Shut-In

For the last year, my vision has gone downhill. Objects are fine, but text at distances is unreadable. I can see the sedan speeding at me; just not whether who's company car it might be.

For a couple of years, I've been missing words-- getting the noise, but misinterpreting it. Last night, my wife said something to effect of "I can't believe you stopped my hiccups." I heard "I can't believe he stopped my hiccups." No other sounds in the room, we were two feet apart. I missed it-- or at least I heard it and heard it wrong.

With hearing and vision going, I'm progressively becoming a shut-in-- not in my house, but in my body. No wonder, I've taken to sculpting. My sense of touch is good and getting better.

My mother did this dance a few years ago: the cost for hearing aids: $3500. My medical coverage: $700 every five years. So the $2800 gap might as well be a $28 million gap.

So, in the New Year, I will go and get hearing and vision tests and see how far gone I am. Then sit on it for a year or two until I have the money to pay for whatever I need to get my two main senses functional again. If I'm lucky, a monster coning will correct my hearing. If I'm really unlucky, the hearing and vision issues are tied. But then again, the tie could be a nervous breakdown. I know people who have lost the ability to speak; and suffer hysterical blindness. Swapping out select words may be my equivalent.

Comments

Tim Bailey said…
That's pretty goddamn shitty. My mother was recently told by her doctor to get hearing aids: $4000 was the estimate. The doctor couldn't understand how she could balk at the price. After all, it's your hearing! How can you put a price on your hearing? Well, my mother's not putting the price on it, it's the fucking hearing aid company that is! Maybe she'll be able to get them when she sells the store ...whenever that happens.

Anyhow, all I can hope is that if Falcon is the result of your sensory deterioration, that it culminates in you accidentally mistaking their request "could you come in on Saturday and work on the extra project" as "could you come in on Saturday and burn the place to ashes."

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