Hearing Center
Oh, the alarm clock rang so early! I always hear it first with denial, hoping it was just a bad dream. Then I have to try to remember how to shut off the snooze. I never intend to stay in bed more than 30 minutes but it usually lasts 60 minutes. This morning it was 75 minutes. I just had time to check my blood sugar then take kefir to Linda for her pills. Then she got up and made coffee while I got into the shower. It worked amazing well! I got to the Kaiser Hearing Center 10 minutes early for my 9:30 a.m. appointment.
Dr. Ahuja was pleasant and quick. She had me sit in front of a monitor, with my hearing aids in, and she attached something around my ears, fastened to a cable on each side which went into the machine. This, she said, was a test to determine if the technology was working as programmed. I didn’t have to do anything other than sit there while she clicked buttons on the screen which activated a male voice saying the same short passage normally, softly, and loudly. She did this on each side and told me everything was okay.
The other check was to see if I’ve been inserting the hearing aids correctly. This was more difficult. I just couldn’t seem to “get” what she was trying to show me. Apparently, my movements in manipulating these microscopic mini-computers did not match her verbal instructions. After several tries, I think we both just gave up and let her insert them correctly. At least I could get through the day.
She said she will put me into their system and they will notify me for another follow-up appointment in 6 months, unless I have an urgency about something.
Vision Essentials
My next stop was on the first floor at Vision Essentials. I dug into my bag for my wallet, to get out my Kaiser ID, as I stood in line. But I didn’t even get to the receptionist desk, as one of the technicians came over to me and asked if she could help me. I think she may have been the one who got my glasses and fitted them last Thursday. She seemed familiar.
I told her that I needed the nose pads to be adjusted so that the glasses frames would sit higher on my nose and thus put the correct part of the lens in front of my eyes for both the computer and reading in bed. She seemed to know exactly what I meant. She took my glasses and disappeared into another room. When she came back, she told me that she just made a small adjustment first and that I might need more. I did. The second time, she got the adjustment exactly right. At least, for today.
“Thank you so much,” I said, standing. “They’ll be good now for a couple of–”
“Days?” she interrupted, laughing.
I smiled. “Well, I was going to say a couple of weeks.”
“If we’re lucky!”
I made a quick stop in what Kaiser calls Healthy Living Center, where there are books and CDs (to purchase) and free pamphlets in English, Spanish, and Chinese. I looked over the materials just long enough to confirm that Kaiser openly supports meditation for stress relief, low fat, vegan, and high carbs.
On the way home, we stopped at the U.S. Post Office branch on Hesperian, just before we turn left on our usual route. I took 4 boxes of 30 gauge Delica lancets that I had packaged to be sent to a FB acquaintance I crossed paths with over the weekend. Karen told me her husband’s insurance covers only one box of 30 lancets with a co-pay of $10. And here I had 3 full boxes of 100 lancets each plus a fourth box that was 3/4 full.
Perhaps this is how I “pay it forward” for the Garmin fitness tracker that was sent to me a few months ago from a Facebook friend!
When I got home, I still had this feeling of talking in a barrel, like I usually get when I first put in my hearing aids, but this has lasted all day! Nothing like having to adjust to new hearing aids and new glasses at the same time!
Tick-tock-tick-tock (living room clock). Scratch, scratch (oh, that’s the sound of me scratching my arm with one of my long thumbnails!). DING, DING! (That’s the LOUD sound of someone sending me a Private Message!). “Vroom, vroom!” (a neighbor’s landscaper mowing the yard—it was never this loud before!)
It was a little easier today doing my physical therapy exercise routine on the bed. I didn’t worry as much about my movements possibly causing the hearing aids to come off.
