My Hearing Loss, My Self Image: A New Start

Today I had my fitting for the pair of hearing aids I will receive as part of the Oticon Focus on People Award. My previous audiologist doesn't work with Oticon aids, so I went somewhere new. It was nice to have a fresh start. While reviewing my medical history with my new audiologist, I surprised myself by just how much I've learned in the five years since my hearing loss was diagnosed. I could accurately describe my past audiogram results using the palm of my hand as a "chart" and could pepper our conversation with lingo like the speech banana, T4/M4, T-coil, and sensorineural. Impressed much?

When we discussed when my hearing loss might have begun, I shared that I didn't know for sure. I can remember feeling extremely fatigued in college. Could it have been from all the listening required? I distinctly remember one English writing seminar where a professor used a video for one of our classes and a light bulb went off in my head. I immediately grasped the concept. I've often wondered if I'm a visual learner due to my hearing loss.

Looking even farther back, I wonder if I had normal hearing as a child or not. I don't know for certain because I never had a childhood hearing test. Of course, none of my teachers ever indicated there was a problem. But since I'm nearsighted and have worn glasses since I was 9 years old, I was usually seated in the front row of the classroom. Maybe I was the shy, quiet girl because of my hearing or maybe that was, and is, just me. Hard to say.

My husband used to puzzle over how quiet I become in group situations. I could chatter on comfortably one on one, but if there were three people or more present, I was rendered speechless.  Now we've realized that my difficulty in following group conversation puts me at a disadvantage. When I'm lagging a few beats behind everyone else, it's hard to contribute the appropriate response that moves a conversation forward. To this day, I prefer spending social time with my friends one-on-one as much as possible.

At the audiologist's today, I took the usual battery of diagnostic tests. I hate to admit it, but there was a part of me that secretly hoped she would say that my hearing is normal. That my previous diagnosis had all been a mistake. But no, that didn't happen. Instead she said that the conduction test proved that nothing medically could be done for my hearing and that hearing aids were my only option. She said that technology had improved in the last five years and I might be much more satisfied with the way my new aids would sound. But I would continue to struggle with hearing in noise because my hearing is impaired. My audiogram came out just like all the others.

Even after five years time, I still struggle to accept my situation. At work recently I have been reassigned from my shifts at the information desk. When I told the audiologist that, she said that was a good idea in my situation. So now I have to re-imagine myself as a virtual librarian offering help electronically rather than face-to-face. I have to accept that when I'm interacting with hearing people, conversation is harder for me. I'm going to be the quiet one.

I hope with my new aids, I will come to an acceptance of who I am now and who I always may have been. In the spirit of I. King Jordan's famous words,  I can do anything except hear perfectly and it's time I get over that and move forward. I'm looking forward to living better with Oticon. I get my new aids next week.

My New Audiogram

As I mentioned in my previous post, I had a new audiogram this week. Before the test began, I asked my audiologist if I could have the test done with my hearing aids in so I could see how much they help me. She agreed, but had technical difficulties with her equipment so the result on the pure tones was unusable. On the speech recognition part, I got 88% correct unaided and 100% correct aided. That's good to know as I mainly wear hearing aids to help me understand speech.



This was the result of my latest hearing test. As I had suspected, my hearing loss is greater than before. You can see how much by looking at the graph below where I've plotted both audiograms.



I'm disappointed my hearing has declined a little but not surprised.

My Audiogram in Color

Clever Steve of the Deafness and Hearing Aids blog has unveiled a new Audiogram Creator tool he made. I used it to create this picture for you. I hope it will help illustrate my level of hearing loss. The blue x indicates my left ear's performance and the red circle indicates my right ear's. This is the result from my first hearing test four years ago. My audiologist says my more recent audiograms haven't changed significantly.

I recently had someone look at my audiogram and he told me I was in pretty good shape for someone with hearing loss, that he could see why my hearing loss had gone undetected for some time, and that he could understand why I didn't want to use my hearing aids in certain situations. As you can see from the diagram above, I do have quite a bit of hearing in the normal range. The troublesome part for me is the high frequencies where the consonants fall.

