Mary Zelinka
Wheels
Wheels
Take it easy, take it easy / Don’t let the sound of your own wheels drive you crazy.
The Eagles
Where is that noise coming from? It sounds like the dial tone on the old landlines. I hear it every morning lately before my alarm goes off. This morning I opened my bedroom window to see if it was louder outside, but it wasn’t.
I ask Lavern, my next door neighbor, if she’s heard it. She doesn’t wake up until several hours after I do, but she has the hearing of a wild animal and startles awake over the least little thing. She hasn’t heard it. She wondered if it was her heat pump.
The next time the dial tone wakes me up, I grab my sweatshirt and go out to my back porch. Lavern’s heat pump is silent. Then I check out my patio. I just hear the sounds of the world waking up—a few birds, a sliver of wind, my breath in the cold air. Back in my bedroom, I hear it again. Then it stops.
---
Dial Tone this morning. 4:30ish. Then stopped. Started again. Stopped. Started. What is it? I hold my hands tight against my ears and can still hear it. In fact, it’s louder.
---
Dial Tone has been coming and going. I’m hearing it right now and I’ve never noticed it during the day before. I think it was Wednesday when lasted most of the night.Or maybe it was Tuesday and I didn’t hear it at all on Wednesday. Or was that Thursday?
---
I’m wondering about tinnitus. During the last 20-plus years I’ve had vertigo, I’ve often been asked if I also have tinnitus. Apparently the two frequently go together.
I google it. Click on the question: What are the sounds tinnitus makes? Answer: Ringing, hissing, roaring, crickets, screeching, sirens, whooshing, static, pulsing, ocean waves, buzzing, clicking, music, dial tones.
Dial Tones! That’s what I have! Mystery solved! This makes me so happy!
Wait.
Why am I so happy? Apparently I have tinnitus.
---
From what I’m finding on the internet the number one remedy seems to be just basically reframing your negative thoughts about tinnitus. That and masking the noise with some other noise.
---
Dial Tone is constant now. All. The. Time. I order a white noise machine for when I go to bed. Make an appointment (which is weeks away) with Dr. Robinson who helped me with my vertigo. My friend Donna sends me a link to some herbal supplement that either cured her or was a placebo effect, she isn’t sure which. Order them on Amazon.
If it doesn’t get any worse, I can learn to live with it. But what if it turns into screeching?
---
Last night as I lay in bed listening to Dial Tone (which is louder than the white noise machine) all of a sudden inside my head I hear a loud scritch—like a needle being drug across a record. It only lasts a few seconds. Then silence. Dial Tone is gone. Blessed silence. Except for the white noise machine. Then it starts again.
---
When I first got my hearing aids, I was overwhelmed by how noisy the world was. The deafening sound of traffic as I walked out to my car from MidValley Hearing. My footsteps pounding on the asphalt. And when I got home, the roar of my refrigerator. I got used to them, though I usually take them out the minute I get home.
Now when I take my hearing aids out, my tinnitus just get louder—no background noise to compete with.
I need to make Dial Tone my new silence, but I don’t know how.
---
Whenever it hailed, I used to experience sheer exhilaration. But during the sudden hailstorm we had this afternoon, my first reaction was oh good, it’s drowning out Dial Tone.
---
There’s a new noise competing with Dial Tone. It sounds like a model airplane engine, which is one of the soundtracks of my childhood. My father built radio-controlled model planes for a hobby and new engines required several hours of running to break in. (I wonder now why the neighbors never complained. Or maybe they did, and he just kept doing it anyway.) If he broke an engine in at night, us kids were supposed to ignore it while we were trying to sleep. If he was doing it in the afternoon, you could hear it clear down the block. This noise sounds like the engine from a couple of blocks away. A high-pitched wailing whine. An anxious sound.
When I wake up in the morning, Dial Tone is the only sound in my head. Then Model Plane starts up and takes over.
---
I learn that my friend Nancy has tinnitus—a ringing. Kate’s buzzes. Marsha’s is a combination of ringing and buzzing. Here my friends have been going about their normal lives and all the while they have noises stuck in their heads. The newsletter from my hearing aid provider says about 14 million people in the US suffer from severe tinnitus. But right now, I don’t care about those 14 million people. I care about me.
