Photo by: Stardog Champion

I think my friend came with a hidden agenda. He was extraordinarily curious about the science of my hearing loss. He wanted to know just how much I could hear, especially as it related to hearing music. He decided to do a little test. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the pitch pipe he always carried with him….

…“I’m going to play a note on the pitch pipe,” he told me. “Tell me if you can hear it.”

…“I’m not sure I can,” I tried to explain. There were so many sounds going on in my head from the tinnitus. I wasn’t sure if I was hearing the pitch pipe or the ringing in my ears….

….It was a moment of truth….

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Deaf, Grief, Hearing Loss, Late-Deaf, Meaning, Music, My Story | No Comments »

About a month after I got my new hearing aids, I was sent to a lipreading class at the local university. A preppy female college student who was majoring in speech pathology worked with me. I remember her well. Her smile was big and bright, but more importantly, her teeth were straight and clean, which I was secretly thankful for, since I would be watching her talk.

Photo by: K. Nicoll

I had become more aware of people’s teeth now that I had to rely on lip-reading. I found myself suddenly disturbed when I had to focus on a mouth with yellowed or horribly shaped teeth and I was disgusted by how many people have thin strings of saliva in the front or back of their mouths when they speak that never seem to disappear. Yuck!

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Deaf, Grief, Health, Hearing Loss, Humor, Late-Deaf, Meaning, Miscellaneous, Music, My Story, Support | 1 Comment »

Photo by: “Patrice”

The second month following my release from the hospital was marked by that all-powerful first trip to an audiologist to be fitted for hearing aids. This was as dreadful as it was exciting…

Ironically, while most sounds were too soft to hear, sometimes they were too loud to stand!

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Deaf, Grief, Health, Hearing Loss, Late-Deaf, My Story, Support | 1 Comment »