Dear Steve,

Remember, your brain is your best weapon against the tinnitus. Remember, the beast is slain first, by your belief that you can do it.

     Deaf and severe tinnitus is not a good combination. The less hearing you have means the less distraction from the tinnitus. If you’re deaf and you have moderate or severe tinnitus like I do, you’re probably going to have some problems. All that you hear are the cracks, the hissing, the creaks, the waves and trains. Every second, all day long. All night long.

     After having the cochlear implant surgery, I accumulated a whole new slew of raging tinnitus noises and refused to wear the implant as I tried to figure out what caused these tinnitus noises and reverse the symptoms. I spent a year in despair, researching, trying various healing techniques recommended by doctors, keeping logs of diet changes, exercise changes and how weather fluctuations affect my tinnitus symptoms.

     None of my efforts or actions seemed to make any sense or improve my symptoms. Nothing worked until I finally fully accepted the situation. Acceptance allowed me to let go. To surrender. Total acceptance allowed me to open my mind to new ideas and thoughts about the tinnitus. Steve, this is it. This is how it’s going to be. Deal with it. You are tougher than you think. You can figure something out. Acceptance allowed me to try the cochlear implant, which helped me discover some tinnitus coping techniques. Full acceptance helped me dig deep and go to a place where I needed to face the man in glass and make some decisions about how I’m going to live like this. Steve, glass half full, or glass half empty? Roses have thorns or thorns have roses? You can’t hear a damn thing, or you see so much … what’s it going to be, man?

Glass half full!

     With the help from the pink noise masking and with my surrender to acceptance, I made a decision to face the noises head on. I’m trying to change the way I look at the symptoms I’m suffering from. A full mental adjustment. 

     I began to isolate the flood sounds and started to work on mentally blocking them out. I create “rooms” in my head and put each noise in a room and close the door. Of course, at night, when I’m sleeping, the noises sneak out to cause havoc in my dreams, run rampant and have a keg party. I find that early every morning, I need to massage my head and neck and work on breathing and blood flow. I realize this is a form of meditation, and I think this is something you need to come to on your own.

     When my wife asks what tinnitus noises I have today, I sometimes find myself wondering which. I can go to that room, knock on the door and visit with the noise. It would actually seem to get louder! Then I’d leave the room and close the door again and block it out to some degree, and focus on what I can hear or see or feel as a distraction. It’s working. 

     I’m also working on turning the negative connotations associated with my symptoms into something more positive. When telling doctors and friends about my tinnitus symptoms, I usually labeled them as Radio Broadcast, Trains Come-a-Roaring, Wind Through the Cave in a Storm and Coach’s Whistle. 

     Now that I’ve changed their labels, it has fundamentally changed how I deal with and react to them. Radio Broadcast is now called Communication From My Ancestors. Trains Come-a-Roaring is now referred to as Funky Bass Line. Wind Through the Cave in a Storm is now labeled Female Moans in the Midst of Orgasm. The Coach’s Whistle is now a reminder of how lucky I am and how great life is. I call that one the Game Show Winning Buzzer these days. I go into the Game Show room, move my neck to the right, BUZZ! I’m reminded that I’m winning! BUZZ! I’m lucky! BUZZ! I will get through this! BUZZ! I can do this! 

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me. 

Dear Steve,

You need to investigate how masking white noise is helping you cope with tinnitus. Do your research. Try it.

     At some point in my life, I remember an audiologist telling me about masking tinnitus with white noise as a possible coping mechanism. This was back before I had the cochlear implant and was dealing with severe profound deafness. We dismissed this as a possible support idea because I just couldn’t hear the white noises.

     After getting implanted, I accumulated a whole new slew of raging tinnitus noises and refused to wear the implant as I tried to figure out and reverse these tinnitus symptoms. I spent a year in despair, without the implant activated, researching and trying various healing techniques recommended by doctors. Keeping logs of diet changes, exercise changes and how weather fluctuations affect my tinnitus symptoms. All in attempts to try to “heal” the tinnitus.

     Hey, that was a rough run, but you had to find out. You needed to do the work and see for yourself.

     None of my actions seemed to make any sense or improve my symptoms. Nothing helped until I finally fully accepted the situation. Acceptance allowed me to let go. To surrender. Total acceptance allowed me to open my mind to new ideas and thoughts about the tinnitus. Steve, this is it. This is how it’s going to be. Deal with it. You are tougher than you think. You can figure something out. Acceptance allowed me to try the implant again.

