I want to be the reason you have children

I want to be the reason you have kids.

I want to be the reason you think it is great to bring a life to this world.

I want you to feel safe to have a daughter because you know there will be guys like me who will know to treat her right.

I want you to be comfortable to have a son because he will have a good role model to guide him straight

I want you to have children because they will always have someone avuncular who will look out for them.

I want to be the right kind of friend, the kind who inspires trust and faith.

Who throws the right kind of party where you met that special someone,

The friend who is never shy of innuendos and double entendres.

Who keeps pouring until your cup runs over and the two of you is forever drunk with love.

I want to be the glue- the kind you can count on when your handle on things is broken, 

And life becomes unhinged. 

I want to remind you of what is important - your family, and your loved ones, 

Oh, and most importantly to have fun.  

I want to be the reason you can trust the world will be a good place for you children.

Because you know they will have a friend- just like me, 

And they will become themselves great friends.

I want all of us to be the reason every one of us wants to have children.   

Screening at the NICU

I walked into the quiet room.  Quiet, save for the constant drone of machines running to sustain a miracle.  Quiet, save for the occasional chirp of monitors tracking the vitals of a budding life.  Quiet.  

Beyond the thresholds, outside this room, the hospital is a bustling place, charged with latent energy of people going about working wonders, fighting the odds.  Yet, here, in this room, amidst all the chaos, the crisscrosses of electrodes and tubes, lay a newborn asleep in his bassinet, unaware, unconcerned.  Here he lies, in the deep boneless, relaxed sleep reserved solely for the uninitiated, the pure and innocent. 

His mother stood above him, looking very much the survivor of the storm that has passed, wearied but relieved.  His nurse sat nearby, a silent, vigilant sentinel.  Guardian angels, the two of them, if ever there were such things, for few can exude the same tranquility and serenity.  Few altars, temples, or dedicated places of worship have heard more prayers and bear witness to miracles than what has occurred here, in this tiny acreage.  The room feels sacred; sanctified by love, hope, belief, and determination to do what is within one's power.      

It is into this tranquil corner I intrude my presence. My goal to establish that this infant can hear more than just the silence.  But before I do, I take in the moment.  

Post-script:

Ironic that in order to see if one can hear silence, we must first make some noise and see if we can elicit a reaction.  Similarly, presence of faith can only be determined in the presence of trials and tribulations; joy and love in harsh times.   

Post-post script:

Baby passed bilaterally

Thoughts on prayer

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  God hears and He listens. How can He not when we claim Him to be the omnipotent and omnipresent being that He is.

  
  

  And He answers, often in the most unconventional ways.

  
  

  When you pray, pray not upon your worries, your woes, or your insecurities.

  
  

  He knows all of that

  
  

  Instead, pray with thansgiving for the small things in life.

  
  

  Pray for the ability to be open to experience

  
  

  Pray for His strength, and for your ability to surrender yourself to Him.

  
  

  Pray for the ability to breath, to take a step back, and to acknowledge His works in the midst of all that you do, seek, and speak. Pray that you will bid Him enter.

  
  

  Make your prayers be a moment to find safe haven; to acknowledge that yes life is crappy, but here you are, and here He abides.

  Pray, and recognized that He has given you the necessities to survive and forebear.

  
  

  Pray that you will be ever ready to welcome every moment that G-d may speak, for He does, in little acts and stolen moments, in the random hello of a friend to the smile of a stranger.  

  Sometimes, you will have to initiate and invite His presence to you by extending it to others through your smile, your kind words, and your compassionate acts. Pray that you are able.

  
  

  Give thanks, for you are pursuing something noble each and every moment. Give thanks for while you struggle, others would wish to be in your shoes.

  
  

  Rejoice in the mysteries, be glad for you have options as obscure they may be to you.

  
  

  Pray that your imagination will be great and extends beyond the here and now.

  Just pray, never stop, and always remember others pray for you. And when all has been said and done, give thanks for this sacred moment.

Will you speak up?!

"Because I have the right to be heard!  I have a voice!" ~ King George VI, The King's Speech

As audiologists, we pride ourselves on being excellent listeners.  We espouse good communication skills, we advocate on our patients' behalf. Now it is our turn to have our voice be heard.  Our president, Dr. Bettie Borton would like to hear from you, will you give voice to your concerns?  Remember, our bylaws (Section 5.2.1) guarantees our right to address the Board of Directors and be heard, but ultimately it is our obligation to first give voice.  So I invite you to read this letter, and be heard

http://www.audiology.org/about/leadership/boardofdirectors/Pages/LetMeHearFromYou201308.aspx

Thank you.

