I hear you knockin'

[rolanni]

We buried Socks this afternoon...

It's a gorgeous, sunny, breezy day and all the things that grow in the ground are scrambling to get with the program, to be fruitful and multiply in Maine's brief slice of summer.  I need to go down to Agway in a couple minutes and pick up some stuff.  It had best be today; there'll be no getting near the place tomorrow.

This morning was the hearing test.  It is as I had feared, I've lost considerable amount of hearing at the high end of the scale, the same amount of loss in both ears, which, yes, does kind of point at all those dictating devices littering my misspent youth as the culprits.

We -- that being the medical "we" -- are not of the opinion that the loss is yet significant enough for us to be talking hearing aids.  The plan at the moment is to retest in a year and see where we are then.

This is the first time I've had a hearing test since elementary school, so I guess I subconsciously expected something like the test we took then, and, indeed, it was kind-of something like that.

First, I was locked into a soundproof room, headphones on, while the tech in the next room played a series of noises, first through the left headphone and then through the right.  I had a button in my hand and every time I heard a sound, I was to press the button.  The . . .interesting and terrifying thing about this was that I could tell when the tones had gone out of my range.  The tones I could hear came in a rapid, distinct, rhythm.  There I'd be, punching my button like a mad, button-punching woman, and suddenly?  I heard only silence, for a looooong time, before the next tone that I could hear sounded and I punched the button again.

I'm not sure I have words adequate to the task of explaining how eerie it is to know that sounds were being made which were completely beyond my ken.  Like watching television with the sound off, but much more disturbing.

The next test, with different earphones, was. . .even eerier. The tech in the next room would say a word -- again testing first the left ear, then the right -- and I would repeat the word as I heard it.  There, too, I hit a blank wall where I knew, by the elapsed time, that words were still being spoken in some place to which I no longer had access, but -- as the post-game wrap-up showed -- I also misheard a bunch of words with soft "th" "sh" sounds.  "POPCORN" was perfectly intelligible.  "Theft," not so much.

So, that.  Growing old is not for sissies.

As I believe mentioned elsewhere, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield (Our Stockholders Come First!) has kindly allowed us to know that they will be increasing our rate of protection (Nice liver you got there; be a shame if something happened to it) by just pennies under $140/month.  This brings our monthly payment to over $600 -- for an insurance policy that covers NOTHING.  We still have to pay all of our medical bills out of pocket; if we should ever hit the deductible, we would have already declared bankruptcy.  This is when you start thinking about playing Health Care Roulette -- dropping one individual's coverage in order to be sure the other's covered.  Can you hear the gods laughing?  Yeah, me, too.

But!  Thank ghod we don't have socialized medicine; that would be worse.

#

I have been remiss in pointing out that Baen has been running a cover model contest, in which you can vote for your favorite Manly Man from among a field of twenty-three.  Here's the contest, with pictures.  The amusing thing is that the contest went over yesterday, according to the posted rule, and the winner appears to be!

Rys Lin pen'Chala.

Also, I have seen things, as I have gone up and down the intertubes.  Interesting things.

Like. . .

Rare baby lemur born at the Baltimore Zoo

The entire photographic archives of unknown photographer Vivien Maier have been purchased at auction, and will/are for the first time available for display.

Get a look at a Parisian apartment that has been left untouched for 70 years.

#

Progress on Carousel Seas

43,713/100,000 OR 43.75% complete

"Nothin' the matter with your voice. If you feel like you gotta have an instrument, we just hand you a tambourine, and you shake it when the mood strikes."

Comments

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

My hearing tests involve Wife stopping and listening for birds. That I can't hear. But we have different range losses, so sometimes I stop and listen for things she can't hear . . .

Decrepit old age is upon us.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Oh, and on the other thing -- I offered up various benedictions when we moved on to Medicare . . .

[kay-gmd.livejournal.com]

I hope the hearing loss isn't inconvenient for you.
I have a hearing aid now if I just had a memory aid that helped me to remember to put it on.

