“I’m sorry, what did you say? I didn’t hear you.” As soon as those words cross my lips, I see the other person’s reaction. I wince as their eyes roll & a deep, frustrated sigh escapes their lips. “You’re just not listening, Lynnae. Pay attention.” They repeat their question & I answer accordingly, but my mind slips back to a time they don’t know.
I contracted chicken pox from Jarid, my older brother, when I was eighteen months old. Mom says she couldn’t place the tip of her pinkie anywhere on my body without touching the bright red blisters. They covered my face, arms, legs & back, they were between my fingers & toes, down my throat, & in my ears. Just looking at the pictures makes me itch. The common childhood disease passed quickly, but the effects changed my life.
Mom held me, a screaming three-year-old, in her arms as she called the doctor’s office. “I need an appointment for Lynnae. . . . No, not in two weeks. Today.” Mom knew the office would close soon—it was Saturday—but she was desperate. I had been screaming for an hour. My ears where throbbing. Though I don’t remember the pain of that first experience, I remember others. The pain is indescribable. Mom finally haggled the nurse into an after-hours appointment that day. Eventually, the pain subsided & I stopped screaming.
That doctor’s appointment started years of monthly ear appointments. The chicken pox I contracted at eighteen months developed into Otitis Media, water on the ear in layman’s terms. The screaming was my eardrum bursting for the first time—my left eardrum would burst another three times & my right eardrum twice before I turned eight.
Unlike most kids my age, I loved going to the doctor’s office. Books & toys filled the waiting room—hour long waits seemed to fly bye as I read Dr. Seuss’ Lorax & caught up with Ranger Rick in Highlighter. The waiting room slowly emptied as I waited my turn. Finally, a nurse with red hair called my name, directed Mom & I to a room filled with medical equipment, & notified us that, “Dr. Hahn will be right with you.” I sat in a leather chair with more contraptions than a dentist’s chair & waited for Dr. Hahn.
A few minutes later, Dr. Hahn entered the room. Dr. Fredrick Hahn is one of my favorite people: I always smiled when he entered the room. A white laboratory coat covered his sixty-something year old, slender six-foot figure. The troll with neon blue hair peeking out of his pocket would seem strange, until you noticed that Dr. Hahn’s hair, though white, seems to be styled the same: a mix of Einstein & Doc Brown from Back to the Future. He completes the look with a headb& connected to a circular mirror that leaves a red indention on his forehead.
During the appointment, Dr. Hahn cleaned my ears with a metal funnel & tweezers & checked the condition of my eardrum. He always allowed Mom to look in my ear & explained to both of us, in medical & layman’s terms, the condition of my eardrum. Before the appointment ended, he dictated the details of my visit to his computer—just by talking. To me, Dr. Hahn just the man who took care of me & called me his favorite red-headed patient, to the world, Dr. Fredrick Hahn was the foremost ear doctor: leagues ahead of his colleagues.
Mom & I left Dr. Hahn’s office & headed down the hall to my hearing test with Dr. Hare. The room looked like a recording studio: an outer room with sound equipment for the audiologist & a sound-proof room for the patient. I saw Mom & the doctor through a thick glass window as I sat in the sound-proof room with headphones on & the testing began. Static buzzed in one of my ears while I repeated words to Dr. Hare. “Oatmeal, airplane, thermos,” he read each word distinctly, separating the syllables. The yellow paper covered his lips, stopping me from lip-reading. I cheated anyway. After five years of testing, I had the list memorized. I knew my hearing was declining, but something in me didn’t want him to know. If I couldn’t hear one syllable, I simply guessed the word from what I did hear. He fluxuated the volume, testing my hearing range. In my least favorite test, Dr. Hare used beeps instead of words. The beeps reverberated in my brain for hours afterwards.
In October 1996, Dr. Hahn delivered devastating news. I needed surgery. The bursting caused my eardrums to lie across my middle ear bones. Fluid built up beneath the eardrum & caused two of the three bones in my left ear to deteriorate completely. Without surgery, I would lose hearing in my left ear completely. My world shattered. Within a few weeks, Mom worked with the doctor’s office to schedule my first surgery: December 30, 1996.
The morning of the surgery, Dad & Mom drove me the half-mile to Independence Regional Hospital. A nurse directed us to a cold, white room in the children's wing. She blushed & apologized as she handed Mom an adult's hospital gown, "Sorry, we're out of gowns in her size.--Oh, & she'll have to remove all of her clothes for surgery." My eyes bugged out of my head--all of my clothes? I couldn't understand why I had to remove my underwear when they were operating on my ears. Mom just laughed & helped me change. The gown swam around me. Mom wove the ties in & out of the arm holes & around my waist for a snug fit. After I changed, nurses prepped me for surgery. Sticky pads connected me to a heart monitor—I couldn’t move without tangling cords.
Then, we waited for Dr. Hahn to arrive. We waited for an hour. Literally.
Dr. Hahn arrived at 8:30 am, flashed a smile & donned his white lab coat. I tried to act brave as I left my parents & a nurse wheeled me to the operating room.
When I got to the operating room, a male nurse transferred me to a new bed. Horror filled my heart as he lifted me off of the bed--what if my gown separated? My heart stopped thumping only when I safely reached the operating table. The anesthesiologist strapped a cherry-scented breathing mask to my face. For the next three hours I endured the horrible scent of cherry-flavored medicine. Disgusting. Before I had a chance to evaluate the room around me, Dr. Hahn’s head appeared above me, “We can begin. She’s asleep.” I panicked. “I’m awake, I’m awake!” my head screamed. The world began to spin around me. I fell asleep staring at the cold operating lamp above me.
I awoke in a panic. “Where am I? Why am I connected to all these wires?” I struggled to roll over & untangle myself. “Good morning, Sunshine!” I almost wet the hospital gown I was wearing. As I rolled over, Dad leaned forward & placed his face just centimeters form my own.
The surgery was a success. The following June Dr. Hahn performed the same surgery, a tempanoplasty, on my right ear. I still have moderate hearing loss, but it could be worse.
I can hear you now—most of the time.
So the next time I ask you to repeat something don’t get angry or frustrated. Though sometimes I don’t hear, I promise I’m listening.
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