Sincerely,

Andy Lau, Au.D.,FAAA

Order in a world of chaos

There is a certain madness to organizing things. When one endeavors to impose order, one does so with the full understanding that which has been organized shall inevitably fall into disarray again. Such is the nature of things, entropy is a foregone conclusion. Still, we persevere; daring to organize, categorize, arrange, iron, clean, tidy all that which we deem out of place. Why? Why engage in such futility?

Perhaps this joke explains it best: A young boy inquired of his father why it was necessary to make his bed each morning only to have it all wrinkled up at night when he sleeps in it.  His father promptly replies "why, then do you wipe yourself each time you are done with the bathroom?" It sounds crude, but perhaps therein lies the answer of why we prefer order. There is beauty in symmetry, a mathematical elegance in having defined patterns. More importantly, it accords us the "illusion" of a clean slate, to start anew as they say.

I suppose our lives would be more chaotic had we not develop schematics to help us navigate through the seemingly random events that occur. Without logic and priorities, everything is given equal status, and nothing is left out. We would then have risked sensory overload, subsequently overlooking the minute details that are so essential as we become so overwhelmed.  Evolutionary dictates the need for order; without it, aberrations would not be as salient, and our survival instinct diminished.

The goal, then, is not to make order a Herculean endeavor, but one of increments.  After all, never was a jigsaw puzzle solved in one fell swoop.  Instead, it can be a progressive mental exercise as well as a physical one to solve such puzzles.  It requires patience, a keen eye, and experience to embark on such an endeavor.  Therein lies another example where the journey is indeed more important than the destination.  To have order, to build it in the face of chaos requires integrity, character, and a certain amount of audacity.  Shy not away from it, start small, start gingerly even, but start and soon you will be surprised by how much discipline you have attained.

Signs that you are an audiologist:

1. When you look at someone's neck and think to yourself, "Gee, she has got some very defined [and divine] sternocleidomastoid muscles, I bet I can get some nice VEMPs from those."
2. You get overly exited when you see someone is wearing a set of hearing aids/ CIs/ Bahas
3. You like it when people are telling you about their experiences with dizziness and tinnitus
4. When your friends gave birth to a child, you are more interested in their newborn hearing screen results than their APGAR scores
5. You walk into an American Eagle Outfitters/ Hollister/ any type of bar and wonder if their employee benefits include hearing conservation and hearing aids coverage
6. You actually stop someone when you hear their music through their headphones
7. You carry spare noise plugs
8. You actually wear said noise plugs in bars/clubs and explain to people why they could potentially hear better with them, even though most of them remain unconvinced and you look like a dork
9. Cows have a completely different meaning than some farm animal
10. You do a great imitation of C-3PO whenever you look at nystagmus

Thanks

I had this moment pictured differently in my mind.  I had expected it to be a bit more glamorous, a bit more rowdy.  Or perhaps like opening a chest where my face is lit up by the glow from the treasure within. Definitely not like this, where only hours ago I had to frantically call FedEx to figure out (a)why hadn't they swing by again like they were supposed to, (b) who the heck signed for it when FedEx did swing by later on when I was away, and (c) who had it for the time in between now and when it was dropped off.  I must have sounded like a luny recording from Rescue 911.  

Still, it is a neat feeling to finally touch this piece of parchment for which I had worked hard and endured much.  Few truly appreciate the hardships and the sacrifices made to attain this.  Many of those have been my friends and family who either had to suffer my absence from their lives for extensive amount of time, or stood by me when I seem to have gone off the deep end in my singleminded pursuit. Trust me, I don't think I was very sane during this whole process (in fact, I am still a tad off balance, luckily now I have a proof that I know a thing or two about the inner ear; that should help). 

It is fitting that the thing came looking like a menu with a red cover.  What a feast it has been.  A red passion, it symbolizes the blood, sweat and tears that went into getting to this point.  It also represents the fire that carried me through, and continues to blaze as I move forward.  It is not my personal flame that I speak of, but rather the bonfire of my friends and family that warms my heart and guides me back whenever I seemed to have lost my way.  

It is a precious parchment, occupying about a square foot.  Tangible in that is can be calculated as the sum of years and tuition.  Priceless in that it is the culmination of the efforts of not just me, but those who inspired me; be they friends, family, teachers, and peers.  So, while I am standing here, at once utterly alone in a moment that I had hope would be shared with you, I am bowed low by the overwhelming sense of relief and gratitude towards all of you. How surreal, how sublime.  We did it.  I present to you, my dear dear friends and family, Doctor Hui Shing Andy Lau.