During one of the peak phases of the pandemic, in January 2022, I started to draft this note, not knowing if anyone would read it. A blog was not on my radar then, but at the time it felt cathartic to put into print something I was experiencing daily and made worst by face masks.
No one likes to speak about one’s own disabilities, no one wants to feel diminished, right? But writing is a wonderful tool to explain our challenge and release any negative vibes. With a 70% loss of hearing in both ears and getting slowly worse, I felt that I needed to think a little more about it. However, for a long time, my note stayed in the computer like a seed in the ground, waiting for the right time to come out.
The Covid pandemic generated some huge tragedies around the world, and in light of that, losing one’s hearing seemed benign. But since then, I have met many friends in similar positions and we have shared our experiences. We know that our invisible disability impacts our relationships, it damages our own self-esteem and generates isolation so I felt that I needed to challenge it and adapt to our new reality.
Family matters
I am very fortunate to have a supportive wife, family, and friends but for their sake and mine, I need to be proactive i.e., to self-advocate. But also I would like to see this blog used as a forum to share experiences, to raise awareness in our community and to educate and empower individuals to never give up
The other reason for taking matters into my own hands is that I remember my father suffering from deafness in his latest years. He never complained and I can still see him sitting at the end of the table, smiling and silent. Poor man, he enjoyed having his family around him, but I realise now how painful it must have been for him not to understand our conversation. I wish I could turn the clock back, but I can’t.
Other hard-of-hearing people may prefer to speak no-stop as they are so pleased to have someone listening to them. The risk is however that you bore the other person without ever checking if what you are saying is of interest. Being either silent or an over-zealous talker is not a strategy I wish to adopt. There must be a middle ground, but it requires a change of mindset and attitude. But first, let me backtrack a little more.
Watershed moments
A few years ago, working alongside colleagues and sitting comfortably on the 11th floor of a modern City office, my boss said “Hi, JP, did you hear me?”. I did not. I saw he was exasperated at my lack of response. He was a nice man and an excellent manager, so I felt very sorry for ignoring him. The time had come, I needed to have my hearing checked. The result was sobering, my hearing in both ears was badly impaired. I had to wear hearing aids.
Initially, it felt strange to hear the conversations on the train but I got used to it and started to wear them all day long. However sophisticated (and expensive) these are, they are not enough to make up for the loss of hearing. My job made me travel across Europe as I was managing the accounts of large corporates. It was somewhat easier for me to communicate in French as it is my mother tongue, but most of my work was conducted in English. European accents vary across countries adding a little spice to the challenge.
I was enjoying my work very much however being just over 60, retirement was looming. The pressure grew for me to consider retiring “early”. These decisions are not easy to take, I loved going to work and especially mentoring young people. My new boss was very understanding and while he never mentioned it openly, I knew that my loss of hearing was part of the equation.
Dad, what is happening we don’t communicate as we used to.
Back in 2019 after a day trip to France to see some family, we stopped at the Fort Mahon in Ambleteuse near Calais and my son said, “Dad, something is not quite right, we don’t communicate as we used to, what is happening to you”?
I was taken aback and struggled initially to find a reason but then as we discussed the issue, the penny dropped. I was not listening properly to him and I could not engage with him in conversations as we used to. This was a wake-up call. My hearing loss was no longer simply a matter of not hearing well but it was impacting my family.
Back at home I wanted to investigate further and looked at my audiograms and I compared them with a person with normal hearing ability. Until then and deep down, I had never really used and understood these audiograms and what they represented. The audiologist produced them for us but often there is a lot happening in our head and these are shown without proper reference to what is normal hearing. Seeing both mine and a “normal” audiogram side by side showed the frequencies I was missing and at what level of decibel I started to hear them. I looked at previous years’ audiograms and the trend was not reassuring.
Taking an active part in meetings?
For many years I had been a trustee of a medium size charity (60 staff or so) which was helping people suffering from addiction. Attending board meetings was a regular activity and meeting after meeting I slowly realised understanding the head of clinical services was becoming harder. That person spoke very softly and every time I understood what was said, the discussion moved on. My ability to contribute to the discussion was difficult so I reluctantly decided that it was time for me to leave my place to someone else.
When ordinary conversations become difficult
Like all people who suffer a loss of hearing the impact is felt daily. Sadly, too often I simply give up if it becomes too difficult. “Faking” it or pretending to hear is a frequent reaction. Not an easy one to entangle from a serious desire to catch the keywords in a sentence. At best I try to lipread now and I definitely pay more attention to body language. A strange look tells me if I get it wrong. Good friends can also become wary if they are not being certain I understood them well.
Telephone, television, cinema and radio and going out.
For the last few years I have given up answering or using our fixed line, I leave it to my wife, even the messages on the answer machines, playing them again and again does not help. Before I got my Bluetooth-enabled hearing aids, I was even scared to answer my own mobile phone for fear of misunderstanding.
I still enjoy television programmes but only those with subtitles and documentaries. Thanks to the wonderful Bluetooth technology I can answer the mobile phone and the radio comes directly into my hearing aids. I have not been to a theatre for some time, however, pantomimes are still fun. I still enjoy going to cafes and restaurants but I need to position myself well and use my new toy called “Roger on” (more on this in a separate post). The best seats are outside where there is not too much noise pollution.
What lesson from all this?
All of this would be depressing if it was not for man’s normal ability to look for solutions. Having painted what is a fairly common scene for most of hard of hearing folks, I want to reassure my readers. It is not all that bad, humans have a wonderful ability to adapt and learn new skills. Like in all things, we need to understand first where we stand, observe life around us and seek help if need be. There is a huge amount of community goodwill and kindness to tap into and some fabulous training tools on the Net. Helping each other generates gratitude and a feel-good sentiment. If we associate this with a daily practice of mindfulness then our well-being can be restored. Once that is done, it is a lot easier for us to reach out and help others and why not around a nice cup of coffee?
