Feeling Helpless

I used to think that the worst feeling in the world was when you think you have to sneeze and then don't. I've recently come to find out, that's not the case.

Yesterday was laundry day. I loaded up the hamper and headed down to the laundry room. The washers in the laundry room are side-load, so you have take care when loading them or everything will just tumble out onto the floor. So careful not to drop anything, I bent over the hamper grabbing armfuls of clothing and shoved it in, kind of poking my head inside to push the clothing all the way to the back of the machine.

I started the laundry and went back up to the apartment. Aaron set out hummus and flat bread and loaded up an episode of Doctor Who on the 360. I sat on the floor drawing windows on a box for Neelix with a Sharpie when I suddenly realized: I cannot hear the Doctor Who theme. That's when it finally dawned on me. My hearing aid was gone! I was wearing it before doing the laundry...

I sprang up and ran out of the apartment, down the stairs and sprinted to the laundry room only to recall a very important fact. The public washing machines lock once started. Even if you unplug them, there is no way to open the machine until the cycle has completed. Why? I don't know. Maybe they're trying to prevent people from stealing dirty laundry? I did not know that was an issue.

I go back to the apartment looking at the ground closely, retracing my steps just in case, as I go. Once I'm back inside I reveal to Aaron what is going on, since I kid of ran off without saying anything before. We search the house together in the slight hope that perhaps it is just under a pillow, or on a counter somewhere. It isn't though. I wait out the remaining cycle time and sure enough, when I open the washing machine there it is.

Now, you may be wondering, "You did not notice something falling out of your ear?" The answer to that is, no. At first, surely, you'd notice because at first wearing a hearing aid for anything longer than thirty minutes is painful. But the more you want to hear, the longer you wear it. Over time you grow accustomed to wearing a hearing aid much like you grow accustomed to wearing a pair of glasses. To the point where you don't even realize it is there. Not to mention there's not much to hear in the laundry room when you're the only person present. The sound of a washing machine is indistinguishable to me from background noise.

I throw the clothes into the drier, because why not, I'm already there? Then I go back up. As I'm walking I'm looking at my hearing aid, checking to see if it's been overtly damaged in any way aside from being soaked. I notice that one of the little plastic covers over the microphone is chipped, but that's just aesthetics. When I open the battery compartment to withdraw the battery, I see that the battery is not in the door where it is meant to be held. It has been pushed into the inner compartment of the hearing aid, where all of the tiny hair-like wires reside. This is bad for two obvious reasons. The first being that getting something out from where it isn't supposed to be is never easy. The second being that the insides of a hearing aid are extremely delicate, something forcibly crammed in there could easily have broken it.

Back inside, Aaron manages to free the battery from the inner part of the hearing aid like a hero, but it's still drenched. Before turning it on it should be allowed to dry out completely, like any other electronic that's been exposed to water. So I open it up and set it on my desk. Several hours later it still isn't working. I'm instructed by three separate people to insert it in uncooked rice. So at current my hearing aid is sitting in the closet in a glass of rice.

It all seems ridiculous and perhaps a little entertaining until you take into consideration one thing: how horribly difficult it is to get insurance approval for medical devices. Back in 2007 it took nearly eight months for my health insurance to approve my hearing aid, even though it was deemed medically necessary. Then it took an additional several months for them to issue the damned thing. And health insurance in this country has only gotten worse since then.

My case went through quick, in 2007 because my situation was deemed an emergency. Since I had no preparation for the hearing loss. I quite literally woke up deaf. For those of you new to my blog: yeah, that happens. With the amount of time that has passed, the foot dragging is only going to be worse because of the long amount of time in which I've supposedly had to adjust. But you never really adjust to losing a sense. You cope. That's the extent of it.

I thought I had pretty much gotten over my loss until this happened and suddenly I was 'that girl' all over again. Able to function one day and completely without sound the next. Yes, I can lip read, but that is very difficult without consonant sounds to guide you. Lip reading is not at all how the media portrays it on television shows and movies. Unless you know the person speaking to you, personally, what they're saying is entirely up for wild interpretation. Take this for example. Yeah, that is the problem you run into when trying to read lips without any cues whatsoever.

