Hello out there!

I have been off line as I went "back home" to help out when my Mom had surgery. It has taken me awhile to get back in the groove since returning home.

Lots of news around here.

I am finally getting hearing aids! Yeah! I go for my eval next week. It is $150 just for the eval! I know the actual "aids" will be in the thousands, but the audiologist did not want to speculate how much until after the evaluation. I am so tired of misunderstanding, missing half of what goes on around me, I really am excited moving even further along the road to geezerhood. The audiologist asked me how concerned I was about being "discreet" about wearing hearing aids. I honestly answered, "Not at all!" My feeling is, everyone who talks to me for any time at all knows I can't hear. It is not a secret. I have been losing my hearing slowly since age 19, so hearing loss doesn't have the age stigma for me. I hate it, but I accept it. There are other worse things that could happen. At least medical technology has advanced to where there is assistance for me. As my hearing for high pitches is still somewhat normal, I have to have a sophisticated hearing aid with a computer program to only amplify the sounds in the range where my loss is. There are even ones that can sense when I am in a restaurant, party or other noisy environment and automatically adjust to lower the sound of the background noise and bring out the sounds I am trying to hear. (Won't know if those will be in my budget until next Wednesday.)

Missing No 2 Son

I am missing my No 2 Son. He went off to college this year, and has hardly looked back. See that big grin? He has the sunniest disposition of any one I have ever known.

If any child had a reason to grow up grumpy and needy it was him. But no, he has an innate core of happiness that no adversity has the ability to stamp out.

He had severe eczema as a baby, severe GERD, and was diagnosed with asthma before his 1st birthday. He spent every Halloween in the hospital on oxygen for several years. Starting at age 8, he suffered for two years with unrelenting stomach pain, which no treatment seemed to abate. Finally, it was decided that surgery was the only option. Much against his will we consented to major surgery as his only hope for a reduction in his pain and a normal childhood. It succeeded!

Throughout all this he was always smiling, always good-natured, always ready to laugh, never still a minute. We used to say that when he got still it was time to go to the ER. It was true, as he isn't a complainer, a decrease in his nonstop activity was our only clue all was not well with him.

Now he is at college, on a full tuition scholarship in engineering. He is in a 5 year program where he goes to school year round, and will have his masters when he finishes. No summers at home for our boy, and as he is 6 hours away, no impromptu weekends home.

He is working hard to keep his scholarship, he says, 12-18 hours a day. (It is a difficult program, only the best survive.)
So my thoughts and prayers are often with him, even as he is busy and I am sure happy, far from home.