Yet why shouldn’t I have tinnitus? What makes me so special that I should be spared? Maybe I think because I’ve experienced X, Y, and Z, I’ve paid my dues and now life should be easy.
That’s my inner accountant talking.
---
When I was googling tinnitus and following the rabbit warren of links, I discovered an article about a chamber for testing products to determine how loud they are. The chamber is so quiet, NASA uses it to help astronauts adapt to the silence of space. The longest anyone has been able to stay inside is forty-five minutes. It seems the quieter it is, the more you hear: your heart beating, your bones grinding when you move, your lungs, your stomach.
Another article says astronomers have discovered that there is a background hum in the universe generated by gravitational waves.
So which is it? Silence or humming?
Are gravitational waves in my brain causing my tinnitus? Are tiny hair-like filaments waving around bumping into each other? Did they get tangled up and are trying to separate again? Do astronauts hear tinnitus when they are in the silence or humming of space?
---
Maybe I need to look at Tinnitus as a gift. Not like, “I’m so grateful for this affliction because it is making me a better person,” which is bullshit. But as a challenge, a way to make me stretch myself more. Then I decide that’s bullshit too.
---
My long-awaited appointment with Dr. Robinson is a bust. After a hearing test (which does nothing except confirm my need for hearing aids), I’m sent home with a list of apps I can download. Basically they’re just a bunch of different sound masking techniques and relaxation exercises. Which is pretty much what I discovered on the internet when I first realized Dial Tone (and now Model Plane) was tinnitus.
There are an infinite number of miracle cures out there. YouTube videos demonstrate snapping your skull with your fingers, or rhythmically tapping your head with spoons, or turning your head this way or that. Special teas you can drink. Herbs. Vitamin concoctions.
---
In addition to darkness and sleep, humans need quietness. It’s an effort to tune out tinnitus. Just like you can live with chronic pain, even forget about it, it’s still there and a portion of your energy is being used to deal with it whether you are on pain medication or not.
I’ve read that some studies have found that silence can improve memory. That it can stimulate new cell growth in the brain. And that even when we tune out noise, our bodies still register the sound and release stress hormones.
Some believe tinnitus is the first step in developing dementia. Maybe anxiety and mental illness too? Some years ago, I went through a training at my work about helping clients who were suffering from untreated mental health challenges—specifically, those who heard voices in their heads. In a role play, I was seated across from one of my co-workers as she told me about local resources. Meanwhile, a constant tape was playing through the earphones over my head. Don’t listen to her! She’s evil! Is that a knife in her hand? Why is she smiling? She’s going to hurt you! Get out of here! The role play ended abruptly when I started crying. I couldn’t even pay attention to the rest of the training that night, I was so shaken.
Okay, there’s no comparison between tinnitus and hearing voices. Not the level of my tinnitus anyway. My point is it’s hard to focus when you have noise going on inside your head.
---
My thoughts used to sound like wheels, rolling around in my head, bumping against one another for attention. Now I have to listen over and under and between all the whining and wailing to hear what I’m thinking.
I mourn the waning of Dial Tone. When I awaken with it now, I burrow deeper into my covers, willing it to stay. Apologizing that I didn’t appreciate what I have now come to think of as a comforting sound. hen Model Plane’s nervous whine revs up and Dial Tone goes dormant.
---
Whole minutes pass now when I can completely ignore the noises in my head. Then there are times I feel anxious for no good reason and have to talk myself down when I realize it’s Model Plane. Sometimes I miss quiet so much I sit on my couch and cry. My acupuncturist says I should have a better idea in a couple more visits whether his treatment is helping. If it doesn’t, he knows a guy who is brilliant with Cranial Sacral therapy (whatever that is). Meanwhile, keep taking those Ginkgo Biloba herbs.
---
Early this morning, a breeze jangled the chimes outside my bedroom window. At least that’s what I determined it was. At first I thought it might be a new noise inside my head.
