How many of us take ordinary things for granted?

This is a timely post for me as I really have a hearing issue at the moment.  I’m hard of hearing anyway and only have about five percent hearing in one ear.  I have bad allergies and my whole head has been stopped up for three weeks now.  This situation has made my good ear hard of hearing also.  It causes a lot of frustration in my house because I have to ask to have things repeated if I’m not face to face with who is speaking to me.  I rarely hear the phone ring or notice anything else going on in the house.  I simply can’t hear it.

This has made me realize how much we take the little ordinary things for granted on a daily basis.  I’m talking about the ability to hear, see, and speak for starters.  I know these are issues people don’t normally have to deal with, or at least not until they reach old age, and even then it doesn’t affect everyone.

The last month has taught me to cherish the senses I do still have, not that I haven’t always been grateful for those things.  I’m hoping this hearing problem will rectify itself as winter gets here, as much as I dread the thought of the cold months coming.

Problems like this never crossed my mind when I was younger.  Young people never think about these things.  They are too busy living life and having fun.  Nothing can touch them, or so they think at the time.

I lost most of the hearing in one ear after an accident when I was thirty.  I learned to deal with it once I discovered the constant ringing and buzzing sound was coming from inside my own head.  At first I would put the pillow over my head at night to block it out so I could sleep.  Then I tried the radio to mask the noise.  Finally the constant racket became normal, although I suffer from insomnia most of the time.  I’m extremely thankful on the rare occasions I can sleep all night without getting up to pace the floor, or lie in bed thinking half the night until I can fall asleep at dawn.

This new hearing impairment is a situation for me at the moment, but I will learn to deal with it if it never clears up because that’s what I do – survive and not let things hold me back.  I can still hear certain pitches of sound so I don’t entirely miss out on the birds chirping and my cats purring.

As if all this isn’t enough, last January I learned I have macular degeneration, so I’m stuck with these glasses that drive me crazy.  I can’t see out of them and I have to clean them twenty times a day.  It’s a pain in the butt, but if they will help my eyes, along with a different diet and eye vitamins and drops, I’ll wear them.  This is one sense I would hate to lose.  You have to face the fact you can’t do much without your eyesight.  My daddy was blind so I can only imagine how hard life was for him.  I’m too independent to depend entirely on other people for my existence.

I can still write and read and draw and sew and all the other things I like to do if I can see, so I can give the other senses up if I have to.  This isn’t a pity post, so please don’t feel bad for me.  I want to make everyone aware that what you have today isn’t necessarily what you’ll have tomorrow or sometime in the future, so guard your health if you can and be grateful for the simple things we all take for granted everyday.