Journeying Towards Silence

Growing up, my life was filled with sound. I loved music and would sing my tiny heart out. I started taking piano lessons when I was 7 and was in the children's choir at church. According to my father, once I started talking, I never stopped. I loved doing voices and imitations of celebrities. When I went to college, I joined the Women's Collegiate Choir and we were good. I sang solos and led sectional rehearsals for my fellow sopranos. I listened to music non-stop. My parents bought me a keyboard for my birthday my first year so I could continue playing the piano in my dorm room. I would even sing along to my music when I worked in the basement stacks of the library. (It was behind closed doors, so I wasn't disturbing any studying.) My ears heard everything and I loved it.

Around my Junior year, I started noticing I wasn't hearing as well as before. I was fine most of the time, but it was getting more difficult to hear in loud restaurants or at football games. I thought it was stress. I was heavily involved in organizations and school was hard. I adapted by figuring out how to read lips (mostly) and trying to stay out of loud environments. I figured once the stress was over, the hearing would return to normal.

It didn't.

At the age of 24 I finally went to Otolaryngologist (Ear, Nose, and Throat Doctor or ENT). My hearing had gotten bad enough that I couldn't hear my husband calling my name from the other room. I was having trouble hearing library visitors when they were asking me for books at the reference desk. I was miserable and afraid and so I went to get checked out.

They gave me a hearing test which indicated that my hearing was perfect in my right ear, but only moderate in my left. I specifically have low-tone sensorineural hearing loss. Translation: I have all the parts but for some reason I can't hear lower voices or pitches. They told me to come back in a month to check again and do some tests. One month and several expensive tests later (including a CT scan), they determined the cause of the hearing loss was fluid in my ear, a condition called cochlear hydrops. They put me on a water diuretic to try to drain the fluid as well as a CATS diet. CATS stands for Caffeine, Alcohol, Tobacco, Salt/Sodium, all of which I now had to limit. The alcohol and tobacco weren't a problem. I don't use any tobacco and I really don't drink. The caffeine and salt/sodium have been more difficult. It is astonishing the amount of sodium in our food.

Nevertheless, I took the medication and I cut the CATS out and went back to the doctor three months later. They took me off the medicine, because it was having adverse effects, and only then did they tell me that my hearing would not actually be improving at all. They were just trying to prevent my hearing from worsening. They recommended getting fitted for a hearing aid and explained that the hearing would eventually completely leave that ear.

To be honest, I was devastated. How can I experience music and laughter and all the crazy sounds I was used to if my hearing was going? The hearing aid saleswoman didn't make things better. The hearing aid was prohibitively expensive, and all its extra "perks" were irrelevant to me since I have an android phone and not an iPhone. I went home heartbroken.

Now, I'm a librarian by trade. This means I am really into research. I decided I was going to look into hearing aids and see if I could find something more economical but still effective. I found a lot about hearing aids, but I found an even more precious resource during that research: the deaf community.

These amazing people who happen to have a sense that works differently from most others have carved themselves out this niche in this hearing world. There are deaf plays, deaf conferences, deaf events, and even deaf poetry slams. American Sign Language (ASL) is a beautiful language that is highly expressive and creative. I decided I wanted to be a part of this community.

I got my hearing aid (from Sams Club, actually) and have become used to it. I still can't hear people calling my name from another room, because my brain has forgotten how to "hear" that. Sometimes my phone will start vibrating on the table and my husband will have to notify me that it is buzzing. I greatly prefer emails and texts to phone calls, because I don't always catch all the words in phone calls. My life has changed drastically from my early college days, and I now have one foot firmly in the deaf world. I keep my ears healthy, but I don't worry about losing more hearing.

Some would see this as a tragic story of a musician who couldn't hear her music anymore, but I see it as something beautiful. I am learning ASL so that I can become a licensed interpreter. I am in my church choir and use my hearing aid and trust of my pitch to make sure I am on key. I take my shoes off during practice so I can feel the beat of the drums beneath my feet. At my day job, I am able to (slowly) communicate with deaf students so that they know the library is for them as well, not just the hearing students. I have become a member of a community I didn't even know existed, who have welcomed me with open arms. They have even welcomed my hearing husband, who is also learning ASL so that we can communicate when my hearing aid is out and eventually when the hearing goes completely.

Why am I telling you all this? I want to make people aware of this vibrant and loving community I get to be a part of. I want people to stop being afraid of communicating with deaf people. Seriously, a pen and paper is fine. They know not everyone signs. Mostly, I want people to learn that a difference is not a disability; but rather an opportunity to learn, grow, and experience new things. I am proud of my growing deafness because it connects me to others in a way I never understood before. Is it difficult to be hard-of-hearing? Of course. This world was built for hearing people, because most people can hear. Is it impossible? Never. Nothing is impossible with the right people supporting you. Appreciate your loved ones, support those who are going through difficulties, and never ever give up something you love just because you have to do it differently now.