Perfection. I like both Movies with Mikey and Baby Driver — I thought it was one of the best movies of the last few years. And then to discover something new that I hadn’t noticed, even though it was pervasive in the movie, was a real eye-opener.
It’s about coping with being disabled? Yeah, now that you mention it, it’s goddamned obvious.
Also relevant, this past year I’ve developed a growing problem with tinnitus — getting old sucks — and I’ve been dealing with it by living with headphones on all the time I’m working in my office. And then we learn that my wife has been living with a degenerative hearing disorder all of her life that has only recently gotten bad enough that she’s needed hearing aids. It’s an odd one, too, where she’s slowly losing the low end of her auditory range, so in a few years we may have to learn ASL…or I’m going to have to start speaking in a falsetto all the time. (Don’t worry, neither of us are suffering horribly with this stuff, it’s all mild and we’re handling it as well as every other hurdle aging throws at us.)
Now I’m going to have to watch Baby Driver again, which is no hardship, at least.
My mother has this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ménière%27s_disease
is it not nice
My youngest sister has Meniere’s and my whole family took ASL lessons when her hearing got bad. It made for great fun in church when I’d be up on the stand preparing the sacrament and my sister would be signing awful shit like, “you’re a motherfucker” to me.
Good times.
I’ve worn hearing aids since I was in high school (was a preemie, and neonatal hearing loss is common with them, so they figure I really needed ’em all along), they’ve improved by approximately 17 squintillion times since then (mid-70’s). Mine connect directly to my phone via bluetooth, they’re precisely tuned to my loss, multiple programs, etc.
Tinnitus is an ongoing annoyance; it seems to be a concomitant symptom of hearing loss in almost all cases. In my case it was exacerbated by several years spent in a small office with a bunch of very loud computer servers.
Just a comment on tinnitus. I get infection related tinnitus – when I can hear it I am either ill or about to be ill. It seems my white blood cells bounce of my cilia in my ears or something. I first noticed it when I developed an allergy to nickel. Something as simple as the studs on jeans touching my skin for a couple of days and I’d get tinnitus. A day or so later I’d feel shit. Another day I’d feel really really shit and the studs would start to leave burns on my skin while my ears rang, Now I can tell if I’m going to go down with a bug as my tinnitus is an early warning system. A lot of people seem to have a similar infection related tinnitus problems.
Don’t die of old age, PZ. You have to live to see the next non-horrifying presidential administration. However long it takes.
Joking aside, stay well. You and this here blog mean a lot to me.
I’ve been dealing with tinnitus for around 30 years. It started a few years after I got out of the Air Force, and I suspect it has something to do with jet engines.
A couple of years ago I noticed that I kept having to turn my computer volume up, a little at a time. Finally, last fall I went to the VA and had a hearing test. My low frequency hearing was fairly good, but my high frequency was mostly shot. So now I have hearing aids, which were a little difficult to get used to. But now music sounds crisp and clear rather than flat, which is what I had become used to. At least I can say the VA didn’t skimp by giving me cheap hearing aids. These are some of the most expensive on the market.
The hearing aids can be set to counter tinnitus by emitting white noise. But for now, I prefer the ringing to a constant background hiss.
To quote one of my transportees, “growing old ain’t for sissies”. Those words seem sager as time passes.
Raises hand. I’m another Meniere’s sufferer. Every time that I start regularly hearing the tinnitus in one ear, I know that my hearing in that ear is going to get worse. Sometimes it sounds as though I have my own private hearing test going on, with the beeps and boops that nobody else can hear. It definitely affects my hearing of low frequencies.
My favorite story about my diminishing hearing comes from my teaching days:
Male teen at my desk mumbles – “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Me – “Say that again, please.”
Teen (a little louder) – “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Me – “You’ll have to come to this side of the desk and repeat that into my good ear.”
Teen – (Loudly) “Can I go to the bathroom?”
Me – (also loudly) “Oh, potty? Of course, there’s the pass!”
Hilarity ensues in the classroom while the red-faced male hurries out with the restroom pass.
At least they learned to not interrupt the class unless it was really necessary.
Tinnitus here, too. I probably had it for a while before they diagnosed it. One day I realized that the constant background noise didn’t go away when everything was shut off. Uh oh. Turns out my ears aren’t hearing the highest pitches, so my brain said “I’LL HELP YOU!” and immediately started producing a constant high pitch-less whine so everything would be hunky-dory.
Looking forward to a bright future, just watching my floaters while I listen to my ears. It’s nowhere near as bad as I expected it would be when I heard about others having it, which could mean any number of things I won’t enumerate. Some day they’ll legalize “it” here, and I won’t mind any of this nonsense quite so much (and I’ll play the piano more).
Good luck with the hearing aids . They make a world of difference. I have industrial deafness and what hearing I do have in the frequencies not affected by it is marginal. When i first got them I had a real problem with understanding accents but the hearing aids pick up the often subtle differences that are hard to hear. My hearing loss has progressed to the stage where at times I can’t understand my wife particularly when she has her back to me. Now in some cases that may not be a bad thing. Another advantage is that mine are bluetooth enabled so I can use them for hands free on my mobile when I,m driving. When i don’t want to be disturbed by all the noise around me I play background music on my PC via bluetooth to the hearing aids. Turn the volume setting on the PC down and nobody is any the wiser unless you are rocking along to some good jazz.
This talk by Ashton Applewhite is a must-read for all of us over age 60.
Author Ashton Applewhite on counteracting ageism
https://news.berkeley.edu/2019/03/25/berkeley-talks-ashton-applewhite/
Glad to hear your praise for Baby Driver. That opening sequence is beyond amazing. Trust me, the whole movie just gets better with repeat viewing.
My hearing gets worse as my wife’s gets better. I’ll be in my den in the far corner of upstairs munching on some snacks and I’ll hear this voice wafting up from downstairs, “What are you eating?” Of course she gets me in mid-chew and the slight pause while I swallow is a dead giveaway. “Nothing!” I try but she knows better and I get a variation of the “lecture.”
Actually, I bought a hearing aid for my other ear today. I mostly used one in my classes because I teach English conversation and not being able to hear what the students say makes the class harder for both them and me. I’m hoping the second one will help me get through my final year of full-time teaching before I retire.
About the movie “Baby Driver,” I liked it a lot and after watching Mikey’s review, I want to see it again too.
My only big qualm with Baby Driver is Kevin Spacey. The mask scene makes up for it.
I’ve had tinnitus for about ten years, but it didn’t get really bad until about five years ago when I had a really bad head cold. I have had moderate to severe hearing loss in my right ear for most of my life (I’m 47). The tinnitus really gets to me at times, but I can usually block it out. I tried hearing aids to see if hearing better would make the tinnitus less noticeable, but it didn’t help at all. :/
madtom1999
Had it all my life . . . does not interfere with hearing. Does seem especially prevalent during illness. I enjoy identifying the sound . . . crickets, frogs, my late father snoring (The loudest snoring I ever heard!), etc.
jack16