     Exploring how the stimulus from the implant was helping distract my brain from tinnitus noises by giving it another stimulus to focus on, I remembered what the audiologist and I briefly discussed about masking tinnitus. She said if we give the brain something to focus on, the tinnitus could start to fade into the background. One night I was doing some work on my laptop in the living room while my wife was in the kitchen doing dishes and cleaning up. Dishes and glasses clanging and silverware clanking have forever been my nemesis. In addition to the deafness and tinnitus, I have hyperacusis, which is a sensitivity to certain sounds that my brain perceives as excruciatingly LOUD. These sounds would trigger flight responses and elevate my blood pressure and anxiety, which in turn would elevate the tinnitus noise, which in turn would elevate my heart rate … all cycling into exhaustion, dizziness and becoming really f-ing irritated.

     I went to youtube and searched on white noise and found a whole load of 10-hour loops of “noises” there! All different colors and whatnot. Wow! I didn’t understand the color coding, so I did a google search to find out what the different colors mean. Each color has a different frequency mix of “noise.” 

     That’s cool, weird, and still confusing. Which one, man? Doesn’t really matter, Steve, you’re just starting to hear these sounds, and they all sound absolutely the same. Pick one. Another google search and I discovered that “pink noise” has been found to give relief as a masking function, to people suffering with hyperacusis! Well, there you go. Let ’er rip!

     I cranked up the volume bar and clicked play. Some advertisement from VRBO comes on yelling about vacation rentals I guess, as my wife comes quickly into the living room with a dishrag. It just sounds like crackling robotic, machine noise to me.

     “Very loud, ouch!” she signs to me, pointing at the laptop.

     “Dishes, very loud, Ouch-OUCH,” I sign back, pointing at the kitchen.

     After all these years, she knows, the kids know, even the neighbors know that I have sensitivity to normal environmental sounds, because I would cringe, or go to my knees holding my ears, or run out of the yard party with my pinkies in my ears.

     “Ok, I’ll lower it. Can you keep doing the kitchen stuff? I am trying some new training with the implant,” I sign and speak.

     Surprised, she gives me a thumbs-up and goes back.

     I skip through the advertisements and the pink noise comes on. It kind of reminds me of the old TV static, and I watch the swirling pink cotton candy screen they use as a video accompaniment for the noise, trying to find a loop in the digital swirl. It’s like a bunch of sea creatures swirling and swimming around the screen…. It’s like a close-up of blood cells or bacteria cells moving around at high speed, or just some trippy cosmic space light thing. It’s got to be on a loop, man, this cannot be a linear program. I’m wondering when the loop is going to reset itself. Like, how many seconds or minutes before it goes to reverse and back and forth. I’m intensely studying a pattern in the corner of the screen when I suddenly wonder if she is still doing the dishes. She is.

     Holy crap! I hit the mute button, and in a 2-second time span, the noise from clanging dishes fades back in. There must be some compression on the implant because I know a fade-in/fade-out from all my experience with music and recording, and that was a fade-in for sure. I hit the unmute button and the pink noise comes on roaring but then balances out while the dishes’ noises fade to the background. Whoa.

     I started experimenting with pink noise in every situation that I was uncomfortable in—from jogging on gravel trails to sitting in restaurants. Just jogging on gravel would trigger my heart rate. It became such a new and weird sound with the implant that it caused me to seek out jogging on grass or running circles around a field. I downloaded the pink noise loop onto my iPhone and would duct-tape it to my shoulder under the implanted side of my head before running on the gravel trail. It worked! It’s like a blanket—mellowing out the perceived piercing sounds from the gravel, blanketing the shrieking crunches. In restaurants, I started to just slide the phone under my shirt collar on my implanted side. It worked! It’s like a cloud of cotton candy pink haze surrounding me, dampening out the crap, distracting my brain from the tinnitus and environmental noise, and I could actually focus on talking to my wife. A fluffy haze. A weighted blanket over the crap. A mask. Masking the tinnitus. This is what the doctor meant.

     Having the implant on, and running pink noise, is giving my brain something consistent to focus on rather than the tinnitus shrieking, buzzing and ringing, or the perceived shocks of random sounds that pop up through the day.

     The pink noise loop is getting a lot of play on my iPhone. It has become my go-to strategy for coping with tinnitus and hyperacusis. I use it often, in private and in public, and in my classes too. The students were freaked out at first but now they like it and even ask me to put it on sometimes. I guess it calms them and helps them to focus as well.

