Red's Wrap
Happiness. It's relative.
Just When
Just when I started sinking, just when it became clear that the cochlear implant surgery was a mistake, just when I started planning my days around long walks by myself, just when I’d resigned myself to having my children speak to me in three-word sentences repeated dozens of times, just when I’d started charting out the rest of my life as a non-hearing person, I heard the weather forecast on the car radio.
After that, I ate a cheeseburger and listened to talk radio. Then I had a conversation with my husband without looking at him. Then I rode in the car with him looking straight ahead and listened to him as we drove in the dark. Then I went to a fancy place for dinner with friends. Then I ran into an old friend and we laughed and chatted about getting together to have lunch now that I could hear her. Then I had a three-hour dinner with people at other tables and Christmas carolers making a lot of noise. And then we said good night to our friends and came home.
And I thought right away of this picture I took of the old Seven Mile Bridge in the Florida Keys. I thought about how trapped I have felt. How I have felt trapped behind the fence.
I’m not anymore. It’s working. The cochlear implant, my brain, the technology, it’s working. It’s early yet and there is a long way to go but it’s working.
I’m not trapped anymore. I am getting free. And I am so glad I can barely speak.
7 Comments on “Just When”
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Snow Door | wisconsinacademy.org
Listen to Jan read her essay “Billy” presented on WUWM’s Lake Effect
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“Fury Cannot Touch Me,” Modern Love, NYT, 9/29/11
So glad to hear this! Conversation again; how great!
Hooray!! SO very happy for you!
Whoo hoo! One more of life’s lessons in patience….
But I’m so glad you did speak. I’ve wanted to ask again, but sensed that if the results had been good that you would be speaking about it. And, I’ve regretted asking about it in the first place. This is wonderful news, reported in your usual unique style. Thanks for sharing your good news!!!
It’s a long process and this is just the beginning. But it’s the first big (BIG) improvement. Hearing someone talk without my having to lip-read is huge. Reason to celebrate, that’s for sure. And thank you for asking. 🙂
I just keep remembering when you considered not going to the blogging convention to accept your award because it was so difficult for you to be somewhere among people. Hearing doesn’t mean you have to meander among the madding crowd, but it means you can with no trepidation do so when you wish to! My ears have been my weakest body part for my entire life, so I know to a very small degree how frustrating it is not to be able to hear! I want everything about 20 percent louder than anyone else ever does and of course, don’t ask for the sound to be turned up that loud. I just strain to hear the words. Nothing compared to what you have experienced…but I have just a shadow of an idea of what it is like.
Yay! Congratulations!