Mary Zelinka lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley and has worked at the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence for over 34 years. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Brevity, Memoir Magazine and others.
I ask Lavern, my next door neighbor, if she’s heard it. She doesn’t wake up until several hours after I do, but she has the hearing of a wild animal and startles awake over the least little thing. She hasn’t heard it. She wondered if it was her heat pump.
The next time the dial tone wakes me up, I grab my sweatshirt and go out to my back porch. Lavern’s heat pump is silent. Then I check out my patio. I just hear the sounds of the world waking up—a few birds, a sliver of wind, my breath in the cold air. Back in my bedroom, I hear it again. Then it stops.
---
Dial Tone this morning. 4:30ish. Then stopped. Started again. Stopped. Started. What is it? I hold my hands tight against my ears and can still hear it. In fact, it’s louder.
---
Dial Tone has been coming and going. I’m hearing it right now and I’ve never noticed it during the day before. I think it was Wednesday when lasted most of the night.Or maybe it was Tuesday and I didn’t hear it at all on Wednesday. Or was that Thursday?
---
I’m wondering about tinnitus. During the last 20-plus years I’ve had vertigo, I’ve often been asked if I also have tinnitus. Apparently the two frequently go together.
I google it. Click on the question: What are the sounds tinnitus makes? Answer: Ringing, hissing, roaring, crickets, screeching, sirens, whooshing, static, pulsing, ocean waves, buzzing, clicking, music, dial tones.
Dial Tones! That’s what I have! Mystery solved! This makes me so happy!
Wait.
Why am I so happy? Apparently I have tinnitus.
---
From what I’m finding on the internet the number one remedy seems to be just basically reframing your negative thoughts about tinnitus. That and masking the noise with some other noise.
---
Dial Tone is constant now. All. The. Time. I order a white noise machine for when I go to bed. Make an appointment (which is weeks away) with Dr. Robinson who helped me with my vertigo. My friend Donna sends me a link to some herbal supplement that either cured her or was a placebo effect, she isn’t sure which. Order them on Amazon.
If it doesn’t get any worse, I can learn to live with it. But what if it turns into screeching?
---
Last night as I lay in bed listening to Dial Tone (which is louder than the white noise machine) all of a sudden inside my head I hear a loud scritch—like a needle being drug across a record. It only lasts a few seconds. Then silence. Dial Tone is gone. Blessed silence. Except for the white noise machine. Then it starts again.
---
When I first got my hearing aids, I was overwhelmed by how noisy the world was. The deafening sound of traffic as I walked out to my car from MidValley Hearing. My footsteps pounding on the asphalt. And when I got home, the roar of my refrigerator. I got used to them, though I usually take them out the minute I get home.
Now when I take my hearing aids out, my tinnitus just get louder—no background noise to compete with.
I need to make Dial Tone my new silence, but I don’t know how.
---
Whenever it hailed, I used to experience sheer exhilaration. But during the sudden hailstorm we had this afternoon, my first reaction was oh good, it’s drowning out Dial Tone.
---
There’s a new noise competing with Dial Tone. It sounds like a model airplane engine, which is one of the soundtracks of my childhood. My father built radio-controlled model planes for a hobby and new engines required several hours of running to break in. (I wonder now why the neighbors never complained. Or maybe they did, and he just kept doing it anyway.) If he broke an engine in at night, us kids were supposed to ignore it while we were trying to sleep. If he was doing it in the afternoon, you could hear it clear down the block. This noise sounds like the engine from a couple of blocks away. A high-pitched wailing whine. An anxious sound.
When I wake up in the morning, Dial Tone is the only sound in my head. Then Model Plane starts up and takes over.
---
I learn that my friend Nancy has tinnitus—a ringing. Kate’s buzzes. Marsha’s is a combination of ringing and buzzing. Here my friends have been going about their normal lives and all the while they have noises stuck in their heads. The newsletter from my hearing aid provider says about 14 million people in the US suffer from severe tinnitus. But right now, I don’t care about those 14 million people. I care about me.
