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Dear Tucson Audiologists' Readers,
As usual, it's been an interesting month at TAI and in the blogs, which you can see by clicking in the the next section. Before we get into this month's riviting story, we just want to point you to a cool application for checking your hearing (or a friend's) online. The app was developed by the Better Hearing Institute and you can find it by clicking http://hearinghealthmatters.org/ and scrolling down the right column a bit.
The big news this month is that there is a woman on the loose in Tucson who is single-handedly driving our patients out of public restaurants at an alarming rate (see related blog in next section on Noisy Restaurants). We're pretty sure it's just one woman because 1) we're not conspiracy theorists, and 2) the description matches the same MO in every report. As you can tell by our use of "MO", we're deep into detective mode on this.
Here is the horrible scenario, reported numerous times this month by survivors: our patients are seated in restaurants, enjoying their meals and the conversation of their tablemates. Suddenly, the air is rent by a shrill voice several tables away. Once started the voice becomes incessant, louder and more shrill, to the point that others join in and the restaurant experience changes completely for all within ear-reach. Our patients are game, try to eat and talk, but finally call for the check and retreat to the relative silence of Tucson's busy streets. They drive immediately to our office, certain that their hearing aids are either malfunctioning or need tuning to block that voice.
Therein lies the dilemma, underscoring our determination to find this woman and put her in isolation. We have to tell our patients that their hearing aids are functioning "normally," which means that they are, in fact, hearing the awful auditory truth of the situation, just as normal listeners are forced to do. Our patients stare at us in disbelief, then ask the obvious question: If that woman is in the restaurant, wouldn't they be better taking out their hearing aids? The short answer is "Yes, unfortunately."
The long answer is more complicated. Why should one woman be allowed to destroy the social life of millions? (OK .. maybe just hundreds if it's only our patients involved). We at TAI don't say Tucson Tinnitus Mary is a bad woman, we just say she has to be found and STOPPED. As ace detectives, we went out to the internet and read up a bit on Typhoid Mary, who is surely a relative of this woman. It turns out that Typhoid Mary was really a good person, she just had something bad inside here that harmed others, not unlike Tinnitus Mary of Tucson. When her "condition" was explained to her, she denied it and "tried to fight back. After a trial and then a short run from health officials, Typhoid Mary was recaptured and forced to live in relative seclusion upon North Brother Island off New York."
We're good with this and we're asking everyone who reads this newsletter to be on the lookout for Tucson Tinnitus Mary. If you see her, DO NOT APPROACH HER. Just move quietly out of earshot, call the authorities (the restaurant manager), and hope she doesn't make a bigger scene than she's already making when they ask her to quiet down. Our job at TAI will be to keep track of all the sightings and reassure our patients. Hopefully, she can be apprehended and put on that island in New York without having to hold a trial. Or, we could send her to basketball games (see second blog in next section) where she would fit right in. As all good detectives say: "We'll keep you informed."
References: For the sad story of Typhoid Mary click on http://history1900s.about.com/od/1900s/a/typhoidmary.htm |
