Thinking about dates and anniversaries and my weird ability to always remember them. I have a terrible memory for most things, but I can tell you the birthdays of nearly everyone I’ve ever been close to, I can tell you the dates of death of anyone I’ve ever loved who has died, I can tell you the dates of all my major surgeries from age six and over, and so on.
Today is my stepdad’s birthday. He loved his birthday – it was always a week long (if not month long) celebration each year. I love remembering and celebrating his birthday far more than the day he died. I’m glad I get to see three of his sons and their families tonight. Nothing makes me feel more like he’s still with us than seeing them. It’s also one of my absolute best friend’s birthdays, someone whom I cannot imagine my life without.
In 2023, I’ve recently been thinking about how many 30 year anniversaries there are for me this year, mostly medical but a big one that isn’t: it’s been three decades since I have eaten meat or seafood. I became vegetarian after many arguments with my mum because I refused to eat the meat or fish on my plate – I just hated it. Hated the taste, hated how it made me feel after – sick, stomach achey, like I wanted to vomit. Then I found out exactly what meat was – really understood the reality of it – and never looked back. Being vegetarian in Perth in the ’90s and early 2000s was incredibly difficult: eating out at a restaurant usually meant I just ate chips/fries. Nothing could have made me eat meat, though – and nothing could now. I’m actually really proud of being vegetarian for so long (and vegan at home/where possible when I’m out for the last 8 years), even though I don’t talk about it. It’s so important to me.
The same year, I went to AH and got fitted with a behind-the-ear hearing aid. I hated it, it didn’t fit my tiny ear canal and it whistled the entire time I wore it. It made it harder to hear than without it because all I could hear was the feedback. To this day, I am unsure why I wasn’t fitted with a bone conductor aid. I remember listening to a bone-anchored hearing aid (BAHA) for the first time at university many years later when I started studying to become an audiologist and it blew my mind. My hearing is generally better now than it was 13 years ago when I first listened to a BAHA, but when I get ear infections or a cold now, wearing a bone conductor hearing aid is amazing. I wish audiologists would stop underestimating the effects of conductive losses on kids and stop always assuming a behind-the-ear hearing aid is better. My hearing fluctuates essentially daily, bone conductor aids sound so much better to me than any BTE or RIC.
Also when I was eight years old, my cleft palate decided to re-open slightly into a small fistula in my soft palate. I remember meeting my “new” plastic surgeon (who I also started seeing the same year) and he looked inside my mouth (such a normality for the first 20 years of my life) and asked if we knew I had a fistula there. I distinctly remember saying, “What’s a fistula?” (a rare time I ever spoke to a doctor as a kid). My mum (the ex-nurse) said, “It’s a hole” and I said, “There’s a HOLE in the roof of my mouth?!” We did not know. It was very small, but it got a bit bigger and really caused a lot of issues for me when drinking and also if I ever vomited. It took me a while but I learned how to drink so it didn’t come out of my nose – no such luck on the vomiting side of things. 30 years later and it’s been much more of a struggle these last few years – I wonder if it’s gotten bigger. I’ve had a few nerve-wrecking experiences with things getting stuck up there, the last of which was on a train in England with my mum six weeks ago and I got the stalk of a herb stuck. It was sharp and extremely painful, I went into a near panic attack when I couldn’t pull it out with my tongue like I usually can (even if it takes 20-30 minutes). My mum had to get tweezers inside my mouth to pull it out: all I could think about was going to the Emergency Department (for my second time in the UK) and having to get it taken out by a doctor. I literally cried when my mum managed to get it out – largely from relief and partly because it was so sore. My ears can literally start bleeding and I am calm (about the ear anyway, not the blood, haha), but something gets stuck in the fistula in my palate and I go into a blind panic.
So 30 years after I met the plastic surgeon who I say is my favourite specialist I’ve ever had, I asked my stepbrother who is a GP for a referral to see the same surgeon again to see what he thinks about repairing a 30-year-old fistula in my soft palate. I did ask him this as a teenager, but the chances of it re-opening was 50/50 and the idea of going through a huge surgery and recovery in my teen years (when I had many others to go through) for a 50/50 chance was a definite no back then.
So I guess we’ll see what he says. I haven’t seen him for 15 years, but I cannot imagine seeing anyone else about this. I talk to clients’ parents now at work who take their babies to have cleft palate/lip repairs and jaw surgeries done by him. Imagine a life without an open palate, though. What a concept to me. A lot of things would be a lot easier – and some things would be a lot less stressful. 30 years is a long time.
maybe in another life 
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