Even with consonant cues provided by my hearing aid, when dealing with strangers it's still difficult to interpret what point they're trying to make. Without any cues it's impossible to tell what a stranger is saying now. Other things I can no longer do as of yesterday? I cannot have weekly telephone conversations with my family back east. I can't even hold a reliable conversation with Aaron. I cannot watch Netflix on the 360 (no subtitles). I cannot enjoy youtube videos. I can't play any video games reliant on voice acting. I cannot hear myself laugh. I also have no environmental awareness. Which makes me twice as likely to be hit by a car, or a train -- or eaten by a tiger, if tigers lived around here.

Add in the difficulty even seeing a doctor capable of putting forward a request to insurance for another hearing aid and you see how dire this situation is. Your primary care physician isn't in a position to order that type of medical device. You need to see an audiologist. Even if you've already seen one in the past and all your information is on file. Insurance seems to think they will save money on issuing medical devices if they force you to see another specialist before hand. Why?  I don't know. It's a stupid concept probably thought up by a stupid person.

Getting your insurance to approve you to see a specialist these days is a nightmare. Like they're trying to prevent having to issue medical devices to people by not letting them in to see the person who can request the devices. Just as an example, I've needed to get in to see my neurologist for months now and it still hasn't been approved yet. They've actually denied the appointment twice -- with no reason whatsoever. As in, I speak with my insurance company about why it wasn't approved and there is no reason listed in my file. They just blindly said no. They just saw the pending request, denied it and went on with their day.

In the absolute best case scenario, I am miraculously approved in under two months time to see an audiologist. After that I'm finally approved in under a year's time for a new hearing aid. After that it'll be about five months before I receive my hearing aid. That's over a year without any sound whatsoever! It's unacceptable.

Then there are the arbitrary rules they place on medical devices. Such as only being granted a certain amount in under a certain time span. For instance I can only get one pair of glasses every ten years. Even if the ones I have now spontaneously combust while on my face, I cannot have them replaced by my insurance until 2019. If anything happens to my glasses before that, I have to replace them myself.

It is essentially the same thing with hearing aids only they also do not cover the repair of a hearing aids at all. Paying out of pocket for hearing aid repair is $300 to start. Just to send it in. According to horror stories on the internet, Phonak will often take your money for repairs and your hearing aid, only to tell you you need to buy a new hearing aid if you old one was over two years of age. That's an additional $1000-$2000 on top of the $300 you paid to start out. That's essentially like telling me, "If you want to hear any time in the foreseeable future, you will be living in a box next month. Enjoy!"

Capitalism sucks when you're sick or disabled. I'm all for working for what you want, but working for what you need is getting a little out of hand.

Luckily, just as I was on the brink of freaking out and becoming some kind of feral person who eats their own hair and hordes pennies, my friend Sean reminded me that he's an engineer and may be able to fix it. Just for the cost of parts, which incidentally is much much less than $300. Failing that, my only option is buying the biggest, cheapest hearing aid I can find until we can save up for one that's less clunky and obtuse.

My Cat, The Airplane

Yesterday morning the alarm clock went off and Aaron got out of bed. In typical fashion, I rolled around aimlessly in the blankets unable to understand what was happening. There was noise, the cats were stomping all over me, and Aaron was gone. It was all really confusing. Then Aaron was across the room looking at me like I was a bum for still being in bed. I felt compelled to say something, to prove how awake I was.

"Neelix is like an airplane." Is what I said. I don't know why I said it or what had possibly lead me to make that association to begin with. Neither did Aaron.

His response was, "...What?"

Then I began fumbling around with words, trying to form a coherent explanation as to why my cat was anything like an airplane. It was harder than you'd think. Or maybe not, since my cat is absolutely nothing like an aircraft. "He just is..." I began groggily, "Look at his head!" I was completely certain in myself that this would explain everything.

Neelix.

By this point all attempts at getting dressed have ceased. Aaron stood there holding his shirt, looked to the cat and then back at me, "What are you talking about?"

Then I got defensive because my attempt to seem as awake and ready for the day as he was had failed. I ended up just repeating what I had said before only slower, "Neelix. He is like an airplane. Look at his head." When that clearly wasn't working I didn't give up. Oh no, I continued trying to sleepily justify the comparison. "Look at the way his ears go. Their shape and color. It's like the patterns on airplane wings."

