Back in the Cage. Please don't lock the door.

It's that time of the year again for me. The time I go....

BACK IN THE CAGE!

"Wait..what cage? What is this about? Should I read on..."

As you might know by now I am hearing impaired and I need to get my hearing checked pretty often. It's a routine that takes a bit out of me every time, because no matter the result, there's no way I can actually pass the test. The result is either "bad" or "worse". The irony is that "bad" is "good" in this context.

To describe the experience of the cage is rather difficult. The padded walls are black, there's a chair, a small desk and a little window. On the table there are a pair of headphones and a little stick with a button. They tell you to put them on and listen. Anytime you hear a sound, push the button. Then they close the door, which almost touches my shoulder. That's how small it is.
It's a claustrophobic ordeal to say the least.

It annoys me that they speak a bit louder than normal and explain like it's the first time I'm doing this. On the other hand, if they wouldn't speak up I wouldn't hear. Maybe that annoys me the most. Although I do know what they say, hearing the words has a psychological comfort to me.

As they send sound after sound at my ears, I push and push and push.
It's tricky because the sounds come in waves and there are sounds in my ears as well. I have to be sure what I'm hearing are the real sounds and not the delusions of my fried nerves. Also, pushing too late, when the sound already became LOUD it's not good either. The result of this test, an audio graph of sort called " audiogram ", will be used to re-calibrate my hearing aid, if necessary. Anything but precision hurts me first. I pay attention though I do not think it matters.

The sounds are beeps or growls or scratches or the likes. For the second part of the test, they use voices and words. It tests your "audio understanding" and it's a lot more difficult.

When I was a kid, we used to play this game. It was called " wireless telephone " ( obviously this was before mobile phones, a wireless telephone was basically a broke phone back then ). The rule was that kids would line up and the "leader" would whisper a word in the ear of the kid next to him. Then that kid would whisper what he had heard into the ear of the next kid. And so on until the last kid had to say out loud what the word is. Obviously, it was all very funny as the original word was usually lost in the whispers and everyone laughed. The "leader" laughed the most as he knew the real word, the last kid wasn't exactly sure why he laughed.

That's kind of how the game workd but with really funny words that were easy to mishear

This test is kind of like that game. They send me a word and I have to say it out loud. They don't laugh but I still feel like the last kid. It's very frustrating to hear the word but not be able to make what it is. It's heartbreaking really.

It's all over in 10 minutes but it feels like hours. I get my piece of paper with the sketched graph on it, we compare it with the one from last time and if it looks the same, I do nothing but return in 3-6months. This time it was "just as bad" so I was fast on my way. Next time, who knows?
I'll keep you updated :)

R.

My latest audiogram