Three years ago, on my birthday, I wrote, "Why Growing Old Beats the Alternative?" I quote from that musing a paragraph, below:
If the price of the ticket to growing old are chronic pains, a bigger medicine cabinet, a thicker medical file, fading vision and straining to listen to normal conversation, or having hip or knee replacements, always keep in mind that that ticket is not due to be collected till towards the end. So, enjoy the journey to its fullest.
I and so many of you and readers from different stages of their journey through time are now realizing, bit by bit, that the price of the ticket is accruing interest. That is because it was purchased on a term plan - paying as we go along on installment - since we couldn't have known then for how long we will use the ticket. So, we'd like to hold on to it, not quite ready to relinquish it yet, but ever mindful of and are accepting the accrued interest as time goes by until it is due.
Installment payments in this case are the way to go, accruing interests notwithstanding, because as always the alternative is not so great once full payment is due for collection. I hope that the reader can relate to what I write here - anecdotal episodes that make up the story of life - personal, yet universal in a way, as a basis upon which most of you may reflect on the many stages of growing old or older and how we deal with the inevitable challenges of aging. The good news is that we are living today in an age where technology and modern medicine work together to help us navigate the one and only direction available to us because no one is exempt from the movement of time.
It must have been close to four decades ago, still very much actively playing tennis, when I noticed little changes. It was usually after work that most of my tennis were played with the same players from my subdivision with similar work schedules, which meant playing as the sun was about to set.
The tennis court lights which ran on timer and light sensors didn't come on until the sun did its slow descent below the horizon. I noticed that I wasn't hitting the tennis ball as well as when I played on weekends which are usually in the mornings or mid afternoon.
Some months later my driver's license came due for renewal about a month or so before my birthday. The renewal letter required that I appear in person (as opposed to renewal by mail) for a vision test since it's been years since the last one.
"You failed the test", said the lady behind the counter. I protested that that can't be right. "I drove to the license office, didn't I"? Then I quickly added, "I can read the words on that poster by the far end at that wall there and I can read the finest print you have". She replied, "Go on, read it". I did.
She took out her pocket Bible from her drawer. She opened to a page I'm sure she was very familiar with - John Chapter 11. She said, "Read the shortest verse you can find", handing me the Book. I read on Verse 35, "Jesus wept". I wept silently with joy for proving my case.
"Okay, I'll renew your license but I think you need to see an optometrist".
It was about three weeks later that I went to the optical clinic just a block away from where I worked. I was given a full vision test. The optometrist said, "You need prescription glasses". I responded with the same tone I had at the driver's license office and asked, "Why?".
The optometrist replied, "It's about getting old, welcome to the club. However, in your case, one eye became nearsighted, the other farsighted. One in 30,000 adults get that, but don't hold me to the exact statistics. I mean it's rare but it happens. You were able to get by because one eye was seeing far and the other near, complementing each other, so to speak. On the other hand, you may have been born that way, perhaps. But you lack depth perception".
Aha, I thought to myself. That was why I wasn't hitting the tennis ball as well as I used to, especially at dusk as it got darker. I agreed to have the prescription glasses. That was my first introduction to interest accrual in the bookkeeping of life.
Three weeks later, the glasses came. I picked them up and had another visual test and for some adjustment on the temple and nose bridge, etc. Back at the office, the huge trading room, to my amazement, looked like a different place. The whole third of the entire floor was open concept design where all the desks were arranged from end to end with only low dividers in between. Everybody's face at the far end of the room looked crisply recognizable. It was like everything was in 3-D. I might be exaggerating now but indeed it felt like I had 3-D glasses on, the way my views of the world around me had changed, literally speaking that is.
For years that followed, I kept playing tennis though with mixed results. Improved vision notwithstanding, aches and pains, my opponents were getting better, a few more birthdays and my reflexes were a tad slower, not as quick with my legs as I used to - became my new realities. But technology on eye wear continued to improve with featherweight frames and transition lenses (that would turn gray to dark when exposed to sunlight and back to clear once indoor), bifocals with no visible lines (for vanity sake, no doubt), etc. Not so bad, but with a lot of good.
