My Hearing Loss

My name is Mary. Because I had trouble getting started, you will see my log-ins as Mary/Merle (I used my other e-mail account). I came upon the website last week or so. Being hearing impaired (or deaf), we are in a sense family.

In reading your blogs, I was surprised to see so many of you have family support. I got none. I was the youngest of seven (before birth control), and my parents were not nuturing. My oldest sister pretty much raised me until I was eight (she died at age 20).

Being little, I didn't know I didn't talk right. I did know (and I remember) being four or five, and kids didn't want to play with me. I remember once, playing with a neighbor, and his mother standing at their front door, and yelling to him, "Get away from her. She's Russian. I don't want you playing with her." I was too young to understand. I remember in elementary school kids saying I was Russian, and I defended myself with, "I am not Russian. My parents are not Russian. My sisters are not Russian. And I extremely doubt if I was adopted and not told." Because back then, you didn't have a bunch of kids and then adopt another.

My hearing loss wasn't found (mostly, because my parents didn't give a shit) until I was eight. I got a massive ear infection. I couldn't hear anything for days. My mother had to take me to an ear doctor. (That was the only medical care I ever got.) I had a tube in one ear. I remember the intense pain months later when it was removed.

I didn't have any support. My mother made comments like, "Talk right or don't talk at all", or "Clean your ears out." My dad would say in a nasty tone, "You don't hear too well, do you." My hearing loss embarrassed my parents. At age nine the doctor suggested a hearing aid, my mother refused.

I didn't begin to learn how to speak properly until then (age eight). Then I had more surgeries on my little ear bones (age 14, 19, 30) and several more in my 40's. After age 30, and I was back at 85 decibal loss, I accepted it for what it was. But God has taken care of me. One law firm I worked for (not a good employer), our supervisor, we were having a chat one day, and she said, "We have insurance, if surgery will help with your hearing, then do it." Right then I didn't.

I did have several instances of sitting at my desk (God was talking to me) and all of a sudden, my hearing was incredible, like normal. I was in shock (or revelation or something). It only lasted a few minutes. Then my audiologist had told me, you have the physical ability to hear. So, to shorten this a little, I went to Lauren Bartels in Tampa, and now, I can hear. My loss is now about 35 decibles.

After the last surgery. The most incredible first sound I heard was the flushing of a hospital toilet. Oh my God, is that was it was supposed to sound like!!! I kept flushing that toilet just to hear it. Next, hearing the dial tone on a phone in my left ear. Wow, I could hear the dial tone (I couldn't before - even at work, when I could control the volume and turn it all the way up). I was checking that left ear all day long (is it still there?, please let it still be there). It's been about five years since that last surgery, and I still check my left ear with the dial tone to be sure I can hear it. The hardest thing to deal with, after the surgery, I could hear my heart beat - 24 hours a day. That may not sound like a big deal, but that about drove me mad and was very stressful.

When I am stressed or it is very quiet I can still hear my heart beat (I can count the beats per minute). But it is a much more relaxed sound now and I can handle it. When I kneel down I can hear the blood rushing through my head.

I have always felt inferior. Working in the legal field, attorneys need to feel big, and I have worked for several attorneys who let me know they thought I was inferior goods. I did have a boyfriend who realized I had hearing problems. He would say, "Turn the TV up, I can't hear it." He liked to "play" during sex. So he just talked louder. There wasn't anyone there except me and him, so it didn't matter - no wispering to me.