"Hello Meeester Eeeeench" says the consultant audiologist, "I 'ave taken a luuuuk at your resooolts, and you haaave gradual onset chronic deafness".
Suddenly her accent wasn't funny anymore.
"I have what?" says I......
The irony wasn't lost on me.
I have lost 50% of my hearing ability, mostly in the upper frequencies, the ones that speech falls into, which is kinda important. Apparently I have the kind of hearing that someone in their mid to late fifties would be expected to have, and it can only get worse. There's no surgical or medical procedure to sort out my lugs, the only option I have is a hearing aid.
I think I'll pass just now, maybe in another twenty years or so, I'll get back to ya!
I've never considered myself to have a hearing deficiency, but after losing out on a new job last year because I wasn't able to meet the minimum hearing standard, I thought I better get my ears checked out.
Sure, I like loud music, (who doesn't?) and have a long-running love affair with noisy motorbikes, but I never thought that I'd done them any damage by subjecting them to 120 decibels or beats per minute, whichever came first.
As it turns out, I haven't damaged my ears at all, it's the sort of speaker cable in between them and my brain that's degrading.
Not the best news I could have received this week, but at least I'm not nearly forty.
D'OH!!
3 comments:
Fuck. No smartarse comment to this. Can they not offer you some kind of implant? I can't believe that they can't do something.
I'm afraid not, Steve. The old fashioned hearing aid is my only option, but Morrissey still looked cool with his in.
Apparently hearing loss like mine is far more widespread than you might imagine because, like myself, most people live with it over a long period of time and learn to compensate. If I hadn't failed that medical back in November, then I may never have found out that I had a problem at all.
I better make the most of my new hifi while I still can!
The force is weak in you old man.
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