One evening, it was late, a tennis buddy, who was originally from Holland, and I finished playing one sweltering July summer night when he suggested we take a dip into the adjoining community pool. I said the pool was locked for the night. He said, "So?". Like excited teenagers which we were not by two decades removed, at least, we climbed over the fence. He dove first and I followed. I felt pain on my left ear when I surfaced.
I couldn't sleep that night from a throbbing pain in my left ear. The next morning at work I went to the medical department that was on one floor of the building (this was in the early 80's when our company still maintained a fully-staffed medical office). One look from the doctor and he said, "What did you do to your eardrum?" He concluded that I perforated my left eardrum when I dove into the pool, after I told him about the night before. I skipped the part about climbing over the fence.
That was accrued interest of my own doing that I found out later to have more lasting collateral effect.
A few more years later I had surgery on that ear to fix the hole because of chronic ear infection. The surgeon took a tiny tissue from the inside part of the ear drum to patch the hole that was on the outside, a complicated micro-surgery that decades earlier was unheard of. The scarred tissue on the eardrum is still noticeable to every doctor who looked into that ear years later. So they had to hear the same story, to their amusement except for one doctor who was prompted to say, "I've heard of all kinds of stories from patients but this tops the cake. Not so much about shattered eardrums but adults, who should know better, climbing over a fence to get into a pool at night is a first". I agree totally.
Another decade passed. I had surgery on my right wrist. So I can keep playing tennis. The surgery helped but another few years later I switched playing lefty because the right wrist can't handle it anymore. But it brought another problem. Changing my serving stance and hitting the ball lefty apparently did not set well with the other parts of my body - the one to lead the protest was my left Achilles tendon. This was accrued interest plus amortized asset depreciation.
The orthopedic doctor sat me down for some serious conversation after a third visit for the same problem. He asked, "How much do you want to keep on playing tennis?" Silently I said to myself, "What kind of a question is that?" But I said, "I love to keep playing I even switched playing lefty when my right wrist no longer could".
The doctor said, "Wrong answer", he said. "Look, if you keep playing, your Achilles tendon will give up and the surgery I will do is not so you can keep playing tennis but just so you can walk. I strongly suggest you find another way to stay fit". The office was quiet but I heard the thunder clap that followed when he said it. Accrued interest and some penalties for late payments?
The drive home was miserable but it called for some serious introspection. And by the time I got out of the car in our driveway I was at peace with saying goodbye to tennis. A few months later was when I switched to swimming. Of course, the painful memory of the perforated eardrum came to intrude but modern day ear plugs designed for swimming took care of that. I've been swimming for nearly twenty years now, doing the 1000 meters free style non-stop for 25 minutes, plus/minus a few seconds.
I summarize that part of my life this way. I had fun playing tennis and enjoyed it but the best that ever happened was when I could no longer play and quit and the best thing to have followed was when I took up swimming.
But the accrued interest over the left ear drum had turned red on the ledger of aging. Finally I agreed to have a hearing test.
The ear doctor had to ask, "What brought you in today?" I don't know why doctors still have to ask when they are reading the chart that says exactly why you're there. I said, "My wife says I need to have my hearing tested".
"Ah, yes, I know. I'm a husband too".
"Why is it that it is always wives that is the reason husbands go to see the doctor or have our hearing tested?", I exaggerated, hoping for the doctor to take sides with me.
"Well, it's spouses generally speaking but the majority of our referrals do come from the wives".
"Why is that?"
"For one thing, they want to remove any doubt you are not simply selectively hearing what they say. Secondly, they want to make sure, 'I didn't hear you', is no longer a valid excuse". He was kidding, the doctor added. I know he wasn't. Then he went on to examine both ears.
Again, the scar on my left eardrum did not go unnoticed. However, there was no time for me to tell the swimming pool story, as the audiologist came to whisk me away to another room for the hearing test.
