A Dog, a Pack of Javelinas, and a Very Loud Noise...

Well folks, it all started with an innocent walk through my neighborhood with the pup. I had spotted what appeared to be a large pack of Jevalinas walking through my neighborhood (It's an Arizona thing). Turned around and tried to play it cool... They followed. I figured they were just running us off, but they were starting to close distance on us and were non-reactive to yelling and shouting. They proceeded to surround us, and the largest one came at my dog.... I didn't hesitate to protect my beloved doggy and put it down quickly with a head shot. The rest scattered immediately after the shot.

Reported it to Tucson police (which wasn't fun because the first they did was read me my rights and interrogate me). They eventually determined I had acted in self-defense and gave me my gun back.

My ears hurt, but not anything like I expected. I had the presence-of-mind to block the worse ear with my shoulder right before I took the shot. It was still really damn loud though!

After my tinnitus got debilitating (several years ago), gun shot exposure was my worst fear... Period. I can now say that is no longer the case.

I'm not happy about the exposure, but I would do it again in a second to protect my dog, or anyone else for that matter.

Is my tinnitus louder now? Yes. But not like I thought it would be. The world isn't over, and I'm not walking with hearing protection like I used to after every loud noise.

I actually surprised me how well I dealt with it, considering the fact I used to self-isolate myself for weeks after a door slam.

So, I guess the moral of the story is, even the worst of tinnitus patients can pull themselves out of the mud, and stop letting a noise control over their lives. I've outlined these steps (a quick and search of my old posts should find it) in the past, and folks, it works.

I'm finally free.

Best regards,

Ross

 

Hello. I saw that you had fairly bad hyperacusis a while ago but not a lot of info on what you did for improvement/how long it took for things to get better. Would you mind sharing?