It's official. I am getting increasingly old and knackered. To imagine otherwise would be delusional, it's happening to us all. However, there's a difference between blissfully ignoring the ageing process and having it confirmed by a doctor possibly young enough to be one's daughter (always assuming I made a very early start on the reproductive process).The casus belli of my latest attack on Old Father Time was, I thought, the ceaseless evening roadworks on the A34; which lies just one mile to the south of our home. Lying in bed, readying myself for sleep, I found my slumber delayed by the steady grind of a heavy roller flattening newly laid tarmac in what I believed to be remedial work to the pock marked surface that is our closest arterial route. Night after night this irksome nuisance hummed in the distance, consoling me only with the thought that it may be a terribly nice surface to take the bike onto, save for the cars and trucks flying by at close quarters at 70 mph.
I don't get out much these days, my commute to work was reduced to 14 stairs and a 30 foot hallway back in April, so when I did finally venture forth to the A34, I expected to drive along a velveteen smooth roadway flatter than the Bonneville Salt Flats. What I discovered instead, was the un-remediated asphalt on which I had driven many times before, vibrating through the steering wheel as my car lumbered over its worn and battered surface. At the time I thought little of it, but hearing the sound of the underachieving roller again at the end of the day, I was compelled to consider that perhaps all was not as it seemed.
It was upon hearing the roadworks closer to home in the middle of the day that I determined to investigate. The strident grumble of the heavy machinery saw me flip off my work slippers and don my sandals* for a quick wander to the source of the industry. As I opened the door, the sound vanished. I returned to my desk; the rumble resumed. I opened the door; it ceased. Either a prankster was silencing the roller as I opened my door or I was hearing things; or not, as the case may be.
The human brain is a remarkable piece of kit. When our hand rests on something hot, the reflex to pull away is almost instant. A cut or scrape is felt immediately with our brain delivering a resulting sense of pain through our nervous system. In the inner ear, hair cells reside in the cochlea and send impulses to the brain for it to interpret sound. When something is awry and the hair cells don't send a signal to our grey matter for interpretation, it decides to check out what's going on and sends its own signal back, this signal is commonly known as tinnitus, and frankly, I would rather my brain didn't bother - the silence would be infinitely preferable.
A short period of research on the interweb revealed that there was little that I could do to stop the noise. I have to confess that I greet most treatment suggestions that begin with the words "to help you achieve a positive state of mind" with a healthy degree of skepticism; even if it is the gospel according to the NHS. Other options proposed included sound therapy to fill the silence with neutral, often repetitive sounds to distract you from the sound of tinnitus. I have a 12 year-old daughter who is relentless in her pursuit of a puppy. Repetitive sounds I can do without - they're hardly a welcome distraction. An alternative was to have the radio or television on, or to listen to natural relaxing sounds. When I experience it most, at the point of trying to sleep, I don't want to watch TV or listen to the radio, the only thing I want to do is generate a natural sound, that of my snoring, albeit, Mrs. Brown will be the first to tell you that that particular noise is not remotely relaxing.
As a consequence, I paid a visit to my GP. He was an older gent and nodded sympathetically as he listened to me through his ear horn. "Well", he hollered at me. "Either you're schizophrenic, or your hearing things. Sometimes, there's no difference," he chortled. "I can't tell!".
I was hoping he was a better doctor than a comedian. "Of course," he added. "There's bugger all we can do for you." Confirming to me instantly that he might be better suited to a career in stand-up. In turn, however, he referred me to the local audiology department, whereupon I met the adolescent medic to whom I referred in my opening stanza.
Our meeting began with a surreal debate about my age. The hospital, it would seem, had recorded my date of birth to coincide with my 8th birthday. I could read in her face, instantly, that she considered me not to be weathering well. I reconciled this obviously slight to 36 year-olds across the country by considering the further cause of her distress, that before her might be sitting "the wrong patient". The tabloid press in the UK is quick to seize upon stories of healthy limbs being amputated or the removal of the functioning lung as a result of being presented with dodgy data. I worried momentarily that her investigation might be a little more invasive than I had expected, but we quickly established that although her information lacked integrity, I was still there for a routine hearing check.
Happily I was not advised to adopt aural therapies, instead, she confirmed the worst; that I am suffering what is otherwise known to millions across the planet as hearing loss. "What's that you say?"
"Hearing loss dear. You're going deaf".
The great news is that I've got at least five to ten years before I'll require the installation of an hearing aid. The decline in auditory capability she says, is simply part of the aging process. Yep, she was young, and in the young, the aging process is something that's greeted with enthusiasm. First it gets them to a driver's license, then to an off-license before graduating to a marriage license; but not necessarily in that order.
An alternative view, once one has achieved those milestones, is to look at life through the lens of certification - birth certificate, marriage certificate and... let's not go there.
Instead, let us content ourselves that there is a decline over which we can grumble. After all, there's much worse in this world than the gradual deterioration of one's hearing. Personally, I will content myself in the knowledge that when Pippa next asks us to get a dog, I can respond, with the sincerest legitimacy, that I didn't quite hear what she said.
* For the record, I continue to cling to youth by sporting bare feet beneath my sandals.