I like the Baen covers, but I have to say none of the guys really does it for me.
Rys Lin pen'Chala and #8 the guy with the flute would probably be the closest to something I'd vote for.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I think the hearing loss is a lot more inconvenient for people who are trying to tell me things, if the room is the least bit noisy (convention bars, anyone? Green room?), or if they happen to have a voice in the register I've mostly lost. I said at supper that I'd better brush up on my Sign, but Steve pointed out that it wouldn't do any good, as most people don't speak Sign.

but I have to say none of the guys really does it for me.
Rys Lin pen'Chala and #8 the guy with the flute would probably be the closest to something I'd vote for.

I, of course, am partial to Rys, for all the reasons you'd expect. :)

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

No. If everybody paid for their health insurance at the same rate, via taxes, then my situation would improve, because there would be (manymanymany) more people paying in, and! because the insurance company couldn't say, "O! Not part of a group? Sucks to be you."

But I don't think the main problem with the present system is that corporate employees can get medical care, and taking it away from them will not help people like you.

I don't know where you got the idea that I want to take medical care away from corporate employees. Please disabuse yourself of it. Thanks.

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

I did not say, and never supposed, that you wanted corporate employees to lose access to medical care. I said that's what would happen if "socialized medicine" came to the US, and that you personally would be no better off than you are now.

I respectfully submit that you need to work on bridging.

As evidence, I point to MassCare, Massachusetts' health care law.

MassCare is not true socialized medicine, because it utilizes the system that is broken in the first place -- the multipayer, multiplayer, profit-seeking insurance companies. This is what's also wrong with the so-called ObamaCare.

[ariaflame.livejournal.com]

I live in Australia, one of those places with 'socialised' health care and the knowledge that if I got sick or injured that it would not mean almost certain bankruptcy is a great comfort to me. I know that people with less incomes than I also are covered while often paying less, and because I am not a selfish person I am fine with that. I do also have private health insurance which gives me a bit more choice should I get sick or injured and some other benefits with a non insane excess (I think that's the same as deductible). Because I have that I don't have to pay the extra levy that people with higher incomes do if they don't have private health insurance.

That poor people can get treated early for medical problems to me is a win on both moral and economic terms because as a moral human being I don't want other people to suffer unnecessarily and on economic because it is cheaper in the long run and less taxing on the system if the problems get fixed early rather than waiting until it is urgent and expensive.

insurance

[nfurman.livejournal.com]

Well said... I don't think it will improve care, but it might cover my alternative care- acupuncture, chiropractic- all of which is Actually keeping me going, and our "regular" insurance is a joke. A already unaffordable joke- through work- and still a joke. If I paid those "premiums" through taxes, at least they would DO something. As it is they line rich peoples pockets, who sneer at us- middle class even- and hope we die. I become more angry with every passing month, terrified for my children, several of whom have issues that need medical care and prescriptions. Anger and hatred are bad for the body as well as the soul, and yearly I feel more of them.

[adriannem.livejournal.com]

Personally, I think its criminal that many people in this country can't afford decent health care insurance. Make no mistake. Health care in this country is rationed - the rich get it, and the poor don't. And that just sucks.

[attilathepbnun.livejournal.com]

*hugs*

[adriannem.livejournal.com]

It is, indeed, a very sad thing to sit in a sound proofed chamber and to know you can't tell if that was a tone or not. And to know there were tones that are beyond you now, that weren't 20 years ago. I lost the birds for several years. Then I started taking GABA (an amino acid) for my migraines. And I can hear birds again! Not all of them. But lots more than I could.

[pgranzeau.livejournal.com]

One of life's conundrums is that when we finally get old enough to have money to spend on really good hi-fi systems, our hearing has deteriorated to the point we can no longer hear the range of frequencies of which the system is capable. I now live in a retirement facility with a dining room, and nearly everyone I meet is wearing hearing aids. I, luckily, don't feel them necessary quite yet!