The test. She had me wear a set of headphones. I was to press a button on a hand held device every time I heard a sound which could come from either left or right of the head set at random. There were high pitch tones, middle range ones and low frequency notes. Some tones were stronger than others, and some were barely audible. And for sure there were tones I didn't hear at all.
After several minutes of it the test was over. The results were printed in a two-page chart. I was able to click the buttons only 68% of the time on my left ear but better than 90% on my right. What I was missing the most were high frequency tones on my left and mid frequency sounds, typically of women's and children's speaking voices. My own unbiased conclusion: I have unassailable excuse not to hear my wife very well when she is speaking to me because female and children's voices are in that critical frequency range my left ear had trouble picking up specially when she's in one room talking while in front of her desk top computer while I am in the next room. By her account I should be able to hear if she can see me when she turns around. It doesn't matter that I myself was focused on typing away on my laptop (like writing this musing, for example). I have not shared that conclusion with anyone till now.
First the eyeglasses, now the dreaded hearing aid? The audiologist explained to allay any apprehension on my part that today's technology has come so far from what it used to be. Advances in microchip technology, bluetooth pairing of hearing aids to smartphones, precise measurements, tiny rechargeable batteries so that the weight of the whole hearing device" is literally imperceptible to the wearer, etc., are all available. While premature hearing loss has many causes, everyone will have it in varying degrees with aging. It is gradual, hardly noticeable by the individual because in one good way most will cope or get by. As with eyesight most will feel fine and not notice unless they go through the testing procedure. In other words hearing loss is not usually earth shaking.
There are over ten million people in the U.S. today who have hearing aids, relatively a small fraction of the population. However, some estimates indicate that there are several times that number who have degraded hearing in various stages that, like me, get by in their normal daily lives with little serious consequences, indeed. This is one accrued interest that can easily be overlooked in the accounting ledger of aging.
The need for hearing aid is for the most part optional because one can always ask, "Please say that again", turn the TV louder or opt for closed caption; or both, unless it is so severe as to be classified from extreme hearing loss to total deafness. The latter is hardly the case. The degree of hearing loss has brought three levels at which hearing aids may be prescribed or designed.
Three weeks after the audio test, the hearing aid I ordered came. It was in the middle range in sensitivity and pricing (naturally). The fitting session lasted for forty minutes. First, the audiologist made calibrated measurements of the hearing aids with a machine that showed on the screen some sort of sine waves and numbers, attenuation data, etc. She made me practice putting them in and out of my ears, then a primer on how and when to charge them on the charger, etc. With one little instrument she measured the shape and volume of the ear canal (apparently because it's different from person to person, customization of the feedback is necessary).Then she made me wear a headband with both ends that touch both my temples as I looked in front of a screen. I was not to move, focusing on the blue dot, while she fiddled with different tones. Not quite sure what the test was for but it must have been that the hearing aid can be tuned so as to let the wearer discriminate sounds during conversation with someone while sounds and noises around, say, at a restaurant or any crowded places, are de-emphasized. It was really quite sophisticated, it really surprised me.
She had to leave the room, briefly she said, while I had the aids on. Her office was so quiet but then I could hear the ticking of the second hand on the wall clock. She must have left the room intentionally, I surmised. I told her about the ticking sound of the clock when she re-entered the room. I heard her footsteps on the padded carpet. She said, "You see, you can hear it and I don't anymore because my brain has come to ignore it. You'll be hearing more than what you couldn't in the past but some of those your brain will learn to ignore, including what seems like an echo of your own voice.
I could hear the paper when she slid them across her desk for me to sign. I had thirty days to try the hearing aids and if I decided it's not for me, I can just simply return them, no obligations, no questions asked. She loaded on my phone an app for pairing the hearing aid to my phone and ran some tests. I was able to hear, loud and clear, without turning the speaker on and I can talk to the caller even if my phone was in my pocket or anywhere nearby. No one else around me can hear the voice of the person on the other end of the call but I hear it clearly and distinctly.
