Most people who lose hearing in one ear suddenly do not go to a doctor that day. They go to work.

You have probably walked past one. A small storefront in SoHo or a kiosk tucked into the corner of a spa on the Upper East Side, with a row of chairs, a bank of clear canisters in different colors, and thin plastic tubes looped over people's ears.

The surgery itself gets all the planning. There is a date on the calendar, a surgeon, a pre op checklist, a ride home. Then the operation is over, and the recovery just sort of happens to you.

When a baby arrives, almost every question goes to the mother, and rightly so. Her recovery is physical and immediate and visible. But there is a second person in the room who is also being quietly remade by this, and almost nobody checks on him.