what it means to get old...

not too long ago, I went to the Audiologist to get my yearly
hearing test…as a hearing impaired person, I go once a year to keep
on it…this particular trip didn’t go too well… he mentioned that
I had noticeable hearing loss and was likely to need a cochlear implant
in my good ear…I immediately pick up what this meant…

that in a few years my hearing was going to be so bad even a hearing aid
won’t help me hear… I would be totally deaf…or close to it…

I was, to say the least, shocked… and I was being told something
that mentally, I had been prepared for since my youth, but to hear
it like that shook me… to have it become reality wasn’t something I
emotionally wasn’t ready for…

I spent the next week in trying to accept the new reality that I was facing…
I spent the week deep in study of philosophy and tried not to think
about what my future faced…I wasn’t in denial, I was trying to accept
and absorb this information, not intellectually, but in my heart and
my feelings… it didn’t feel good… and a sense of loss came to me…

see the problem lies in the hearing loss itself… and let me explain…

Helen Keller once said, (she was both blind and deaf) she said,
being blind separates one from things, being deaf separates one
from people…we communicate with sounds, words, language…
and I was being separated from the human beings as the main source of
connection with other people is hearing…as I am not that adept with
verbal speaking anyway, a hearing loss will do that… but I will be dead in
the water in terms of communicating with people…

and I have to process that…will I be able to do my job, even when I
can’t hear? perhaps I might be able to retire before that…, maybe…

I tried my company insurance and they don’t even know what a cochlear
implant is… and implants cost upwards of 25,000 or 30,000 dollars…
I can’t afford that…

now note I am not looking for people to offer up possibilities or suggestions or
throw out encouragements, but I am just writing this as another step
in the acceptance process…this is really for me… to accept that which
I must accept and to overcome that which I must overcome… and in this,
I will do both…and someday, you too will be face with the same choices
I am faced with… it isn’t life or death, but it is about loss and what the future
will bring…

Kropotkin

a follow up…

it seems that my hearing loss is becoming sufficient enough to make
me a “candidate” for a cochlear implant… My current hearing aid just
isn’t powerful enough to allow me to hear very well…as I don’t have the
25,000 bucks to get an cochlear implant… so I will see a specialist next month
to see if I am “deaf” enough to become a “candidate”… I will likely get
a more powerful hearing aid and hope, yep, hope that I can hear well enough,
long enough to make it worth while… and thus kicking the can down the road
in terms of getting the cochlear implant… … the trials and tribulations of
growing old…this growing old shit is for the birds…

Kropotkin

peter if you make a gofundme for your implant i’ll tweet it out to like 40k liberals who will probably donate to it.

K: I appreciate the thought, but we are talking about a couple of years down the road…
I am not even sure I am a candidate at this point, but in the future, I well
will be a candidate and at that point, we will see…

Kropotkin

They’re denying you the procedure because you can’t pay for it? Heartless fucks. A man needs his goddamn ears to work.

you do what you gotta do to get that treatment, keter.

_
What it means to get old… for me: being able to hear sounds that only those 20 or under should only be able to hear.

But… then again, I do have the resting/default brain-wave pattern of a child… it could be correlated to that.

Is the surgery not available on your health insurance?

I’m glad you are going to a specialist because it’s always good to get a second opinion from a more adept doctor. If you qualify, what does that mean? Is their a special program to subsidize the costs or do you need a new insurance carrier/plan?

I have already checked with my insurance, through work,
and they don’t even have this surgery listed… so I need to
make a “special” request to them to be even considered…
chances are, and I am willing to bet the house on this,
they will refuse to do the surgery… as “Not necessary”…
because hay, that is how insurance companies roll,
because according to them, hearing is not really a needed
function of checkers… of course, I will be denied if I challenge this
because the system is rigged up to refuse any real
surgeries that might cost some money… like a cochlear implant…
which starts at 25,000 dollars and can be up to 40 or 45 thousand dollars…
to walk in the door… and I might have to go to Stanford medical center
and that place is always seriously expensive… for anything

but as a said, I have kicked this can down the road for a few years and will take
up it again perhaps in 2 or 3 years? if my hearing holds up that is…

Kropotkin

Well, I’m hoping for the best!