All ears

As a kid, I don’t particularly remember having difficulty hearing or understanding people. I suppose when the bulk of your entertainment is LOUD and COLORFUL, subtlety is not a big requirement for effective communication. I vaguely recall Mom telling me a few times about pretty primitive hearing tests which were done as “standards” for infants when I was one: stand behind the baby, clapping loudly to see if they turn and look — I did.

Probably the only early hints of a problem was a lisp I had as a very young child. I remember going to “speech aid” sessions in first and second grade, to work on my “ssssss” sounds (so that I didn’t “th” them).

So, until sometime in grade school, neither I nor anyone else was aware of a hearing issue. Back then (mid ’70s) apparently health checkups were regular things for students. This included, oddly enough, getting hearing tests. I think it was about 3rd grade (after we moved to the school district I would graduate from) that my first hearing tests came back below average. In fact, WELL below average. The tympanogram showed moderate to moderate-severe loss in the range where human speech was – what I would find out later was a classic “cookie-bite” audiogram. All the beeps and boops at the pitches where human speech was would fall way below average, so it looked like someone took a bite out of my hearing tests.

Not good.

For whatever reason, hearing aids were never suggested to my parents, and so it was never brought up to me. Yet each year I’d get the exams, the results were unchanged. No improvement or further decay. No explanation was offered for the cause, other than “maybe it was some nerve damage from when she had chicken pox in kindergarten.” That was irreparable — can’t operate on nerve damage in the ears, I guess.

So, life went on. As my speaking advanced from that of a young child, to a kid and teen, people around me spoke to me in more complex sentences. Baby- and toddler-speak were long gone, and so subtlety of the spoken word became more important. And I was missing out on stuff. The type of loss is one which renders speech “muffled” to me. I lose consonants like “s” and “t.” Other consonants all sounded the same: “m”, “b” and “p.” I had to really WATCH people speak to get a better idea of what they were saying, and that can be mentally exhausting, so after awhile I’d just tune out.

Speaking louder didn’t help, either. You can talk into a pillow or yell into a pillow, and it isn’t going to be any clearer either way — just louder. So, I had to ask for repeats quite a bit, to get something right. My family accommodated, and I just sorta backed off a bit from social interaction with peers. Not wallflower or shy, just to the “background” a bit.

When I got to college, I thought “OK, I need to see whether I can qualify for any state-assistance in getting some aids.” I went to an official Otolaryngology hearing and speech center in Austin for a diagnosis. Same audiogram, same lack of explanation of what caused it, but this time the strong recommendation for hearing aids was made. I was 20. Had no money. Didn’t qualify for any kind of government assistance, so just went on living in the Land Of Muffled PillowSpeak. The ironic thing in all this is that by the time I got to high school, I was keenly aware of a very high aptitude towards learning languages, and a very strong attraction towards music — two things that are highly dependent upon good hearing. At one point in my early teens, I was seriously thinking of becoming a professional translator. Then the reality of my hearing struck, and pretty much killed that dream (not interested in transcription [written] work — I wanted to be the voice at the other end of the headphones for UN meetings… or the international translator brought in by politicians on the go.)

I went through another round of testing in Fayetteville at the University of Arkansas years later at about age 24. Same results.

Fast forward a few years.

Joey and I are married, and he’s known me since 1993. By 2006, he’s tired of repeating himself to me over and over again, and wondering why nobody else has really called me on the carpet about this — why everyone is adapting themselves to me, rather than me bringing myself up to normal/acceptable. So, we bicker a bit. I tell him about how the testing center in Fayetteville put special headphones on to simulate what “normal” hearing is like for me, and I flipped out at what all little things I could hear. Pages turning, people swallowing, etc. Stuff I had NEVER heard.

He pushed and prodded, and I gave in and went to a Kelsey-Seybold clinic for another test with the idea that hearing aids would be prescribed. I did, and they were. And finally got an answer about the cause:

There wasn’t one.

Huh?

I was told this was likely congenital — born that way. Outta the chute hard-of-hearing.

Well, OK. Nothing that can be repaired, just coped with. Like my vision — glasses for my hearing. I was slowly turning into the Bionic Woman (man, I wish!).

Now the bad news (as if congenital hearing loss itself isn’t bad) — because of the magnitude of loss, I would need pretty powerful hearing aids, and those don’t hide neatly inside the ear (“ITE” as they are called). Rather, I would need the behind the ear (“BTE”) aids, and oh by the way, those are $1200 apiece.

UGH.

More pushing and bickering, and I agreed to get the aids.

As you can see, they aren’t very noticeable (especially with long hair), but there IS a fight for real estate going on back there, between the aids and my glasses.

I HATED wearing them. It’s like having Q-Tips jammed in your ear all day. Sure I could hear, but now I’m distracted by the feeling of wanting to dig something out of my ears all the time. Trade one thing for another. So, $2400 worth of technology got used for about a month, and then put away. Wasteful.

Recently, it occurred to me (with Joey’s pushing, again) that I should give those another shot. So, 3+ years later, I pulled them out, put in new batteries and put them back in. The first day I went through that Q-Tip feeling all day, but by the evening it had passed. I was AWARE of them in my ears, but not to the point where I wanted to take them out ASAP. So, I’ve been wearing them almost daily for a couple weeks now, and the changes in life are astounding.

I can hear things at normal levels, and actually have to tell Joey sometimes that “I have my ears in” so that he doesn’t talk at his normally-adjusted-up volume of speaking for me. I can hear Ivy talking to me from another room, or behind me. I don’t have to use as much mental energy to focus on WATCHING people talk — I can just listen. There’s also the entertainment factor of feedback, since an external mic is used for the aids — if I cup my hands around my ears, it makes a sound that causes the dogs to take notice and tilt their heads sideways at me, like the RCA dog.

I can also hear all sorts of stuff I wish I couldn’t — like the dogs’ claws on our hardwood floors (sounds like a small army of crabs scuttling around), or hearing me (and others) chew and swallow — YUCK. The clatter of dishes being put into the cabinets actually makes me wince in pain to hear sometimes, as well. But, I suspect that everyone hears those things, and folks with the benefit of years of normal hearing have learned to filter that out of their daily lives. Hopefully I will, do.

So, hello to more normal hearing, and more LIFE.

You got something to say to me? I’m all ears.