Old Age

I honestly can't complain.  I've been really, really healthy my whole life.  So when I went to the hearing doctor to have my ears checked I was surprised and wasn't too surprised.  Let me explain.  Years ago I fell hard on my left ear while water skiing.  I knew I had damaged the ear but didn't know how extensive.  The tests showed that I've lost about 80 per cent of the hearing in my left ear and much to my surprise about 40 per cent in my right ear.  I have noticed that past year or two that I had a hard time hearing comments that were made in class and some times couldn't hear completely a speaker in sacrament meeting.  It is really hard to teach gospel doctrine and not be able to hear comments from class members.  Hard to comment on what they've said if you can't hear everything!  So this coming Thursday Neal and I are going to Price to get aids for our ears.  Yes, Neal needs them too but he is still struggling with the idea.  Whether he actually gets them is yet to be seen.  I have a feeling that he won't.  A little bit of pride?  Maybe.  I will just be happy to get them and hopefully they will help me hear better.  Hearing clearly over weighs pride!

Here are my hearing tests:

The blue is my left ear.  The numbers on the left side of the chart show how much hearing I have left.  You can see how little there is.  The chart below shows a test he did on my left ear and then my right.  The left is the first one.  Those two lines should come up together and touch at the top.  The sound in my left ear goes to the ear drum and is transferred to two tiny bones.  In my left ear, the sound goes to the ear drum and just goes no where.  The two tiny bones behind the ear drum have been damaged because of the waterskiing accident.  Thus the loss of hearing.  The bottom shows the right ear hearing, as it should be.

Am I excited to have hearing aids?  NO  Am I excited to be able to hear better?  YES
I'll update on how it goes.  I don't love wearing glasses either, but they help me see.  I guess we just need a little more help as we get older.  :-)