The drive home was exciting. I had to turn down the radio to a mere third of the volume and for the first time in ages I could hear the turn signal ticking even with the radio on. I know my wife told me a few times in the past that I must not be hearing the turn signal ticking when failing to reset it after changing lanes.
I stepped out of the garage after I parked the car when I got home. Birds even from three houses away and around were audibly bantering about.
I had to try the TV and the surround sound as soon as I settled inside. That was going to be the ultimate test.
Let me backup for just a bit to show the point of this new hearing aid technology and why. When we moved into the home we're living in now, nineteen years ago, the floors in the formal and family room areas were all tiles - not ideal for TV and musical acoustics. One audio company was the only one (at that time anyway) that allowed for the user to "tune" the listening area to one's personal taste or just simply to remove the "harshness" of the sounds because of too much reverberation from the tiled floor.
The technology was quite impressive. The "tuning" had to be done on a quiet evening. It required the user or owner of the home to wear a head band no different from what the audiologist made me wear. They were not headphones with speakers. Instead, the head band had left and right tiny microphones on the user's temples. A cable connected it to the stereo receiver. At one sitting position, the listener/wearer of the head band will have to sit still looking at the TV while the computer sends different frequency tones and loudness from each of the eight cube speakers back and front and one rectangular center channel plus the sub-woofer. The left and right microphones on the temple pick up the sound and feed it to the computer in the receiver. The listener then may move to another location (five are allowed) and the process is repeated. After it's finished the computer in the receiver analyzes the data, then it will adjust the output from each of the speakers for an acoustically balanced reproduction of the sound to the listener's ear (from five different locations). In other words, five people at the five locations will hear the "tuned" output from the speakers.
The reason I went through all that is that today the microchips that were in the technology nineteen years ago were condensed to the size of the hearing aid that it is today. And done wirelessly, at that. That is the technology. When I thought my old sound system was past its shelf life, it is still capably performing as designed. It was my ears that needed rejuvenation. Once again, movie sounds are located where they come from, the sound stage in a jazz hall is up close while the concert hall would loom large with direct and reflected sounds arriving milliseconds apart as they should be, the short strings of the harp, the high notes of the violin, the clear diction of a well played piano piece, sopranos and mezzo sopranos come alive, the TV anchor speaks like he is in the living room, etc., - that is how I am re-discovering what I missed.
The bottom line: As mentioned I have a month to decide. For me, it is a "buy". I'd recommend it to anyone who has hearing loss even if he or she is able to get by. If for just one simple reason. Hear how you used to when you were under twenty one. Incredibly, I can even hear the house thermostat on the wall as it clicks on and off,
Now, we may realize that all the installment payments, accrued interest and all, may pay dividends because the longer we live is at least not quite the dreaded phenomenon that generations past endured. I can attest to the fact that indeed we are living under very fortunate conditions our grand parents didn't have. The added bonus to me is that I do not need either glasses or hearing aid to engage in swimming. I do need glasses (safety and prescription) in my woodworking hobby but definitely not hearing aid.
So, accrued interests and amortized bodily asset depreciation we can accept in lieu of the alternative. We should not easily relinquish the ticket to life, at least not yet anyway, because there is still plenty of time to relish it for as long as we can. Remember, the more accrued interests can also mean that you've been current with your installment payments.
If only one reader is convinced, I think this was worth writing this musing.
Below are what came with the whole package:
Below is how the user can adjust the volume for each ear from a smart phone.
P.S. If you're wondering about the title of this musing, "Can You See What I Hear, Can You Hear What I See?", imagine what a dolphin or bat, or creatures that rely on sonar, might say when they can "see" with their ears. Bats can "see" with their ears a single mosquito in mid-flight. On the other hand a viper, such as a rattlesnake, can "hear" a mouse moving about as it senses infrared light exuded by the warm body of its prey. Snakes do not have ears.
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