To begin, here is a little background on me. I have had hearing loss for as long as I can remember. When I was a baby, my parents thought I was completely deaf because I didn’t cry much and I didn’t react to loud noises. My hearing loss didn’t effect my childhood as far as schoolwork or extracurricular activities, but looking back I can see the impact it had on my social life.
My Experiences
I’m sure that there are many stories I could tell you about the times I missed what was said in conversation or the times I was laughed at for misunderstanding something someone said. I could share the times my bosses got upset with me for asking clarifying questions to ensure I heard them correctly. But I prefer to share this one because of the impacts it had on my hearing experience. When I was in high school, I was extremely involved in athletics. I was a four sport athlete and I loved it. However, I had coaches who weren’t always understanding of what my hearing loss meant for me. By the time I was in high school, I had adjusted to life at a constantly lower volume. To make up for it, I read lips and paid attention to the cadences in voices to decipher what was said. It wasn’t until I was much older that I even realized how much I was having to compensate for my hearing loss. Anyways, one day at practice particularly stands out in my memory. My coach said something to me from across the gym and I didn’t hear him. When I asked him to repeat himself, he got upset and asked me to tell him what I thought he said. My response turned out to be exactly what he said, which made him mad. He went on to embarrass me in front of my teammates by saying that I was just pretending not to hear him. To clarify, I didn’t hear what he said, but I heard the vowels and the cadence of the words as he said them. This led to my educated guess, which just happened to be correct. In my experience, I am not always right when I try to guess what people said.
Why It Mattered
This experience with my coach was the breaking point for me. I went home crying to my mom about how embarrassing it had been, and how ashamed I was of my hearing loss. My mom responded by asking me if I wanted hearing aids, and I said yes.
When we got to the hearing doctor to consider hearing aids, I remember going into this small room and putting headphones on. The doctor played high pitched sounds to test how much hearing loss I had. I was supposed to press a button every time I heard the sound. The longer I sat there, the more my ears began to ring. I remember the doctor saying, “I know your ears are ringing, but try not to push the button unless you hear the sound.”
So we finally finished the test and the doctor came in to discuss the hearing aids. They had so many options, and every single option was over $1000. My family was middle class, which we all know means that they would have to foot a large portion of the bill for my hearing aids. As we discussed the options, I said that I didn’t care which ones I had as long as I could hear. The doctor replied by telling me that I would never hear like everyone else, even with the hearing aids. For me, this was devastating. And how could I ask my parents to struggle to pay for $1000 hearing aids if I still wouldn’t hear like everyone else??
We left the doctor’s office and I told my mom that I would not get the hearing aids. And to make a long story short, that is how I ended up being a 33 year old married teacher with 3 kids who cannot hear half of what people say to me.
What Did You Say? 