I've never seen an orange airplane before though, so I'm not sure how this line of reasoning was supposed to help my cause. Aaron was laughing at my absurdity now which quickly devolved my argument into, "SHUT UP HE'S AN AIRPLANE." Because obviously he just wasn't going to get it.

There was a moment of amused silence and then we both laughed at my defeat. I crawled out of bed miserably. I must have still been half-dreaming when the conversation started. It was like words were just falling out of my head in some random sequence and the harder I tried to make them make sense, the less sense they made.

Thank You, Internet

So my cat needs antihistamines on a daily basis. As many of you have read before, he suffers from terrible chronic allergies that make him a licking, biting, scratching mess uncontrolled. For a couple of months now we've been taking him to the Vet and buying his medicine there, $15.00 for a month supply.

The idea of this going on perpetually began to seem a little daunting. I don't even spend $15.00 a month on my own terrible allergies. If mine get so out of hand I need medication, I can buy several months worth of antihistamines for the price it costs to get him a single month supply. Then I remembered something important.

We have the internet.

I did a quick Skynet search for his medication and found we've been paying way too much. Like, I understand businesses mark up their products to cover operational costs, but this was something else entirely. Don't get me wrong. The people at the Feline Clinic are very kind and generous with their time. They clearly care a great deal about cats and while I will continue taking my cats there for their exams and the like, I think from now on I'll be buying his pills from the internet.

Just how much were we over paying? Well, let me put it into perspective for you. We were paying $15.00 for 30 pills at 4mg each. I found out that a bottle of 1000 of the exact same pills at 4mg each only costs $10.00 from the supplier. There's also the convenience of not having to leave my house.

The Vet always wants to see him before refilling his antihistamines. Which means we have to put the big lug into his carrier and drive him over there. Not a big deal if your cat weighs less than 25 pounds. Kind of a chore when he's basically a dog. The price of the visit isn't bad, especially since they give us a 50% off discount. But that still means, essentially, for one month of treatment we're paying about $40.00, between the exam and the medication itself. He's basically all better now so long as he takes his pills, we no longer need the peace of mind seeing the Vet monthly provides.

TL;DR: Neelix is all better now but still needs antihistamines daily. The Vet overcharges for antihistamines. We now buy his antihistamines online

Raisinari

I don't mean to alarm you or anything, but I think I'm turning into a raisin. After a long morning spent avoiding my responsibilities, I got into the shower. You think, nothing abnormal there, right? You're wrong. Before I even had a chance to get wet yet, I look down and my fingers looked like this:

(b)raaaaaaai(s)ins!

 Which meant that when Aaron turned around from washing his face he was met with this:

Why is this happening to me?!

Only I was naked (and not in the computer room). He couldn't take my dire concern seriously at all as result and seemed more entertained than worried. He then went back to washing his hair. I bet he will take me more seriously when he wakes up tomorrow finding I had transformed into a pile of raisins in the night. How can you marry a pile of raisins? I don't think that's legal.

Honey & Steam

It's not often that I write about things you should buy, own, or take part in, but there are some things that could drastically improve your quality of life if only you had access to them. So you should take me seriously when I recommend things!

Yes, we have a power juicer.

As I'm sure you're well aware by now, I love honey. I'm something of a honey connoisseur. I can tell the difference between honey made from different flowers entirely by taste alone, and if you are not lucky enough to keep your own bees, I can definitely point you in the direction of quality honey. Which brings me to the first item of recommendation: Trader Joe's Clover Blossom Honey.

Clover honey is perhaps my favorite honey. It is simple and sweet and can be used in a variety of ways. I've tried a lot of clover honey in my day and by far the sweetest has been Trader Joe's. Which is a good thing, assuming you plan on using the honey to sweeten something. Which is like 99% of the time you'd be using honey in the first place. It means that you need to use less honey to reach the desired result.

As an aside, honey must always come in bear-bottle form. If you are at the market and you find yourself presented with the options: regular bottle or bear-shaped, the choice is obvious. Don't muck it up.

