Sunday, March 28, 2010

Hearing Aids vs Humans

I had to laugh when I read Eh? Huh? What?'s blog on What Not To Do With Your Hearing Aids.

I've had my share of broken tubing including ones that just plain split. In the split case, I was in class in high school and it was whistling the entire time. At the end of class, my interpreter told me. I wondered why no one told me at all.

Whatever happened to saving the dead batteries for recycling? Just fill up a small jar or something like that and go from there. Just don't toss it in the fire. I did that once at this camp and the resulting little explosion was interesting. For years I was wondering how big an explosion a 9V battery would have, as well as the big lantern batteries. A fireplace isn't the place to do it. Then i heard about this deaf camp where a couple kids tossed a couple dead batteries into the fire. Then there were the other kids who threw their batteries into the fire, even though they were still good.

Even I'm guilty of putting my hearing aid(s) into my pocket. I had a fairly good excuse when I was going to a local amusement park. It's great for when you're on the roller coaster. But I'd forgotten the plastic baggie and had to get a bag from a food counter when I was going to get on one of the wet water rides... Heck, best to double-bag just to keep the hearing aids dry. Most ride attendants won't even know what to do with them if you give it to them. It's rather easy to put them on the shelf, where a rider could easily toss something there, thus get crushed or dropped into the water...

Cleaning your earmolds with unconventional tools? What's wrong with using a pin (sewing or safety)? Sometimes even I've had to blow the tubing clear in some public places, hiding it in my hands and make it look like I'm blowing into them.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Post-Surgery Right Knee - Part 5

A lot has happened since I posted Part 4. I'm done with physical therapy and the right knee has improved quite a bit, but isn't quite completely straight. I still use the local rec center's pool and hot tub with some stretches in and outside the hot tub. I still use the heating pad as well.

Walking around the house has improved, though I'm still a bit off-balance due to the left knee. That should improve over time as it straightens out. The surgical scar's still a bit red, but that will improve.

I got some walking challenges ahead of me... There's a building nearby that has some seats outside that I've walked around before the second surgery. I'm hoping that by the end of summer, I can walk around it without too much trouble.

The snow piles we had from that big snowfall last month are mostly gone. At the local metro/subway stop, there was this large pile that reached up to the second level of the parking garage. It's now about half that size. There was this big snowfall in Illinois around 1982 that had a large snow pile about 12-15 feet high. The local kids dug a cave at the bottom and a tunnel at the top.