What??

[bill_schubert]

I went for a hearing test today and turns out I'm old.

About 10 years ago I was going in for some brain surgery kind of stuff and got tested from head to toe.  All systems.  So I've got a great baseline including hearing.  Not much has changed in 10 years other than getting the damn was out of my right ear has helped me hear now equally out of both.  And my tinnitus is not medically bad.  Just an age thing and maybe a little left over from the Navy.

Navy ships are made with steel decks.  Steel decks have non-skid paint applied that has to be removed (the ship would founder from being top heavy if paint were just added all the time.. it has to be removed down to the metal and repainted).  The way to remove the non-skid is using grinders and knuckle busters and needle guns.  All very interesting instruments the sum of which make enough noise to rival a jet aircraft (and I've heard both from the same distance).  The office staterooms are one deck down below the main deck.  Where the non-skid is.  Where the knuckle busters and grinders and needle guns are plying their trade.  So someone is doing all that on a steel drum head about four feed over your head.  All day.  For weeks at a time.

It is amazing that I did not lose more hearing.  I only hope what I have lost was the result of The Who and The Stones and Uriah Heep and NOT steel decks and non-skid.

All things considered I can put up with a little tinnitus.  Gives me an excuse, as sleepybadger points out, to ignore what I don't want to hear and there seems to be more of that as I get older.

Comments

[maju01.livejournal.com]

All that noise sounds brutal. When I was growing up we didn't have electricity until I was about 12, but my father ran a generator in the evenings for a few years so we had lights. The generator was just on the other side of a corrugated iron wall from my bed. It probably wasn't as loud as what you had to put up with, but it wasn't quiet either. I've had hearing loss for at least 20 years now, plus tinnitus for almost as long as I can remember. Mostly I don't notice the tinnitus.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

That sucks. We wore hearing protection all day (like masks today). The foam kind and then 'mickie mouse' ears too. Double protection. I suspect it saved my hearing.

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

Heh!

When I was a kid, we lived across the alley from my godmother and her husband — Grandma Dirty and Uncle Bud.

I had a class assignment to interview the oldest person I knew, so I was talking with Uncle Bud and Grandma Dirty kept yelling from the kitchen to remind him of stories and poor Uncle Bud was deaf as a post so it was a lot of "What? What?!?" until Grandma Dirty threw up her hands and muttered about his hearing.

Then he winked at me.

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

1 — a childhood peopled with Grandma Dirty and Uncle Bud. Interesting.

2 — I love the story. Age has many privileges.

[ghost-light.livejournal.com]

Yeah...I had to stop calling him Uncle Bud before their grandsons got old enough to wonder. Her name was Dorothy, but my parents got the idea calling her "Dordie" would be easier. Joke was on them.

[nick-101.livejournal.com]

I should have a hearing test someday. My ears are partially blocked with earwax lately.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Even if it was the decks we'll say it was The Who

[bill-schubert.livejournal.com]

My story and I'm sticking to it.