    Steve and his nice big fluffy pink cloud blanket. It’s working.

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 [JB1]Was repeating anxiety intentional?

 [sd2]yeah, i thought so.

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me. 

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Dear Steve,

That’s a lot of tinnitus, and a lot of doctors. Listen to Mark!

     Over the next year, I saw a heck of a lot of doctors. I’ve lost count, but I visited somewhere around 25 different doctors/healers in efforts to gain an understanding about the tinnitus flood and possibly reverse it. I hadn’t seen a doctor in about 15 years before that—other than my primary care physician and the cochlear implant personnel—and after 25 different doctors, with multiple visits, I’m still suffering from the same symptoms I’ve had most of my life, plus the tinnitus flood. 

     Now I know there are people out there who are really suffering. I mean, I don’t even have real physical pain or anything like that related to tinnitus and deafness. I realize how lucky I am. I’ve seen others suffering. But I forget that so quickly on those days that the tinnitus flood is raging. The trains are running through my head, the whistles blowing when I tilt my head to the right, the waves crashing, motors running, the bleeps and buzzes. The inability to complete a sentence through all the distractions. That year, I was alternating between hiding in my basement and coming upstairs and yelling at everyone, angry and irritated and just trudging through the day.

   “You should put the implant back on and try these antidepressants and power through. These should mellow you out a little bit and maybe calm the nerves in your head,” says the MD.

    “Let’s try these herbal drops. This one, this one and this one in the morning and night. This in the morning only, and this one before bed. Stay on the anti-inflammation diet for 40 days and let’s see if we can reduce inflammation in there. Do not cheat at all with the diet. Maybe you have an allergy to a food that’s causing inflammation and irritating your tinnitus,” says the naturopath.

   “Seems like your hips are misaligned, which might be causing tension in your spine and neck area. That could be causing the whistle tinnitus and others. Let’s work through some adjustments,” says the chiropractor.

    “You have a twisted group of muscles in your neck here that could be sending inappropriate signals to your ear mechanisms, like a misfiring situation. We need to sort this out,” says the physical therapist.

     “I feel that this might be stemming from the kidneys. I think there is a kidney yin deficiency. There is probably some nerve miscommunication going on, and we could work on inflammation and overall body health,” says the acupuncturist.

     “No, not everybody’s neck and shoulders feel sore all the time. Yours are hurting my hands. It feels like I’m massaging a tree trunk. We need to loosen things up here. This tension could be escalating your symptoms,” says the massage therapist.

     “Your jaw is misaligned, and you have some TMJ going on. This could be a cause of your tinnitus. We could adjust your bite for sure and hope that it helps your symptoms. It might, it might not,” says the neuromuscular dental professional.

     “You’re allergic to pollen, mostly … and dog and cat dander, but I don’t think these allergies are causing your tinnitus symptoms,” says the allergist.

     “You should tell Tracey that more sex is the only thing that helps your symptoms,” says my buddy Mark.

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me. 

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Dear Steve,

You’ve always had tinnitus. You’ve lived with it, dealt with it, played with it, named it, cried about it, screamed at it and also occasionally forgotten about it! Use what you know. Ride it out!

     I’ve had tinnitus my entire life. I am 50 years old, I started noticing my hearing loss around age 10, and by age 20, I was categorized with a severe-profound hearing loss, or “deaf.” Additionally, I am/was a recording and touring musician. Somehow I was able to write, record and perform despite the hearing loss and constant hissing noise at 14,000 – 16,000 hz.

     Before my cochlear implant surgery 5 years ago, the tinnitus I had was a high-pitched hissing sound in both ears, fluctuating at about 3 or 4 out of 10. Meaning that in any given sound situation, 30% of what I was hearing was high-pitched hissing. As my hearing declined, the tinnitus remained and seemed louder because I wasn’t hearing other sounds. The decline was slow, so tinnitus just became a part of me. My friend. Always there when I looked for it. A consistent reminder that life is indeed a challenge. Sometimes tantalizing me with a question, “Is it still there?” and then tormenting me with the realization of its presence. A consistent, persistent and dependable presence. Until I had the cochlear implant surgery.

