Could you repeat that?

Before getting too far into this post, I feel the need to establish a basic groundrule: There will be no freaking out. What I'm about to tell you isn't, on the grand scheme of things, that big a deal. It's life-shifting, let's say, rather than life-changing. I tell you not to win any sympathy, but rather because it's the only thing I'm thinking about today, and it's my turn to post. Plus, it's sort of interesting in a, "Gosh, I'm glad that's not me," type of way.

OK, here goes: I'm going deaf. No, that's not quite right, even though that's the thought that my brain keeps screaming at me. ("Screaming," get it? See how I'm keeping my sense of humor?) I'm not actually going deaf, at least not at the moment. But according to my doctor, I've suffered some substantial hearing loss in both my ears. It's in the middle range -- you know, the range in which most human interaction occurs.

This isn't, to be honest with you, a huge surprise. I've been complaining to Judybat about my ears for several years now, but just haven't gotten off my ass to make a doctor do a full diagnostic. To an increasing degree, I've been faking my way through conversations, nodding and playing along and reading lips and trying to avoid asking people to repeat themselves over and over again. I've taken to forcing Judybat to use the closed captioning feature on our DVD player more and more often. And when we saw Star Wars last week, I could have sworn there was something wrong with the theater sound system. (Apparently that was me, not Ewan McGregor's accent.) Careful readers of my professional work might notice a steady drop in the number of direct quotations I've used over the past four or five years. Geeks.

Nice Mr. Doctorman took lots of my blood today to make sure my problem isn't tied to something fixable -- like, say, lupus, lyme disease or everybody's favorite, syphilis. (We had a good laugh about that last one. Judybat swears she's clean.) He's pretty certain, however, that this is something congenital -- in other words, something that's just been hiding in my genes all along, and something that probably isn't going away.

His recommendation: Hearing aids, in both my ears.

Truth be told, this is sort of a relief. I've been trying to hide my hearing loss -- or maybe more precisely, pretend it's not real -- for quite some time now. My doctor says there's no reason to worry that this will get worse, although we're going to be very smart and safe and check things every six months to make sure that nasty little cookie bite in my hearing chart -- that's their term, not mine, although I do love a good cookie -- doesn't get any deeper. Once I pony up the several thousand dollars these magical hearing aids are going to cost -- we'll let you know when tickets go on sale for the "help AnnaRay hear" telethon -- I'll actually be able to participate in serious conversations with even the lowest of low talkers. And I'll be on my way to becoming a deadly human cyborg, something I've been dreaming of since the first "Terminator."

In all seriousness, I'm a little freaked out, as you can probably tell. But with the love of a good Judybat and the best technology money can buy, I'll be fine. Lord knows there are worse problems to have.