing riffs that I've never noticed. It brings me to tears.

Tomorrow morning, at 9:30, I will see an ENT to explore what I might do to extend, capture, and enhance this wondrous new experience. It wasn't easy to make that appointment happen. Doctor's appointments in the morning during school days are very complicated events. I managed to find a substitute to cover me in the morning, and I dragged myself back into school tonight to set up the necessary plans for him. So, it is all set. I'll see the specialist tomorrow, and we'll begin the process of learning how I might re-enter the hearing world.

I don't believe in miracles. Still, I am going to tell you that I never expected to hear anything in that ear again. I am just wide-eyed. Amazed. A little scared.

I just wanted to tell you all...

swan