Today at the plastic surgeon's office

The ENT I saw today for my hearing loss specializes in plastic surgery. This means that the waiting room does not contain issues of Newsweek, Parents, and Highlights. It has Vogue. The waiting room also has fancy upholstered chairs and Restylane posters everywhere.

The audiologist's exam room was less glamorous. It was the size of a closet, and most of it was taken up by the soundproof booth I sat in. Every time she opened the door to the booth, she had to place her hand on the diploma hanging on the wall so the door wouldn't smash the frame's glass. The audiologist was all business and explained practically nothing, which was fine because, as you might expect, I had Googled the hell out of "hearing test" and "audiogram" the night before.

The testing was nerve-wracking. I kept thinking about signal detection tables and wondering if the slight beeping I heard was real or imagined. And if I barely heard something, should I consider it heard? There also was a bone oscillator involved (it vibrates your skull to bypass the middle ear), and I had to repeat words uttered by the audiologist and also a recorded voice (the recorded voice had an accent--Virginia perhaps?).

In the end, the audiologist showed me my audiogram, which showed moderate hearing loss in my left ear and mild hearing loss in my right ear. The bone oscillator results showed less severe loss, which indicates that my inner ear is working OK, and that all suggests middle ear problems. From a practical perspective, this means if you're speaking at normal conversational volume, I'm fine, but if you're trying to be discreet, I won't hear you. The audiologist said that I'm a good lip-reader. It certainly doesn't seem like it to me.

Then I met with the ENT in one of his freaky Botox exam rooms (granite countertops, one reclining exam chair). He was actually quite personable--if I'm ever in the market for brow lift, I'll consider him. My assumption was correct: I (quite likely) have otosclerosis. There was a nanosecond long discussion about hearing aids, but Dr. 90210 quickly moved on to the topic of surgery. One of the nurses (her nametag said "Trisha, RN." Just the one name. Like Charo.) called the Superfantastic University hospital in Funky University Town to hook me up toute de suite with a surgeon to discuss a STAPEDECTOMY. If I go through with this surgery, I'll have my stapes (that's the stirrup for those of you who last studied the middle ear in 6th grade) removed (possibly obliterated by a LASER), and then a prosthesis will be inserted. The prothesis will probably be titanium. Sweet.

I am so impatient to do something about this. It's frustrating when you can't hear the quips your very witty friends make, and if you ask them to repeat them, it just kills the comedic timing. During those interactions, I feel like people must think I'm (a) clueless, (b) too dense to understand their jokes, or (c) humorless. Last semester, one student yelled his answer at me after I had asked him to repeat it three times. (I don't feel so bad about this--he ended up failing the course.)

That's your banality for today, folks.