Hearing Impaired and back to Hearing again!
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No one really knows why I'm Hearing Impaired...not even my doctors. I was born with full hearing but around the time I was 16 tests showed I had lost the ability to hear some of the high pitched frequencies. However, no one knew why and nothing could be done about it. The most probable cause is a high temperature associated with measles when I was 9. I was delirious for long periods and the doctors couldn't (or didn't now how) to reduce my temperature. Perhaps this high temperature is what damaged my hearing nerves.
I found all I wanted to do was hear again
By the time I was 18 I had developed chronic Tinnitus - something that bothers me to this day - Bells ringing, squeakings, high pitched screaming and screeches, dings, hums, cows mooing, water dripping, cars reversing, bangs and clangs... and many, many more sounds - all at once and different in each ear. They fill my head, without let-up. Sometimes the sounds become tunes, the same sequence of sounds repeating over and over in my head (this is different to having a 'song on the brain'). And at other times they sound like a fire engine or an ambulance. But nothing ever turns it off. I have no idea what silence is.
Each time I became pregnant my hearing worsened. My doctors told me it would get better after the pregnancy - of course it didn't. [Now I know - too much sex makes you deaf!] It wasn't until 1980 that one of the specialists actually told me they sometimes called my kind of hearing loss 'Pregnancy Deafness' and of course by then it was too late!
I started wearing a hearing aid when I was in my 20's but the loss didn't really effect or cause changes in my life until I was around 35. It was at this time I lost all hearing in my left ear. By then I could no longer effectively hear music (and I had trained as a piano teacher), I couldn't go to movies or hear lectures or take part in meetings. And since I worked in the music industry I had to re-train for another career. It's not easy to re-train at any stage in life, but re-training, trying to cope with lectures, new work environments while not hearing properly wasn't easy.
Slowly the hearing in my right ear worsened and by 1992 I could no longer use a phone (try being female, over 40 and deaf and go job hunting!) or listen to TV or the radio.
I learnt lip reading and in 1997 took Auslan. I bought a TV with closed captions and learned to plan my life in advance so that I could still participate with friends. I bought a fax and discovered email. Something I discovered in my Auslan studies is that no matter how deaf I become I am still a hearing person. Being a Deaf or Hearing person is based on culture and not on the physical ability.
My hearing is almost totally gone now. I need 120+ decibels in my left ear to hear a sound you can hear at almost 0 decibels. [I'd have heard the Jet plane when it hit the window of the Trade Centre!) and 90+ decibels in my right ear. Each 6 decibels is 100% increase in volume... so imagine how loud that is. Occassionally, an odd sound gets passed my damaged nerves and it just about blasts me out of gravity, because it's so loud and so painful.
Cochlear Implant
Anyway, I can lip read with skill. I still speak normally (even if I do yell sometimes because I can't hear myself!) I have a wonderfully, understanding and caring husband who has no bias and recognises me as a whole person and not a person with something missing. And my hearing loss hasn't effected my brain - yet that is!
In December 2002 I underwent a Cochlear Implant. This has been highly successful and once again I am able to hear. I have been given my life back in so many ways I can't even begin to write all the stories down. I now use a phone, attend meetings, go to the movies, listen to the radio and enjoy playing the piano again. I no longer feel deaf. I no longer deal with deafness on a day to day basis and I am no longer isolated.
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