Can you repeat that?

There are lots of stories I want to tell but I'll have to stick to another short one today. After 3 days of conferencing, I'm more exhausted than at the end of my last marathon. But the end result is worth it; several days spent with brilliant people thinking and doing meaningful things. Nothing an extra cup of coffee won't fix.

There are many things that made this week special, but one especially stands out - even if no one else noticed. In fact, that was sort of the point. You see, this week I got to test out my new hearing aids, in settings that most definitely have given me grief in the past. Large groups in crowded spaces are especially difficult but this week, I was able to manage and maneuver so much better than in the past.

Some background: when I was 7, I fell ill The kind of illness that lands a child in the hospital, of a seriousness that meant I wasn't even allowed in the shared child's playroom due to fears of contagion (what can I say, I was 7 - I really wanted to play with that Mr. Potato Head doll). Thanks to the quality care I received, I went home fully restored.

Until I failed an annual school hearing test.

That led to months, and then years, of tests, explanations, and head scratching. By the time I was 12, I had lost the majority of hearing in my right ear. Needless to say, this had ramifications, the most problematic being difficulty in large groups or large spaces. As the deterioration continued, doctors recommended a hearing aid. Did I mention that I was 12?

Despite my protests, soon I was the proud owner of a gigantic hearing aid. It was so big you could probably see it from space. It certainly didn't endear me to my classmates, who were also 12 and therefore curious and, on occasion, cruel. And I wasn't exactly popular to begin with (socially awkward and weird, on the other hand...), so it would be fair to say that I didn't exactly give it the old college try. But as I was to find out later, the technology wasn't the right kind of my hearing loss, so it should come as surprise to no one that it was soon stuffed in a drawer and forgotten, only to to be mentioned on those occasions when I didn't hear my mom calling my name across the house.

Fast forward 20-something years.

Recently I was referred to an ENT for an unrelated problem and as is normal, the intake included questions about my health history. I mentioned my hearing loss and before I knew it, I was stuck in the little soundproof booth, completing nonsense words and lifting a finger every time I heard the tone. The diagnosis remained the same; my right ear doesn't work. But suddenly, the prescription was different. Turns out, in 20-something years, technology hasn't just improved, it's leap-frogged into a whole new world.

Which is where I found myself this past week. 

My new hearing aids are small and inconspicuous - so inconspicuous that even my closest friends didn't notice. I wear one in each ear. The important one is the one in my right ear; it's job is to send the sound from that side of the room to the hearing aid in my left ear. And because bodies are amazing, my brain can tell which side the sounds are coming from. It's weird and amazing and still shocks me every time I can hear something on my right side. 

It's also exhausting to hear all those new things, so I'm off to bed, where I plan on dreaming about the sounds of wind through the trees and butterfly wings flapping against flower petals.