can you hear me now?

I find myself unsure of what I’ve said on here before, but I know that I’ve mentioned Husband’s hearing issues. He’s got 60% hearing loss in both ears, which is known as hard of hearing but not deaf. He reads lips, can’t do ASL, demands closed captioning, and will pretend to understand more often than ask for a repeat when we’re in public.

Since I’ve known him he’s been using a very expensive set of hearing aids that were molded to fit inside his ear. Then last year sometime he lost one, and he’s been hobbling along without it for awhile. It’s been okay because his old job was so noisy inside the warehouse, that it didn’t matter if he had his hearing aids or not. But his new job is in a quiet cubicle office, so it makes quite a difference now. Plus his last standing hearing aid is starting to falter on him, so he’s itching to get a new pair.

The issue, as always, is the price tag. $3,000 for the pair he had, so we’re definitely not in a place to get the same kind again. He was fiddling around online the other night trying to find a better price, and we began a discussion of something I didn’t even think of.

 

He was looking at something similar to this, with a decent price tag, and I said I thought they were fine. Then he showed me the video advertising them. It could’ve been filmed at a retirement home, if you get my drift. And I suppose that is the natural person one thinks of when it comes to being hard of hearing. I looked it up later that night, and statistics show that a majority of people who purchase hearing aids are 65 and older.

Anyway, Husband was concerned about getting a pair like this. He didn’t know if it would look professional, if it would look weird that someone his age, so young, had showing hearing aids. I was kind of marveled about the actual worry in his voice. I have never thought anything about Husband having hearing aids, but my sister has a significant hearing loss in her left ear, so I’ve grown up with it. We talked about how people at work already knew that he had hearing aids and hearing issues, that they would really help him out (some people talk too low for him to hear them at work). He admitted to me that he’d been bullied as a kid about his hearing aids, and had been self conscious about them ever since, hence the uber expensive hide-in-the-ear pair.

It was one of those conversations where you realize you don’t know everything about your partner, because I definitely did not know that Husband had such issues with hearing aids. I thought he was just really stubborn and manly about pretending he could hear, not self conscious. When we went to see the latest Batman movie, I told him he should go to the service counter and get headphones, because Christian Bale talks super low and I can barely understand him, let alone Husband. He really balked until I reminded him about how much he lost out on with Avengers because of RDJ’s fast talking quips. I realize now he probably felt embarrassed to have to ask for and wear them.

 

But it worked out great for him, and he was able to hear everything. Plus I didn’t have him leaning over and asking, ‘Wait, what he’d say?’. And none of the dozen people in the theater with us seemed to care (and most likely didn’t). I think, like a lot of insecurities we have about ourselves, his issue with his hearing is really internal.

We went to the zoo today and saw an elderly gentleman with his wife, and he had hearing aids like the ones above. Husband almost triumphantly pointed him out to me, ‘Look! It’s like only for the elderly!’ I gestured to the crowds and retorted, ‘And who seems to notice that he has them in?’ I also got the final say later when we saw a hipster crossing the street in front of our car sporting – yep, you guessed it – the exact same pair of hearing aids.

I think hearing loss is one of those ‘hidden afflictions’. A lot of people don’t know Husband has a hearing problem because his hearing aids tuck into his ears so well, or he doesn’t wear them and gets by with lip reading. I think Husband builds it up in his head as a BIG problem, when to me it’s just like wearing glasses. But I try to be understanding because I don’t know what it’s like to have a ‘real’ disability that requires extra attention at times. Currently we’re saving up so we can buy a nice $600 pair that yes, will be exposed around his ears. He’s making the ultra sacrifice and (gasp!) selling one of his bikes so they can get here sooner.

I hate ending posts, so … the end.

knowing what to do.

I had a great moment at work yesterday, and I just wanted to record it somewhere!

So yesterday afternoon at work, I was changing a baby when one of the parents came in. I finished changing the baby and joined her on the rug, where she was getting her daughter ready to go home. It was her daughter’s first week at our center, so we were talking about how she’s adjusting to sleeping with the noise in a daycare, and how that’s completely normal. We were talking about how well she eats and plays when her mom said, ‘I know I should probably ask her doctor this, but I’m going to ask you too.’ and then asked me if I felt she needed to bring more breastmilk for her to eat.

Can I just say that I was totally honored that she asked me that? I mean, I’ve only known this woman five days and already she feels comfortable enough to ask me about her daughter’s eating needs! YAY!

I am by no means an expert in my field. I have three years of experience coming up in May, I have worked with pre-k, toddlers, and infants, plus I’ve got experience from Stepson for five years (I’ve known him since he was a toddler). But I feel like I know kids. And having this mom ask me that kind of reaffirmed this feeling for me.

I think, no I KNOW, that the more I think about, the more that because taking care of kids is my job, I’m in no rush to have my own. It is not a big, crazy, scary adventure to have a baby. It is old hat for me — eventually, they will eat. Eventually, they will sleep. Yes, they will pee on the changing table. Blow outs are old news. Pregnancy/labor/the first six weeks are all a ‘mystery’ to me, but the rest is not. So I can wait, and help other parents in the mean time.

 

((Also, my sister is having a BOY!, and I’m so excited to have a new baby to snuggle come June!! 🙂 ))

my fitness pal

I’m on day two of the calorie counting app my fitness pal. It’s already making me think about what I’m putting in my mouth, especially since my first day was a complete blow to my number. However, I never want to be one of those people that obsess about the numbers.

