The Aural Vacuum

O...K...well that makes gloriously little sense.

Didn't have time to go down the Trail and lose the usual pound and a half of water before the weigh-in this morning. (I should say, I no longer regard this as cheating because generally, it's been a consistent feature since I re-strted Disappearing - I've tended to go down the Trail most mornings, and certainly from weigh-in to weigh-in, I've gone down the Trail first, so the readings have been consistent).

15st 12.25 said the scales.

"What?" I said. "That make no sense whatsoever! I've had a really dodgy week, exercisewise! Were you not here for the deadline crunches, the non-biking, the non-Trailing....The Nant Ddu!??"

The scales shrugged in a somewhat Brandonian fashion.
"Whaddaya want from us?" they asked, sourly.
"This'll do nicely," I said, suddenly realising the good thing I was on to.

So - if we assume that if I had been down the Trail, I'd have been a pound and a half lighter, we'd be looking at 15st 11.

You're not gonna let me do that, I'm assuming, so here you go - 15st 12.25 UNEXERCISED...(whispers: which is 15st 11 really, cos next week I will have Trailed beforehand, so nehh...)

Anyhow - bizarrely good result. And - the reason I didn't have time to go down the Trail was because I had an audiology appointment. To be fitted for a hearing aid.

Most of the time since the viral labyrinthitis and (I maintain) medical up-fuckery stole a whacking great chunk of my hearing in the right ear, I've been sort of upbeat about the thing. It's a pain in the right buttock, but it is what it is, so on we go - woohoo, one lughole still works like a charm, allowing me to, for example, still sing sort of vaguely in tune (members of the Dowlais Male Choir may tell you otherwise of course...and my wife still describes it cheerfully as "caterwauling", which just goes to show one of the benefits of singing-as-if-you-don't-give-a-fuck-who-hears-you).

This morning, the audiologist shoved some wadding into the offending ear, and then set to with what, as he cheerfully acknowledged, looked remarkably like one of those grouting guns with which one (allegedly - I only know this from watching d) seals baths and showers and, for all I know, diving helmets so the water can't get through. It was a slightly bizarre experience but not an unpleasant one particularly. We carried on chatting while the goo he'd squirted into me hardened, and then he came and pulled it out.

That's sort of when my world changed.

I've pretty much gotten used to the way I don't hear in the right ear. But without even telling me this was what it was thinking, some part of my brain clearly had made up its mind that when something that blcoked up my ear...was removed from my ear...the world would come rushing back in, clear as the proverbial bell, as it always used to when I removed things from my ear - earphones, cotton buds, an exploratory waggling finger and so on.

There was nothing.

No change in the pressure, no in-rush of noisy world...just...nothing.

The audiologist busied about, shaving the rough edges off his red rubber mould of my ear, and then disappeared to drop it off for collection. While he was out, something...I don't know, something punched me. This was it. This was me. Hearing aids are fine and dandy, but this was what I was left with on my own, this...vacuum. This void. This right-sided nothingness that didn't respond...

I...erm...
Ahem...I...ermmmm...cried. A bit. Just a very little bit, mind...but a bit...
And then he was back, and I was muttering about poxy hay fever, and sniffing theatrically, and talking loudly about parking...

Seven to ten weeks from now, I join the hearing-assisted. In itself, this is no bad thing - assistance is groovy, and at least three of the coolest people I know have hearing issues. It just feels so bloody unnecessary, given the way it happened.

Sigh. Right. Enough hay fever and self-pity. Must get on - another sample chapter arrived this morning!