Déjàvu?!

I went into work late today... reason being... I went to the clinic this morning to get some ear impressions done on myself. You see, as first year students, we (we being us three first years) are able to get hearing aid listeners and one extra thing as sort of a perk of the program. A hearing aid listener is something that you put in your ear, like the ear piece end of a stethoscope and at the other end it is a mold that fits around hearing aids. It is something that we can use to help determine if a hearing aid is working properly. Well, we have two of these devices available for our use in the clinic, however the ear piece end is not custom made for our ears. What we get is a piece that fits customly in our ears, thus the need for ear impressions. Ear impressions are when you stick a cotton ball type material in someone's ear, make sure it is blocking the ear drum completely, then proceed to put some goo type stuff in the ear canal and wait for it to harden. Well, that's the short version.

Katie, one of my classmate's, had a horrible experience as an undergrad when she volunteered for a graduate student to do ear impressions on her. The consensus after the fact was that the material was left in her ear for too long and it created a suction and by the time they got the impression out her ear was gushing blood. Not good! Thank goodness our school is right next to the hospital and we have a great relationship with the ENT there. Turned out it wasn't anything more than a scrap on the ear canal wall that bled a lot, but everyone was worked that it had ruptured her ear drum or worse. I wasn't there for the ordeal, but Katie was pretty traumatized. So much so that she did not want us to use her as an example when we were first learning how to do impressions.

Well, we've all done quite a few impressions since we learned how to do them and feel pretty comfortable with it. So, Katie gets everything set up to do both of my ears. We were using some new materials because that was what was sent to us and our supervisor suggested that we use them. We were kind of all against it because we liked how our stuff worked (but after using the new stuff, we kind of liked that better, haha, funny how that works out). Anyways, Katie put the stuff in my first ear and was getting the stuff ready for the second ear and Amy kept checking to see if the first ear was dry enough to pull out yet. Apparently they waited a little too long because as Amy was trying to take it out, I could feel the pressure building behind the impression material. Not good! It didn't hurt yet, but I was thinking of what Katie went through. Katie took over trying to get the impression out from Amy because Amy wasn't really twisting like you should, but more pulling. Katie kept twisting and twisting and I could still feel the pressure and was starting to get mildly freaked because the seal hadn't broken yet. Finally Katie got the seal to break and the pressure decreased and she got the impression out. Oh, but I was thinking déjàvu  for a second there! My ear canal was bleeding a little bit she said when she checked it afterwards, but nothing gushing blood and it didn't hurt too bad, just a little sore. It is not uncommon for the ear canal to be red after an impression or to see a little bit of blood so I wasn't worried. But man, it could have gone south fast!

I could tell that Katie was worried about the other ear drying too much before it came out because she kept touching it to see if it was dry enough. She was a little freaked out and then it was her turn to sit in the chair and get impressions done... for the first time since her 'experience'. I did one ear and got it set up and impression material in and then she took it out herself because she was so nervous about it. Turned out good. Then Amy was going to do the ear that had gone bad last year. She got everything in and once again Katie took it out, however Amy didn't get the material in far enough so we had to redo it. I redid it this time and then ended up having to leave for work before Katie took it out. I haven't gotten any phone calls or texts saying something went bad, so I'm assuming all went well. Then Katie was going to do Amy's ears. I knew after Katie's first ear came out good that she had calmed down about it a little bit.

So, not only are we getting our listeners, but we also get to choose something else that we want and I am going to get custom made ear bud attachments for my iPods ear phones. They simply slip on and then fit in your ear just like a custom made hearing aid. I'm excited because I can keep my iPod ear phones in most of the time, but you know how it goes, they don't always stay in as you are being active. Yeah! Can't wait to get them back!

CIAO! LOVE ME!