The prior post was left incomplete.

Two additional possibilities needed to be added. The first proposes that feeling down is some form of “grey day syndrome.” The morning sky was blanketed with grey in expectation of snow, the bleak dawn posed a threat, not a welcome. Perhaps feeling down was attributable to environmental factors.

An alternate explanation also emerged. After my exertions of the day before, it is possible my body reacted and engaged in a recovery process. It was this recovery response to physical exertion that was implicated in my lack of motivation and enthusiasm.

It turns out it was none of these possibilities. Shortly after 0900, I began sniffling and sneezing. Though warmly dressed, with a normal ambient house temperature, I found myself unable to keep warm. Lacking motivation, appetite, warmth, feeling fatigued, and sneezing, I crawled back to bed. I woke several hours later with a scratchy throat and felt even more miserable and out of sorts. I had come down with a cold.

Yesterday was dedicated to obtaining a second hearing test. The test was scheduled for 1400. Since I was travelling outside of my walk shed, I allowed surplus time to account for the possibility of my getting lost, for poor route timing, way finding, or similar problems. The result was that I arrived for the hearing test two hours early. They were unable to advance the time of my test so I cooled my heels in the mall for two hours. I suspect this is where I picked up the cold.

The January 11th hearing test result was omitted from the prior post. It has been added in here. I need to complete a proper write up but the basics are these:

1) This 2016 test result shows a pattern of decline identical to the 2014 test results. There is no evidence of a further decline between the two test dates.

2) This lack of further decline between 2014 and 2016 strongly suggests the hearing decline is not the result of the normal human aging process. If it were the result of an ongoing aging process than it is expected a further decline would have been observed.

3) By the same measure, the hearing decline is extremely unlikely to be due to some undiagnosed chronic disease that might promote hearing loss. I have been under continuous medical care since July 2012, have been seen by a total of seven different doctors in a range of specialties, and have had two comprehensive blood work-ups performed. No evidence for any chronic disease was found.

4) Up until 1998, I was actively employed as a vessel Master unlimited tonnage (conventionally understood as a “captain”) and was required to undergo regular physicals. Acute hearing is a key attribute for any mariner, especially one in command: ship’s whistle signals are key to navigational safety as are bell and whistle buoys, foghorns, and the ability to hear surf breaking on a foreshore (this was important when performing search and rescue in B.C. coastal waters. We also utilized sound ranging boards but I have not seen these employed on either the East Coast, or the Great Lakes). I would not have been able to hold my certificate of competency with the hearing loss demonstrated in 2014 and 2016.

5) During my employment by Gargantua, I delivered enterprise support to major financial institutions, telephone and telecommunications firms, multiple different government departments at both the provincial and federal level, and the US Armed Forces (I once had a call from a submarine. I wasn’t supposed to ask, so I didn’t. I just solved their problem). Each of these customers typically had exabytes of data at risk. They would have immediately lodged a complaint had they suspected they were dealing with a deaf systems engineer. There was no such complaint. I scored between 95% and 100% on all weekly internal audits. There were no indications of any hearing problem during my entire tenure which ran from November 1999 until March 2011.

This body of evidence is strongly suggestive of the motor vehicle accident of March 6th, 2011 as being the sole cause of my hearing loss.

Figure 1 – January 11, 2016 Hearing Test Result

All entries below the orange bar are indicative of hearing loss. The grey shaded area represents frequencies of concern with respect to seafarers as set out in the International Labour Organization and World Health Organization publication entitled Guidelines for Conducting Pre-sea and Periodic Medical Fitness Examination for Seafarers, which is referenced in clause 269 and 270 of the Canadian Marine Personnel Regulations (SOR/2007-115) which may be found here. (Grey shading and orange bar added by me and not found in the original test document. No other changes made.)