Yet why shouldn’t I have tinnitus? What makes me so special that I should be spared? Maybe I think because I’ve experienced X, Y, and Z, I’ve paid my dues and now life should be easy.
That’s my inner accountant talking.
---
When I was googling tinnitus and following the rabbit warren of links, I discovered an article about a chamber for testing products to determine how loud they are. The chamber is so quiet, NASA uses it to help astronauts adapt to the silence of space. The longest anyone has been able to stay inside is forty-five minutes. It seems the quieter it is, the more you hear: your heart beating, your bones grinding when you move, your lungs, your stomach.
Another article says astronomers have discovered that there is a background hum in the universe generated by gravitational waves.
So which is it? Silence or humming?
Are gravitational waves in my brain causing my tinnitus? Are tiny hair-like filaments waving around bumping into each other? Did they get tangled up and are trying to separate again? Do astronauts hear tinnitus when they are in the silence or humming of space?
---
Maybe I need to look at Tinnitus as a gift. Not like, “I’m so grateful for this affliction because it is making me a better person,” which is bullshit. But as a challenge, a way to make me stretch myself more. Then I decide that’s bullshit too.
---
My long-awaited appointment with Dr. Robinson is a bust. After a hearing test (which does nothing except confirm my need for hearing aids), I’m sent home with a list of apps I can download. Basically they’re just a bunch of different sound masking techniques and relaxation exercises. Which is pretty much what I discovered on the internet when I first realized Dial Tone (and now Model Plane) was tinnitus.
There are an infinite number of miracle cures out there. YouTube videos demonstrate snapping your skull with your fingers, or rhythmically tapping your head with spoons, or turning your head this way or that. Special teas you can drink. Herbs. Vitamin concoctions.
---
In addition to darkness and sleep, humans need quietness. It’s an effort to tune out tinnitus. Just like you can live with chronic pain, even forget about it, it’s still there and a portion of your energy is being used to deal with it whether you are on pain medication or not.
I’ve read that some studies have found that silence can improve memory. That it can stimulate new cell growth in the brain. And that even when we tune out noise, our bodies still register the sound and release stress hormones.
Some believe tinnitus is the first step in developing dementia. Maybe anxiety and mental illness too? Some years ago, I went through a training at my work about helping clients who were suffering from untreated mental health challenges—specifically, those who heard voices in their heads. In a role play, I was seated across from one of my co-workers as she told me about local resources. Meanwhile, a constant tape was playing through the earphones over my head. Don’t listen to her! She’s evil! Is that a knife in her hand? Why is she smiling? She’s going to hurt you! Get out of here! The role play ended abruptly when I started crying. I couldn’t even pay attention to the rest of the training that night, I was so shaken.
Okay, there’s no comparison between tinnitus and hearing voices. Not the level of my tinnitus anyway. My point is it’s hard to focus when you have noise going on inside your head.
---
My thoughts used to sound like wheels, rolling around in my head, bumping against one another for attention. Now I have to listen over and under and between all the whining and wailing to hear what I’m thinking.
I mourn the waning of Dial Tone. When I awaken with it now, I burrow deeper into my covers, willing it to stay. Apologizing that I didn’t appreciate what I have now come to think of as a comforting sound. hen Model Plane’s nervous whine revs up and Dial Tone goes dormant.
---
Whole minutes pass now when I can completely ignore the noises in my head. Then there are times I feel anxious for no good reason and have to talk myself down when I realize it’s Model Plane. Sometimes I miss quiet so much I sit on my couch and cry. My acupuncturist says I should have a better idea in a couple more visits whether his treatment is helping. If it doesn’t, he knows a guy who is brilliant with Cranial Sacral therapy (whatever that is). Meanwhile, keep taking those Ginkgo Biloba herbs.
---
Early this morning, a breeze jangled the chimes outside my bedroom window. At least that’s what I determined it was. At first I thought it might be a new noise inside my head.
Mary Zelinka lives in Oregon's Willamette Valley and has worked at the Center Against Rape and Domestic Violence for over 34 years. Her writing has appeared in The Sun Magazine, Brevity, Memoir Magazine and others.