     After my surgery, I was placed on a series of medicines, antibiotics, steroids and diuretics. Weird things started happening in my head those first few weeks after surgery. What I eventually called the tinnitus flood introduced itself to me one night by way of a group of angels. I awoke to a choir of what sounded like angel voices repeating a phrase from what seemed like a verse from Come Sail Away by rock band Styx. It was spacy, sustained and sounded like a synthesizer set on the “angel choir” program. I couldn’t understand the words, and it was sort of just the melody of the singing, but harmonized. It was definitely in my head, and I couldn’t seem to stop it from sequencing over and over. This was the start of the flood, and I began having a bunch of new tinnitus noises that built up and out and around and basically just took over my life.

     The first of the flood was the angel voices, which I call Radio Broadcast. Sometimes there are musical angel-choir-type sequences and sometimes voices, like a radio broadcast from the 50s-style radio. This seems to always be a male-sounding voice with clear and distinct diction but indecipherable words. It’s like the parents’ voices on the old Charlie Brown cartoons. In other versions of this, I hear a chorus of angel voices repeating musical phrases over and over, like I did that first night. I hear them in harmony, two and sometimes three voices if I concentrate. I later found out that other people have this, and it is a diagnosed condition called nonpsychotic auditory hallucination syndrome. Whew! Hell yeah! 

     The second part of the tinnitus flood is what I call Wind Through the Cave in a Storm. It’s like a howling wind sound or a washout wave rolling in and out of my head through both ears. This one is a little scary because it can get pretty fierce. Fierce as in visions of a tsunami washing over a city block. Fierce like the stormy midnight waves crashing against the lighthouse out there all alone in the middle of the harbor. Fierce like you should sit down right this second or hold onto the wall. 

   The third I call Trains-Come-a-Roaring. This is either a clicking or rhythmic tone that sounds like an engine. Fast and repetitive rotations that my musical mind would label as something like a 16th note, or a whole bunch of hits per second. The sound of a train running over a rickety section of tracks kind of nails it. I believe this to be some sort of “hearing” of bodily functions—like blood running through valves near my ear. 

   The last of the tinnitus flood is what I call Coach’s Whistle. This is a positional noise when I tilt my head to the right side. It’s the most distinct as well as the clearest and loudest of the whole flood. Unlike the others, it has an on/off switch. I move to that position and the whistle blows steady and clear until I move back.

     Additionally, my lifelong tinnitus hissing jacked up to 5ish out of 10. All the tinnitus flood sounds fluctuate as well. Some days they’re on the right side, one or two of them on the left, sometimes both sides, all of them changing levels, and coming and going. All this came on during a monthlong period. I began waking up after a few hours of sleep in a state of emotion that I have never really felt before: despair.       I spent most of the following year without the implant on, trying to get a handle on why this happened. Researching. Trying to reverse it. Trying to deal with it. I saw more than 24 different doctors and practitioners of alternative medicine over the next year. Despair.

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me. 

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Dear Steve,

You are doing it, man! You’ve been running the cochlear implant all week. You didn’t take it off once! Nice! You figured out a lot this week. It was a good idea to stay home and do this alone.

     I’ve been studying and working on sound identification all week. Inside the house, outside the house, in the car and at the supermarket. The one phrase I keep finding myself saying to myself this first week of my cochlear implant activation is “Everything f-ing beeps!” I’ve been constantly amazed at all the beeping this week.

     In the kitchen, the oven beeps when it’s preheated, the microwave beeps every time you press a button, then beeps some more at the end, a frantic beeping crescendo to let you know it’s done. That machine needs to chill out. The toaster seems to tick-tick each second as it runs its cycle. It’s a pretty good groove and danceable. Then it does a ring? Or something different, then a beep … maybe a little mini bell? I can’t tell yet with the implant. I picture a mini munchkin guy with a mini mallet, dancing along with me in there, then counting down from 10 and hitting the mini bell. He high-fives and celebrates with his partner when I take my toast out. Toaster’s got a good groove, Steve. Make more toast! The stack washer-dryer does some musical beeping when it’s done and maybe when it’s changing cycles too? Amazing. I’ve never heard any of this stuff, ever.

     The computer does some beeping when I start it up. Something different maybe—chiming? My iPhone seems to do a lot of noise-making stuff, too much, and after a few hours of that, I go into Settings and shut down all audio. Ha ha, I wonder how long you’ve had all those crazy sounds activated on your phone. All those meetings at school, classes, dinners. I think someone probably would have let me know if it was out of hand. I hope so anyway.

