Hearing sounds of joy once again

By Tom Hennessy

Editor: Here's another heart-warming story of how a person who has been denying his hearing loss for years finally bites the bullet and does something about it. The author is Tom Hennessy, a columnist for the Press-Telegram in Long Beach, Ca. The article is reprinted with his kind permission.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you said hello to me over the past five years and I did not reply, let me apologize.

I may not have heard you.

A lifetime of quarrelsome children, barking dogs and an old Army job that required me to listen to static-filled radio had taken their toll. My hearing slipped, then slipped some more, to the point that Tim Grobaty delighted in shouting, "Personal call for Hennessy" at distances of 2 to 4 feet.

As my hearing decreased, so did my disposition. I began to silently chastise people for being so soft-spoken. In time, that included almost everyone, from small children to NFL quarterbacks and even Grobaty.

I scaled back on social contacts. It was easier than trying to keep up with others. But at the same time, I repeatedly felt left out of things.

Wrong response?

I built defenses. Rather than ask a person to repeat a story, I would settle for the first telling, then chuckle politely and hope chuckling was an appropriate response. For all I knew, they were telling me about a relative's death. I chuckled just the same.

Today, I wonder how many people I offended or how many simply decided I was strange.

Watching TV, which is almost always bad, became even more of a trial. I would turn up the volume. Debbie would turn down the volume.

Movies and restaurants proved to be difficult venues. When was it that Jack Nicholson had taken to mumbling?

There was also a legion of food servers who would ask if I wanted salad, and would get only a smile in return. Again and again, Debbie saved the moment.

As her interpretive role increased, I found myself remembering TV footage of Nancy Reagan whispering into the ear of her late husband. Spouses pay a price for their hearing-impaired mates.

New world

One day last month, I put vanity behind me, along with the pleadings of my exasperated family ("Get a hearing aid, Dad"). I was fitted for one of the devices, actually two of the devices.

The molds were sent off to Hearing Central, wherever that is, and the finished products arrived last week. My first breakthrough came in interrupting the audiologist, Laura Burns, to advise that her phone was ringing. I'm sure she knew this, but nevertheless exulted in my having broken my sound barrier.

In my first hearing-aid hour, I heard a milk-wagon horse (my footsteps), a crackling fire (the crunching of paper in another room), an engine knock in my car (the turn signal), and a fire engine screaming past my house (via telephone, it was actually screaming by my daughter's office building in New York City).

"How long is it?" she asked. "Thirty-five feet," I replied without hesitation.

It is apparent the aids will need adjusting. The first bird I heard through them sounded like a creature from Jurassic Park.

But most sounds are now a joy. One of my first forays back into the social world came last Friday when we attended Grandparents and Special Friends Day at Mark Twain Elementary School. We had been invited by our friend, Kara Stribling, age 9, who sang the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the start of the program.