Recently I had a relative introduce me to her friends as someone who had suddenly lost her hearing. Inwardly, I cringed a bit at that. I think it would be more accurate to say instead that I learned of my hearing loss in a sudden manner. Mainly because I was oblivious and in denial before that, but not hearing a fire alarm was something I couldn't ignore! Also I haven't lost my hearing. Not by a long shot. It's just rather reduced from what is typical for someone my age. Heh, at least that's one way to put it.

So wearing my hearing aids fixes everything, right? Wrong. The aids definitely make the world seem a LOUDER place to me. I can hear sounds clearly that are rather muted without the aids, like the way my keys jangle. But if someone doesn't have my attention when they speak, there is likely to be trouble with our communication. If someone's speaking to me in a noisy place or I'm tired or distracted, I'm liable to misunderstand. I also have trouble with people "sneaking up" on me. My husband gets irritated at how often I startle when he comes into the room. My son takes advantage of it to scare the living daylights out of me.

I have people comment that I do "so well" with my hearing loss. I usually take that to mean they're not experiencing any difficulty communicating with me. Actually because of the hearing I have, I often don't feel "deaf enough". I think people suspect I'm faking it or that I have selective hearing and are not interested in what they're saying. It's good to have my audiogram to show that yes I do have trouble hearing.

My Hearing Test and Results

Last week I went for a hearing exam. I thought I'd describe my experience and share my results and conversation with the audiologist.

I was shown into the testing room and given a seat in a soundproof booth where I removed my hearing aids. My nose was sprayed with a solution to clear my nasal passages so I could get the best results possible. "The ear and nose are connected," explained the technician.

I had my ear pressure tested first. A handheld instrument was held up to each ear. I could hear some ringing tones but I did not need to respond in any way. This test was not uncomfortable at all.

Here's a YouTube video that demonstrates and explains this test of the middle ear. (Note: this audiologist uses different equipment than mine.) Captions provided by Bill Cresswell.



Next I had a speech reception threshold test. For this test I needed to respond to what the technician said. Headphones were placed over my ears, the door to the booth was closed, and the technician spoke to me through a microphone connected to my headphones. She said spondee words (two syllable words spoken with equal stress) like cowboy, hotdog, and ice cream.

Note: if you've ever wondered if it's a problem that you're familiar with the words for this test, check out this helpful article for some reassurance that it's fine. What's being checked is how softly the words can be spoken and you can still respond correctly.

My final test was to listen through the headphones for tones and push a handheld button (ala Jeopardy!)as soon as I heard something. Tones would be presented at varying pitches. I asked if I should push the button if I was unsure whether I was simply hearing an echo or a new tone. I was told to push that button!

Here's a YouTube video that demonstrates and explains this test of the inner ear. (As before, this audiologist uses slightly different equipment than mine. I found it really interesting to see the test performed from the audiologist's perspective.) Captions provided by Bill Cresswell.



Like the other tests, this one is painless. Actually the hardest part is waiting for the results. With bated breath I waited to find out if my hearing loss had gotten any worse.

The technician announced that the audiologist would see me next and she told me my hearing had remained the same. Phew. I released my breath and relaxed.

My first hearing test ever had been performed in 2006 and the two taken since then have revealed no further hearing loss. That's good news!

In the audiologist's office, I asked if my hearing aids could be adjusted a bit. I explained that my son had told me the following joke recently, "What does one tickle say to another?" I guessed "ha ha". He looked at me strangely and said, "Dill you be my valentine?" Oops. He had actually said pickle, not tickle. The audiologist reassured me that mistaking high pitched consonants was not unusual for my type of hearing loss and that she could adjust the volume upward only in their range. That way everything else wouldn't seem extremely loud. After the adjustment she said "sickle, pickle, tickle, thickle" and I could tell them apart!

I told her I have trouble coping with the buzzer sounding at my son's basketball games. I jump almost every time. She said something I had never known before - that with my type of hearing loss, I am prone to be more sensitive to volume differences. Hmmm....that's interesting!

