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eruthrosSo yesterday I spent twenty dollars and two and a half hours at a doctor's office ... to learn exactly four words more than I knew going in.
See, it's an insurance hoop. I told my primary care doc that I was having hearing problems. In the last four or so years, I've started to have: difficulty distinguishing words when they overlap, difficulty distinguishing words against background noise, difficulty pinpointing directionality of noise (I can't tell where the siren is coming from, just whether it's approaching or leaving), total inability to "pick out" one conversation at a loud party (this is hampering me as a grad student because I have to leave receptions because I can't tell what anyone's saying), and most especially the kind of clear gap in hearing that leads me to always be saying "sorry, what did you -- oh, alligators! you saw alligators!" because it takes me five seconds to guess what the word is from what I'm hearing. However, my pitch-and-volume hearing is great: I'm the first person to hear the siren, I just dunno where it is. And I clearly hear the words, because I can usually guess.
So first I had to go to an ENT to take a hearing test. Where I described my symptoms, took a v.v. long hearing test, and we determined that, hey, I'm basically at the perfect top bar of the little chart! ... when it comes to volume and pitch.
Which, you'll note, I knew going in.
On the other hand, I learned ... three whole words. Central Auditory Process. And the audiologist at the ENT's office told me to check on same on wikipedia, where surprise surprise... look! it's me! Except for the part about the association with poor performance in school. And the part about how it (typically) starts in childhood. And about how it's not supposed to get worse over time.
And also how I don't have a diagnosis. I just have a "hey, look, you don't have a problem with your physical hearing, you should go see someone who deals with brains who will maybe tell you you have this thing that I can't tell you anything about myself but you should totally google it. Sorry, we don't deal with brains, because they're squishy and weird."
On the other other hand, I read like a hundred and fifty pages of the hilarious Interred With Their Bones, a da Vinci Code knockoff except with Shakespeare. Here's how it goes: a Harvard-PhD-student-turned-theater-director gets interrupted while directing Hamlet at the Globe. By an old mentor. Who... then is killed with poison in the ear! Our hero must then run around the world following tracking her old mentor's research! Into one of Shakespeare's lost plays! That may prove something about his life! Or also about how the plays weren't really written by Shakespeare! And uncover a conspiracy of the Howard family and the Earl of Northampton! While narrowly avoiding a man who wants to turn her into the "enter Lavinia" stage direction! It's, um, thrilling. In that special hilarious way. Also the author is ALSO a Harvard PhD turned theater director. I think there's a rule about people who leave academia and then write thrillers about the subjects of their dissertations: they are hilarious.
Sadly, I'm not done yet, so I don't know if Shakespeare turns out to be sekritly the son of Queen Elizabeth, or sekritly the lover of Frances Howard, or if the plays were actually really written by the Earl of Oxford (Edward de Vere, who one of the characters is sekritly related to). Also, for some reason the Earl of Suffolk burnt down the Globe in 1613. On Tuesday June 29th -- and then someone in the present burns down the new Globe! On Tuesday! June 29th! And steals the first folio!
See what I mean about the hilarious?
See, it's an insurance hoop. I told my primary care doc that I was having hearing problems. In the last four or so years, I've started to have: difficulty distinguishing words when they overlap, difficulty distinguishing words against background noise, difficulty pinpointing directionality of noise (I can't tell where the siren is coming from, just whether it's approaching or leaving), total inability to "pick out" one conversation at a loud party (this is hampering me as a grad student because I have to leave receptions because I can't tell what anyone's saying), and most especially the kind of clear gap in hearing that leads me to always be saying "sorry, what did you -- oh, alligators! you saw alligators!" because it takes me five seconds to guess what the word is from what I'm hearing. However, my pitch-and-volume hearing is great: I'm the first person to hear the siren, I just dunno where it is. And I clearly hear the words, because I can usually guess.
So first I had to go to an ENT to take a hearing test. Where I described my symptoms, took a v.v. long hearing test, and we determined that, hey, I'm basically at the perfect top bar of the little chart! ... when it comes to volume and pitch.
Which, you'll note, I knew going in.
On the other hand, I learned ... three whole words. Central Auditory Process. And the audiologist at the ENT's office told me to check on same on wikipedia, where surprise surprise... look! it's me! Except for the part about the association with poor performance in school. And the part about how it (typically) starts in childhood. And about how it's not supposed to get worse over time.