     The blinker sound in the car is pretty groovy too. I’m getting song ideas while waiting at stop lights for the turn. I can’t remember the last time I heard the blinker. Maybe never. I started losing my hearing around age 10 at the same time that the tinnitus gradually increased and kind of took over. You must have heard the blinker click-clack as a kid? Did the blinkers click-clack back then? I have no idea. I do remember the sound of our rotary dial phone ringing. I imagine the mini munchkin guys in there too, with a mallet in each hand, smacking the bell in a fast 6 count, taking a breath and doing it again and again until someone answers the phone or hangs up.

     Crosswalk signs seem to beep and tell you when to cross or some other safety warning. I can’t make out the words. The gas pump machine beeps and talks sometimes too! Why all the beeping? It seems like every type of touchpad has some kind of beep … to let hearing people know that their “touch was successful”? Holy crap! Steve, all these years, you’ve been wondering if your “touch was successful.” I touch the button and watch the screen at the same time, as it enters the number or symbol to make sure my touch was registered. You dork! You’re like a 90-year-old grandpa at the self-checkout line at the supermarket. Scanning your item and checking the screen to see if it registered. Scan and check. Scan and check. That machine beeps too! I’m so careful with touchscreens and scanners, it takes me forever. OMG man! Hearing people get the beeping confirmation and cruise through these machines. Oppression! Audism! How about vibrating touchpad buttons or a quick LED button flash to let Deaf and hard-of-hearing people know that their touch was successful!?

     Chill out, man.

     I’ve had an “awakening” sort of week. Discovering what everyday noises sound like, trying to figure out the cochlear implant, working on sound differentiation and battling old fears and habits around my 40 years of going deaf while dealing with hyperacusis and tinnitus. I figured out a lot of things this week, and this morning I finally figured out what is making the “Charlie Brown’s Teacher” voices.

     I spent most of my free and quiet work time in the back room the past few days in hopes of solving this mystery. I eliminated any environmental noises from outside or under the house. It’s definitely in this back room and/or in the kitchen bordering the back room. I eliminated the dishwasher, random radio alarm clocks, TVs or youtube stuff. I spent some time these past few days moving the fridge, sticking my head behind it and waiting for the noise to get louder or stop when I unplugged it. I usually did this when I heard the voices. While I was back there, the cartoon voices came and went. There were changes with the voices, but they were not corresponding to my actions behind the fridge. I was down there on the floor, on all fours behind the fridge, when I looked across the back room at my cat, who was standing over her food bowl looking at me. We stare at each other. Then she goes back to crunching away at her food and “Charlie Brown’s Teacher” starts talking! Duuuuuude!? What the…?

     My brain has been picking up the cochlear implant–processed sounds of the cat crunching her food as “Charlie Brown’s Teacher” voices!? Wow man, just …  wow. I’m feeling both overjoyed that I figured this out and totally hopeless when I realize I have quite a way to go with this technology if I’m ever going to be able to play the guitar and write music again. My guitars have been in the back of the closet for almost 2 years.

     Step by step, Steve. One sound at a time. One note at a time. Note by note.

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me. 

Dear Steve,

You need to go outside now, and you need to see how the cochlear implant processes environmental noises. You need to be ready and prepared to NOT take it off, no matter what happens. Leave the implant on. You can do it. Viking battle mode, dude!

     Last night I did the Cochlear Implant Training Program the audiologist recommended. It has a bunch of different environmental and musical sounds, quizzes and games to practice with. For example, it asks, “What instrument makes this sound?” and then it plays the sound and shows a picture of four different instruments. I have no idea which sound is which, and I’m a musician. It is disheartening to say the least. I got maybe 20% of them, which was probably just luck. I am not getting the differentiation in tone and texture with the cochlear implant, although cadence and rhythm are clearer than ever before.

     I’m going outside today to take a walk, get the mail and see what’s what with the cochlear implant in terms of how it processes outside sounds. I’m excited. Maybe you’ll hear a bird or something! Do birds sing and chirp in the winter here? I don’t know. There was a big snow a couple of days ago but the sun comes out often here, so maybe the birds like that. There are patches of snow and ice all around. I really don’t have any idea if the birds make noise here in the winter. Ha ha, man! That’s one of those things you didn’t know that you don’t know! Get out there!

     I head out the front door and into about 6-8 inches of undisturbed snow. It’s crunchy and loud in the silence of the open air in mid morning. I have not heard this sound in 40 years or so and have no recollection of it. I do some snaps while I walk to give myself a reference sound, but the crunching is drowning them out. I am perceiving the darn snow crunching as “pretty loud” through the cochlear implant, and I get halfway down the driveway before feeling the flight mode kick in.