Then she changed my eartubes for fresh, clean ones. I asked her about using a Dry & Store. She said she had something similar she could sell me for $10. I was pretty sure the Dry & Stores were more expensive in the catalogs I had seen. Since I hadn't been using one at all up until now, I thought I'd get hers. It's basically a plastic jar with a screw on lid. Inside on the bottom is a screen filled with desiccant beads to remove moisture. The instructions say "When all the desiccant beads are green, it is time to reactivate. To do this, place desiccant, screen side up, in microwave and heat for 30 seconds on high. Repeat cycle until beads are orange. Cool before touching."



Next I asked her about cleaning my eartubes with Audiowipes. She suggested using Huggies wipes Natural Care (no alcohol) as they would be much less expensive. I found them at my local grocery store for less than $2.

So what do you think? Are these bargains an acceptable substitute for the name brand items found in the catalogs? What products do you use?

I'll blog again soon about ways I've been trying to protect my hearing.
Thanks again to Bill Cresswell for making these videos accessible.

Missing Sounds or Con-onant-

This chart shows where vowel and consonant sounds are heard. Comparing it with my audiogram, it shows that I miss these sounds: k, f, s, h, and th. Even wearing my hearing aids, I often get mixed up by th and f. Here's two amusing examples:

A friend was telling me about an exhibit she had seen at a museum featuring parts of the body. She described different displays and then mentioned that they even had "the finger". Hmm... when she said that she was leaning forward with her chin on her fist. None of her fingers were showing...why was she sitting like that? She saw my puzzled look and added, "You know, by Rodin." Aha - the Thinker.

My next example is not for the easily offended. Okay, you've been warned. One day my son was looking at the packaging for our dog's medicine and he asked, "Mom, what are feces?" I explained. Then about an hour later he came back to me and asked again, "Mom, what are feces?" Exasperated, I replied that I had just explained that to him. No Mom, I'm not talking about feces, I'm asking what are the theses that Martin Luther nailed to the church door." Oops.

Understanding My Audiogram

One of my jobs at the library involves cataloging. The benefit of this work is getting a look at the new books before anyone else. Fortunately for me, a few months after my hearing exam, I received for cataloging Everyday Audiology: A Practical Guide for Health Care Professionals by Kazunari J. Koike. Although this book is intended for audiologists, I found the first section on audiograms very helpful.

You see when my audiologist showed me the results of my hearing tests, I didn't really understand much except to know that it wasn't good news. For anyone who doesn't know, an audiogram is a graph that shows how a person's hearing tested at different frequencies (shown along the top). The amount of hearing loss is shown in decibels (shown along the left side). The x represents the left ear and the circle is the right ear. You'll notice on mine that the left and right ears tested practically the same and as the frequencies get higher my hearing drops off.

Everyday Audiology explains what the decibel numbers mean and also what the effects are on communication for hearing loss from mild to profound. After reading the book I dug out my audiogram and marked it with what I had learned about my situation. You can see on my audiogram picture I have labeled the varying degrees of my hearing loss and also drawn on a horizontal line at the top which shows what normal hearing would look like. If you have any questions about your audiogram, check out this book. It can be requested by interlibrary loan at your local library.

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For the best explanation of audiograms I've seen online, check out Kim's post on the Say What Club Weblog: How to Read Your Audiogram.

SpeakUp Librarian is Born

September 20, 2006

At the doctor's office my ears, nose, and throat were examined and then an audiologist tested my hearing several different ways. I remember being tested with a tuning fork. That wasn't too bad. Then I went into a soundproof booth and had to listen to words and say out loud what had been said. Yikes - there were several possibilities in my mind - which one had been said? I wanted to answer it was either this or that.

The worst part of the testing came when tones were played and I had to push a button as soon as I heard them. At first the tones were heard easily but then it was harder to distinguish...had there been a new tone or were only echoes floating in the air? Should I push the button or not? I wasn't sure. Then the booth became completely quiet but the test wasn't over. My heart sank.

The audiologist was very kind when she went over my test results with me. I will be forever grateful to her for that. She explained that I had permanent hearing loss. My colds and allergies and stuffed up nose did not account for my being unable to hear the alarm.

She said I was a candidate for hearing aids. I was completely shocked! At my age how could this be possible, I wondered. But of course I wanted to hear. There was not going to be a time of thinking about it as she suggested. I placed my order that day.