Nightmares

[Ted van Beek <double_reeds@xxxxxxxxx>]

This is probably every musician's nightmare. Going
deaf, or tone-deaf.

To make a long story short, two years ago a terrible
thing happened to me. After several months of feeling
bad, trips to doctors, and all that stuff, I nearly
died. The condition was much like walking around with
a ruptured appendix until it was to late.

I pulled thru, thanks to at least on Doc with enough
gumption to say "F*** the HMO". It wasn't fun, lot's
of trial-and-error stuff to find the right combo of
medications. The problem with this condition is that
the septic poisoning causes a lot of internal damage. 

While I was recuperating from the surgery I didn't
really notice, but after a couple of months I realized
that my hearing wasn't quite right. For one thing, I
was (am) now super-sensitive, like the internal
amplifier was turned up another 10 or 20 Db.

And worst, I now have variable-pitch hearing (and
vision). This means that when I hear a (Let's say) a
C, it sounds like D, or B, even Bb to me, or anything
in between. And that perception changes constantly. It
makes listening to music painfull, playing a harp
confusing. Lately I've been forcing myself to play the
piano, at least - no matter what it sounds like -
technique doesn't alter the "True" pitch. The scary
thing is the feeling that I'm loosing my point of
reference. Even a year ago, I thought I knew what 440
sounded like, but I'm no longer certain that I now
know.

All the news isn't bad. A lot of things have gotten
much better. Six months ago I couldn't walk around the
block without hurting myself. My color vision seems to
be back to normal. And I can now sleep for at least
fours hours at a time. My MAIN MAN says he thinks it's
just a matter of time before my system gets back into
a normal pattern, He hasn't been wrong yet.

Ted














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