The second thing I'm going to tell you about is Steam. It is a free gaming program that allows you to download games legally (read: at a price), connect with your friends, and even allows you to buy games and give them to other users as a gift. Why is this program worth mentioning? Because it doesn't exclusively offer to sell you new titles. Many of its games are old, beloved classics. Like Sonic The Hedgehog or Shining Force. So while, sure, you could download Call of Duty 26, you can also download Kid Chameleon.

The gift-giving feature is also really useful. Forget to buy your friend/sibling a gift for (insert gift-giving holiday here)? You can instantly bestow upon them a video game! Problem solved. No pesky shipping to pay for or deal with.

I realize that many of you already have Steam, but you would truly be amazed by how many of your peers do not!

P.S. You can find me on Steam under the handle: Morally_Gray

This is A Public Service Announcement

Here I am going to explain to you step-by-step how to not spam the every-loving crap out of your fellow Facebook denizens. Not to be rude or anything, but I'm going to explain this like you're a five year old. 

Follow the pictures in order of appearance and click where the red circles are.

Starting out: Go to your wall.
Note: Your wall will look different than my wall. This is my wall.

Step 1

Step 2

Step 3

Name the new list whatever the name of your game happens to be. 

For this example, I called mine Cafe World.

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Step 7

Step 8

Step 9

Step 10

The final step!

You now win at Facebook!

Growing Up

When you are a child friendship comes easily. You befriend others around you based on nothing other than the fact that they live nearby and happen to be in the same age group that you are. If you are lucky, they're also not annoying as fuck, but even if they are you befriend them anyway. You're easy to please. "I like dinosaurs," is widely accepted as a valid basis by which to establish a bond. You can pretty much replace dinosaurs with any other word you can imagine, such as dogs or rocks, and the argument would stand just as strong.

Then as we start growing up, usually around sixth grade or so, you start to notice things you had never noticed before. Your BFF likes blue rather than red. How had you never noticed this before? And it gets worse. You find out they like all sorts of things that you don't! Such as troll dolls. Or maybe they like Zack more than they like Slater. Suddenly your entire friendship is flipped upside down. Nothing makes sense anymore, but you hold on for dear life. You try liking those things too, it's your obligation as a good friend.

Eventually you just can't keep up. They go too far. You find out one day they like something you simply abhor the very existence of, like Hansen, and suddenly your BFF is hanging out with some other kid who loves Hansen too. You're left out.

Your friendship isn't over, however. No. Both of you for whatever forsaken reason refuse to let go. You don't hang out as much as you used to, and this results in the gap between what you like and what they like growing steadily wider. As your influence wanes the tension to somehow force your friendship to overcome these many tiny differences of opinion builds. Then there is a catalyst. Maybe it's that girl you find completely intolerable that your BFF has been hanging out with at lunch, or maybe it's a boy who appeared from no where and takes up all of her time. Whatever it is, it causes an EXPLOSION! The likes of which your friendship cannot survive.

You make a remark about this catalyst and your friend disagrees so completely that you can feel the resentment in their voice. It has become some tangible thing in the room with you. This is it. The true turning point. The point of no return. The situation elevates beyond control because neither of you are emotionally equipped to handle this sort of thing yet.

You tell your friend that you hate her. She says she hates you times infinity. It's over. At long last. While hurt, you are also somehow strangely relieved. At least you don't have to pretend to like her troll dolls anymore. You both move on to new circles of friends and lose touch.  When people ask you down the line why you two aren't friends anymore, both of you will always say, "She changed." And that resentment will manifest itself again.

So what happened? Nothing. You did not change and neither did she. The two of you have always had different opinions, you just never felt the need to express them. You were too busy pretending to command spaceships and catch fairies in a butterfly net.

Think back to why you became friends in the first place. The answer is likely either, "She lived down the street," or, "We were in the same class." Your entire friendship was based on convenience. You shouldn't be so surprised things didn't work out. Of course your friendship fell through, you had nothing in common to begin with aside from age and perhaps a fondness for chocolate milk.

Also? You should probably get around to slaying that resentment monster. It was never warranted in the first place.

Disclaimer: This is written in the female perspective but easily applicable to both genders. If you have outdoor plumbing simply substitute all instances of she and her with he and his. Also, depending on orientation you may need to substitute Zack and Slater with Kelly and Jessie.