I want to hear the crickets.

Gator Wife and I were visiting her brother and his wife the other day.  It was before I broke one of my hearing aids.  I'm not sure just how the topic came up because neither of us knew he also wore hearing aids.  I think GW noticed one in his ear and mentioned it.  He seemed to be very comfortable with his.

Across the roof of my car, he said he had noticed he wasn't hearing everything and more and more frequently was asking people to repeat themselves.  Boy, did that ever ring a bell of my own observations of several years ago.

Then he made one seemingly insignificant statement that rang in my head for several days.  "I went for a walk shortly after I got them and for the first time I heard the crickets."  He went on to explain he really didn't care if he heard the crickets or not, but his pride that he could once again hear came through loud and clear.

"I heard the crickets."

I hate to think how long it has been since I last heard the crickets.  If fact, it never even occurred to me I hadn't.  Now, I want to hear them again.  I can always take the aids out of my ears if the sounds of crickets get too loud or irritate me.

My hearing probably has been leaving me for more years than I want to admit.  Probably the major development came in the mid 1990s when GW and I were flying home from attending our son's wedding on the west coast. 

I was having trouble with my ears as they continually seemed to want to pop.  Nothing I did, like chewing gum or swallowing, helped.  It was particularly troublesome when the plane descended for landing in Chicago where we had to change planes.  The pain increased as we took off for Portland, but I didn't make it through the descent into the Jetport.

I felt a huge pop and for a while I couldn't hear anything in that ear.  It was a holiday weekend so I decided to let it ride until Monday.  But Monday the ear seemed to be working just fine.  I could hear and there was no pain.  I let it ride. 

More and more people complained that I was asking for stuff to be repeated and giving outlandish answers to questions.  GW was "on my case" for the next four or five years before I mentioned it to my primary physician.  He didn't hesitate and sent me to an audiologist with a side trip to an ear doctor to get a good ear cleaning.

What that ear guy found scared me.  I had a hole in my eardrum.

The hearing test proved I needed at least one hearing aid and probably two.  I got one.  That was nine or ten years ago.

Four or almost five years ago my hearing had deteriorated to the point of my needing the second one.  (Time flies when one is having a good time, doesn't it, FF?")  It was the one I broke last week.

So this Wednesday I'm heading for another hearing test.  I will end up with a new hearing aid and possibly two.

Right after it, or they, arrives, I'm going outside.  I'll listen for those crickets.

GiM