I just put the last new 675 Battery I had on hand in my hearing aid the other day. I've worn hearing aids for 26 years now. I started off with a box on a belt connected to a single headphone I had to hold to my ear in the fall of 1980. Yes, I literally would be sitting there with one hand up to my head holding the earphone to it. That version didn't last long..thankfully...not to be ungrateful....but come on. The next was a bone conductor headpiece. I had no complaints. In those days, hearing aids still helped alot. Even that was short lived before finally getting my first Behind the Ear model. I wore analog BTEs for years before finally winding up with my current digital Siemens Triano. I can say without a doubt that this is the best hearing aid I've ever had. It's also the most expensive! Credit goes to my parents for that. It came at the right time though....the improved capabilities of digital hearing aids enabled it to provide more volume without sacrificing quality or generating feedback...all at a time when I was going to need more power than I needed before. It's served me very well and been a blessing in the 2 years that I have had it. I have one thing to say though....that hearing aid battery I just put in better last until the 26th of this month cuz I'll have no use for a new pack.

Come that morning, I'll take off my hearing aid for the last time. I don't suppose I'll be very cermonial about it as I'll be too focused on the fact I'm being taken into a surgical room for the first time since 1981, not exactly a sunny childhood memory I'm looking to repeat. But I'm also an adult now. And this adult is paying for his own damn Cochlear Implant and making the surgery happen even when it means revisiting a fear. Hearing aids have served me well, but it was time for me to admit they aren't serving me enough anymore. There's got to be a better way. The doc agrees.....he looks at astronauts ears after they get back from space and he was Ronald Reagan's ear doctor. Who else am I going to listen to?

Of course, part of that deal with the surgery thing is they don't come at me with that gas. Uh uh. Bad shit to be had from that. Aside from the visual and auditory hallucinations (I heard house music before it even existed..for years I had no way to describe what I heard...now I do) while on my way to unconsciousness breathing that crap in.....I heard a voice singing "Don't make it hard while I'm with you. Don't make it mine, don't make it yours. This feeling's fine." in my head, fairly vididly..over and over...for months after the fact. Hey, if the lyrics don't make any sense..don't look at me. I didn't come up with them. The gas did. I was 8 years old for God's sake.

Let's not forget puking my guts up first thing after coming out from the anesthesia. It doesn't end there. You basically feel like you are breathing it in and out all day long..and you spend the whole day passing out and waking up for short bits of time. It's like you can't escape the gas even with the mask long off your face.

Oh yes, I've failed to mention, but most certainly haven't forgotten that this whole gassing ordeal is preceded by a nurse stabbing me twice in both sides of my ass with burning fire in a syringe. I was told it was to relax me. An obvious lie. It was to render my legs useless so I couldn't run. Hey, they do it in nursing homes. "Give the residents these 9 pills twice daily to keep them from being trouble." What's to stop them from doing it to children? Anyway, I've seen this form of torture inflicted on my fellow children's ward occupants. I've also seen it inflicted on Jamie Lee Curtis when she's taken to the hospital in Halloween II. If it wasn't a horror show why would they put it in that movie?

At any rate, I'm hoping they can use an IV drip. A couple years back I wound up having to get my wisdom teeth pulled. I told him I'd like to avoid the gas and use something else if possible. He said it could simply be injected. So when it came time...his technician came at me with that gas mask. I put my hand up and went "Ah Ah Ah Ah...no. We aren't doing that." He starts arguing with me that he has to. I start getting out of my chair. Then the surgeon walked in and let him know it was all good. He just came and took my arm, froze the area and cleaned it with alcohol..then inserted an IV drip. I didn't feel any of it at all. Completely plainless compared to that vile wench stabbing my 7 year old arm repeatedly trying to insert an IV, blaming jumping veins... back when this whole hearing loss thing first began. I hope she has suffered whatever appropriate karma she has hurtling at her. Anyway, back in the oral surgeon's chair.....I just passed out. No bizarre pins and needles throbbing sensation enveloping my body as with the gas. Just peace. I woke up feeling inebriated for lack of a better adjective. God willing that is exactly what I'll experience this time, too.

It's not really the surgery that has been occupying my mind, not in that sense anyway. It's what I want to happen. I'm ready to get on with it before anything else can go wrong and prevent it from happening. It's just the plunge I'm taking....the stakes laid on the table. Those stakes, the amount of hearing I have left...may not be much to professionals, but it's all I have. I'm betting it all for the hope of more. But you know...that hearing aid battery better last cuz I'm sick of buying them. Rechargeable processor batteries..here I come!

I'm not old enough to sing the blues
But I wore the holes in the soles of these shoes
You can roll the dice 'til they call your bluff
But you can't win until you're not afraid to lose
Just Older - Bon Jovi