Dog walking, dental hygiene, and Doctor Who?
I recently went to the dentist—for a cleaning. I’d never met the hygienist before, so I explained to her that I’m hearing impaired and while I do use hearing aids, I sometimes still have difficulty understanding speech if I can’t see the speaker’s face. She immediately entered my narrow line of vision (I was supine in the dental chair) and raised her voice. This is fine—even if the extra decibels weren’t really necessary. She got the message.
But as the cleaning commenced and the hygienist chatted, her voice began to sound like mine does when I’m walking Tootsie the Wonder Dog on a leash: “Good girl! Good job!”
I wasn’t sure if this was indicative of the hygienist’s usual patter with patients, or if it was peculiar to the hearing impaired. Or the elderly.
Most people who lay eyes on me for the first time don’t recognize that I am in my 70s, but she had access to my records, which, theoretically, she perused before I got there. So she might have known I was old. (Although I had to tell her I had x-rays on file and that on a recent visit the dentist had already conducted that painful poke your gums lotto number torture—which she was poised to do again! So maybe she hadn’t read my chart.)
But I wondered, would she talk in that sing-song voice to a twenty-something patient? Or even a 40-year-old? A person with normal hearing?
Perhaps I’d somehow indicated I don’t have brain. Or don’t understand English. I know Tootsie is intelligent—but we do sometimes have a communication breakdown because I don’t fully understand her canine dialect, and I am unsure about the complexity of her English comprehension. Consequently, when it’s important that I get a message across—when we’re crossing the street or I’m steering her away from a persnickety neighbor’s plush green lawn—I speak only a given set of phrases that I’m certain she understands. Stay. Get across. Can’t go there. Always followed by Good girl, or Thank you, once she’s complied. Likewise, human cross-cultural conversations can get hung up. When two languages collide, we tend to simplify our utterances.
Throughout the dental cleaning, the hygienist tried to make small talk—which I am not good at to begin with but find even harder when my mouth is open and sharp instruments are angled across my lips, poised to attack tender tissues within. But I did my best to answer politely.
Do you have any plans for the holiday weekend?
Staying home. Painting walls.
And so on.
Eventually she asked if I had anything planned for that afternoon. I told her I hoped not—then in an attempt at levity, added, “I highly recommend retirement.”
She asked what I used to do for work.
“I was a Speech-Language Pathologist.” It’s simpler to say speech therapist. Or even speech pathologist. But I guess I wanted to make the impression that I had been educated to a higher degree than doggie obedience school.
Her communication skills improved thereafter. She used bigger words and more complicated phrases. (Keep in mind, I was professionally trained to notice such things.)
I’ve known folks who wore their credentials on their sleeves—who demanded to be called “Doctor” outside the office. I always found them pretentious. But perhaps they were all old and/or hearing impaired and just trying to stay in the game.
Maybe I’ll see them differently now. And maybe I’ll start talking to my dog in a more sophisticated manner on our walks. (Unless there’s a car coming.)