I have tinnitus. Some folks have it bad, but it’s mild in my case. A faint, high-pitched ringing in the ears, is all; mostly I don’t even notice it, except when it’s completely quiet. I sleep with a fan on, so it’s never completely quiet. No big deal.<\/p>\n
I’ve slept with a fan on since I was in high school. Right now it’s the HEPA filter; during the winter it’s the humidifier. When it gets really hot it’ll be the air conditioner. Doesn’t matter, as long as it’s broad-spectrum. Sometimes when fans get old they’ll start to heterodyne, and you can hear a kind of thrumming pattern in the noise as it comes in and out of phase. That keeps me awake; time to get a new fan.<\/p>\n
Now, it’s well documented that white noise can produce auditory hallucinations. So can sleep deprivation. Put them both together and that spells trouble. When Nate was born, of course we had a baby monitor. Those first few months, the sleep deprivation was hell on earth. He’d wake up hungry or wet every two or three hours. After a couple of weeks, I was so desperate for sleep, so afraid that he was going to wake up, that I would listen to the fan and hear him screaming all the time, even when he was sound asleep. I eventually trained myself to control the hallucinations, kind of like lucid dreaming. If I could make the scream hold the same pitch and volume for ten seconds without taking a breath, there was a good chance it wasn’t really Nate and I could go back to sleep.<\/p>\n
Recently, I had my buddy Tom replace my bathroom ceiling and exhaust fan, which is a story in itself. He demonstrated the new fan for me. “WHISPER QUIET, MY ASS,” he yelled. “I’D HATE TO SEE THE NEXT LOUDEST MODEL.”<\/p>\n
Last Sunday, you may recall, was Mother’s Day. As I’m sure you can imagine, it was a rough weekend. Nate’s classmates made Mother’s Day cards for all their moms, but Nate made one for me instead. I couldn’t really look at it without crying. He sensed that I was fragile, and true to form for three and a half, he moved in for the kill. I thought it was bad when he tried to throw his Apple Cinnamon oatmeal on the floor, but it only got worse from there. I was ready to fashion a size 4T straitjacket out of gaffer’s tape just to get ten seconds of peace. I would set him up with a video and go upstairs to pee; the moment I shut the bathroom door, he’d start calling me. “Daaaaaaddy… daaaaaaddy…” He just couldn’t leave me alone.<\/p>\n
I finally got him to go down for a nap on Sunday afternoon, and I decided I would take a long, hot shower to try to work some of the knots out of my neck and shoulders. I cranked up the WHISPER QUIET exhaust fan and turned on the water, half expecting Nate to wake up and demand my attention. When he stayed asleep, I gave a little prayer of thanks to Morpheus. I stayed in the shower for half an hour and used all the hot water. It was lovely.<\/p>\n
When I got out of the shower, I looked in the mirror, and thought, damn it, Sarah. You should be here. Never mind Mother’s Day; it is so<\/em> your turn to watch him.<\/p>\n And clear as life, through the sound of the fan, I heard the front door open, and Sarah’s voice call, “Marco!”<\/p>\n I burst into tears. Polo, honey. Here I am.<\/p>\n She sounded so happy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have tinnitus. Some folks have it bad, but it’s mild in my case. A faint, high-pitched ringing in the ears, is all; mostly I don’t even notice it, except when it’s completely quiet. I sleep with a fan on, so it’s never completely quiet. No big deal. I’ve slept with a fan on since … Continue reading White Noise<\/span>