I am confident about how I look, but I know I’m getting to an age where I have to be healthier, have to watch my weight so I can stay healthy. So I’m going to try this for a couple months to get me in the right mind set, and then we’ll go from there.

I’m going to try to get Husband on it too. Let’s see!

health and the rest.

When it comes to my health, I have been extremely lucky. I am probably the luckiest person I know when it comes to health. When I was born, I came out purple (I couldn’t breathe). My first year of life was spent hooked up to a monitor with tons of wires, and a few times a day I would stop breathing and my mom would have to revive me. After that first year, I got the hang of being alive and ever since then, I’ve been fine. I’ve never had surgery except for getting my wisdom teeth out (I was fine within a day) and my current “biggest issue” is that I have a tendency towards UTIs if I don’t allow myself enough bathroom breaks at work. I’ve never been rushed to the ER or spent overnight in the hospital.

So Wednesday at work, when I was feeling particularly itchy and started having red bumps appearing everywhere, I didn’t think much of it. Usually these things don’t amount to much for me. I asked to get sent home early because it was hard to concentrate with the constant need to itch. At that point, I only had the bumps on my upper arms. Within the hour it took me to get home, the red bumps were everywhere. Husband came home to take me to the QuickCare, and I was diagnosed with hives. The NP sounded super positive about it — stop using the new body wash I started the night before, take some prescription meds, you’ll be fine. Especially since I wasn’t having any breathing issues, she was happy to send me off with this advice, and I was fine taking it.

However … Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, I woke up with the hives everywhere. I’d take my meds, and within a couple hours, the hives would be back again anyway. So Saturday Husband insisted he take me to an actual doctor at emergency care. And the doctor was like, “Yeah … this shouldn’t be happening. Let’s try something else.” So there were shots in my arm and my gluten, blood work, an urine sample, and new prescriptions. I think my favorite part was how the doctor was trying to convince me that the NP had done everything right and she did everything she was supposed to. I wanted to be like, ‘I don’t really care, can we just stop the hives?’

We probably spent four hours dealing with all this (I think three of the four was waiting) and by the time it was over the meds and shots were kicking in and I was exhausted. After grabbing lunch at an amazing, real, local diner, we went home and I passed out for three hours, and still woke up groggy and exhausted. We had to cancel plans with my sister, which I hated, but I could barely get the going to boil water and make ravioli for dinner. I thank God that Husband was able to get out and take a bike ride yesterday while I napped, since we had plans to go to the zoo which were thwarted by the hives.

So that’s that. Tuesday we’re getting the bloodwork back and I really don’t care if I’m allergic to anything, I just want an answer. The doctor was really trying to push the whole cat/dog allergy and Husband and I were like, ‘NO. Believe us, we would KNOW if that was it.’ I’m worried that if I can’t find an answer, they’re going to want to send me to a specialist and all that crap, and with only one car that’s not exactly something that’s easy for us. So I’m praying for a solution, any solution.

In other news, we got our planning booklet (and an amazing state map) of Montana yesterday, so I spent most of last night half listening to movies on Netflix and perusing more sites. There’s so much we want to do and I just have this feeling it’s going to be a nine day trip just like Disney. Husband is beyond excited for it, but he’s nervous that not going until 2015 is going to dampen our enthusiasm. However, I’ve secretly wanted to go to Montana for years, like since high school. It’s always a place I’ve wanted to see, the complete openness without a city skyline hovering somewhere. I want to see the mountains. We’ve driving through the mountains on our way to Florida, but I want that mountain backdrop.

big sky, big dream

Sunday Husband and I went to the zoo. We were standing there, watching the bison, and I said, ‘I want to see them out in the open, in the wild.’ There was quiet, and then Husband answered, ‘Let’s go to Montana.’

I don’t think I can accurately convey the desire and excitement that has come over us as we begin the very, very beginning stages of planning for a trip to Montana. I think about Montana at work. I think about Montana in the shower. I woke Husband up in the middle of the night to ask him in what time zone Montana is. Husband researched Montana during his work breaks, and has already talked to his coworkers about it. We talk at night about what we learned, what we want to do, simple logistics.

Of course when we first talked about it, I assumed we’d go in 2014. But as we looked into traveling, lodging, and activities, we realized this wouldn’t be one of our four day weekend trips. This would be a trip of Disney World proportions — something that would cost a lot of money, be a week long, and require a car that doesn’t guzzle gas at 17 mpg. So I think it’s safe to say we’ll be headed out into Big Sky Country in 2015.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t plan now.

I have two dozen websites bookmarked about various hotels, activities, Yellowstone, and planning sites. I’ve already conversed with a Montana planning agent about where we should stay. The rough part of visiting Montana is that everything is at least a hour apart from each other. It’s a beautiful hour drive, but it’s still a hour drive. So I think we’ll end up staying at three different hotels.

I don’t think I’ve been this excited for a vacation since our honeymoon. I loved Toronto, and I’m looking forward to Nashville in June, but there’s something about visiting a place completely unknown. Although a couple of Husband’s coworkers have been to Montana, no one else we know has, so it’s kind of like we’re on our own. I’ve never been out west (Husband’s been to California, Arizona, and Colorado) so it’ll be a brand new experience for me.

I can’t wait.