     Dude! Chill out! It’s just some crusty snow! Breathe and keep going. Look, the street is kind of clear from the plow. That’s going to be better. I make a goal of getting to the mailboxes across the street and chilling out there for a bit.

     I get to the street, which is spotted with patches of snow and ice that have been rutted by tires, frozen, melted and frozen again for the past week. I try to step on clear pavement spots, but I hit a patch of ice and freeze. CRACK! That 2×4-to-the-head feeling again. Whoa! Get your balance, man. Keep going! CRACKLE! CRASH! Holy shit! I’m trying to jump and dance into the dry spots, with my arms out and waving around frantically.CRUNCH-CRACK! Holy Crap! CRACK! CRASH! It’s a minefield! Breathe, Steve, breathe! I make it over to the clear pavement in front of the mailboxes.

     My heart rate is way up, which causes my tinnitus to rage. Crap! Tinnitus sounds are ringing, chirping, banging. Waves are crashing and storms are blowing in there. I try snapping, but the tinnitus is overpowering the snaps. Oh, man! I can barely distinguish the snaps. Ho-ly crap! Trapped! Dude, get the hell out of here. Back to the house! Now!

     I’m freaking out and begin to look around to see if anyone is watching because I’m realizing what this might look like to the neighbors. Dude, get it together! Breathe! You are OK. I hold onto the mailboxes and do a bunch of breathing exercises and start to calm down. The tinnitus is still raging and I know how that usually goes. Steve, you know this stuff, you’ve been through it before. It’ll settle down in a few hours.

     After a minute or two of breathing, I realize I’m not going to be able to make this venture work with the tinnitus raging as it is. I’m not realistically going to be able to study and distinguish the environmental noises in this condition, but I am settling down a bit and take stock of the surroundings. I’m not registering anything as a recognized or unrecognized sound. Just tinnitus. Waves crashing, winds blowing, static, click-clacks and a roaring hissing. I stay for another minute and get my heart rate back down. See, man, you got this. Take it slow, go a different way across, avoiding the ice, you’ll figure it out.

     Wait! What the hell is that?! Uh-oh! Something is happening. Something big! Some big noise. I have no clue. Maybe a jet? Maybe an ambulance? If it’s an ambulance siren, you are going to need to take the cochlear implant off, Steve, and pinky-plug your ears … or just throw yourself in front of it! I’m looking around, up, down.… What is that NOISE?! I take a few steps down the cleared sidewalk and in the distance see the maker of this mind-melting sonic disturbance. A garbage truck! Coming my way. Run, Steve! Just f-ing run! Go now! Go!

     Panic. Heart rate increase. Tinnitus raging to the max. You’ve got to go through the minefield. Now! Go! The garbage truck is doing its grating, mechanical lifting and dumping. Motors are churning, and metal is grinding. Go! Steve, Go! I’m stuck. Frozen in place. RUN! Steve, RUN!

     “Ahhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhhh! Ahhhhhhhh!” That’s me screaming as I run and hop back across the street, trying to avoid the mines, over the crunching snow field, and into the safety of my house.

     Holy Crap.

     I’m lying on the floor in the mudroom, laughing. The tinnitus is still raging to the max but I made it and the implant is still on. I realize that I didn’t “hear” the CRACKS and CRASHES of the ice minefield while I was screaming. Dude! The screaming kind of masked the CRACKS. That screaming kind of replicated the effect of the masking white noise loop you are using at night. Steve, you need to look into this masking idea further. I’m settling down and thinking about sitting up to watch and study the garbage truck and its noises through the window, as it does its thing out there. As the garbage truck approaches my neighbors’ trash, I get up and check out the hydraulic noises, dumping noises and crashes from the safety of my house. I realize that my wife is going to be mad when she returns next week and learns that I didn’t take out the garbage and recycling bins while they were gone.

     I was planning to tackle the “Charlie Brown’s Teacher” ghost voices in the back room this afternoon, but I’m not sure if the tinnitus storm is going to simmer down. That mystery might need to wait till tomorrow.

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Steve DiCesare is the author of Dear Steve, You’re Going Deaf available at youregoingdeaf.com. Art by Ian J Miller. If you’re interested in being a guest blogger on my Hearing Loss blog, please contact me.