And also how I don't have a diagnosis. I just have a "hey, look, you don't have a problem with your physical hearing, you should go see someone who deals with brains who will maybe tell you you have this thing that I can't tell you anything about myself but you should totally google it. Sorry, we don't deal with brains, because they're squishy and weird."
On the other other hand, I read like a hundred and fifty pages of the hilarious Interred With Their Bones, a da Vinci Code knockoff except with Shakespeare. Here's how it goes: a Harvard-PhD-student-turned-theater-director gets interrupted while directing Hamlet at the Globe. By an old mentor. Who... then is killed with poison in the ear! Our hero must then run around the world following tracking her old mentor's research! Into one of Shakespeare's lost plays! That may prove something about his life! Or also about how the plays weren't really written by Shakespeare! And uncover a conspiracy of the Howard family and the Earl of Northampton! While narrowly avoiding a man who wants to turn her into the "enter Lavinia" stage direction! It's, um, thrilling. In that special hilarious way. Also the author is ALSO a Harvard PhD turned theater director. I think there's a rule about people who leave academia and then write thrillers about the subjects of their dissertations: they are hilarious.
Sadly, I'm not done yet, so I don't know if Shakespeare turns out to be sekritly the son of Queen Elizabeth, or sekritly the lover of Frances Howard, or if the plays were actually really written by the Earl of Oxford (Edward de Vere, who one of the characters is sekritly related to). Also, for some reason the Earl of Suffolk burnt down the Globe in 1613. On Tuesday June 29th -- and then someone in the present burns down the new Globe! On Tuesday! June 29th! And steals the first folio!
See what I mean about the hilarious?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:18 am (UTC)As for the rest, bwah... if we're going for Strange Doings at the Globe, I think I'd rather go watch "The Shakespeare Code" again, myself. ;)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:26 am (UTC)I mean, I'm not done or anything, but if that's not what the author's going for I'm going to be shocked. He sets his lover (the dark lady) to seduce his not-quite-lover (the fair youth) so that he (the poet) won't have to watch said fair youth be killed for heresy or whatever. It's not a novel approach, but it's treated in kinda awesome hilarious thriller way. You know: it's a secret! And a mystery! It's a secret mystery! That some evil cabal is trying to cover up for some reason I don't yet understand because I'm only on page 175!
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 05:20 am (UTC)They did a words-in-noise test, but (IMO) it was totally not useful -- the words were spoken slowly, and they didn't take into account how long it took me to tell them what the word was. And they didn't ask hard words, either, no rhyming words where I'd have to tell the difference between bat/dat/that/sat/cat or whatever; it was all just to tell if I could hear the words in a volume-pitch sense.
So basically they just said "um, your described symptoms don't match a physical hearing loss, and sound like the symptoms of this thing here which we can't test for, but hey, it doesn't seem to be interfering with your life! if you really insist, you could see a neurologist!"
Which is ... so much lame. I mean, I was at the Exploritorium when I was a kid, in SF, and they had a little machine thingy that would play any number of different conversations from a party simultaneously. And you could practice pulling one conversation out from the rest. And it is interfering with my life because I can't have fun at bars or parties because I either a) can't "hear" at all, and then what's the point or b) am so very focused on "hearing" what people are saying and guessing the blanks and watching lips and body language that I can't relax at all or c) it's a very quiet bar or party.
Also, they did not seem concerned by adult-onset, which ... I am. I did not have this in college:
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:25 pm (UTC)Not that it is in any way helpful medically, but a book I just read ("This Is Your Brain on Music" by Daniel Levitin) talks a *lot* about auditory processing. The author is a cognitive psychologist. You might find it interesting.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:39 pm (UTC)AGREE! this book sounds wonderful - you must let us know what you think of it when you're done.
I've had that type of hearing problem since childhood, but always assumed that it was related to my eardrum problems (I have a condition where they don't work so good, and thus do have pitch/volume issues) and no one ever told me different. Now I wonder if I've been stumbling along with LIES this whole time! I hope they figure it out for you. Honestly, though, I wonder if part of the problem is crappy testing.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-09 04:54 pm (UTC)I'm sorry that you have similar hearing problems, because they are not fun. Especially at parties. They can apparently be related to "physical" hearing problems as well, but then usually a hearing aid makes them better? Or something? So claimed the ENT dude, anyway.
Also, I think the problem is partly crappy testing, because they're used to testing for volume/pitch degradation and don't really know what to do with you otherwise. Perhaps I will see a neurologist.