I realise that I was going to go straight to writing about the surgery but in my last blog entry I felt the need to explain how I got to surgery and the many years leading up to it.
So there I am living life with one ear that can hear and an effectively dead left one. But then 2007 at the age of 39 I get that familiar feeling of tinnitus in the right ear. Alarm bells... What if I end up deaf completely ? What if this one goes the same way as the other?
I make an appointment with audiology by which time the hearing is better again. Maybe it was just the effects of a cold virus they say. Breathe a sigh of relief for now. But I discover over the next year or so that this fluctuating hearing gives good days and bad days. Sometimes it will be fine for a few months then dip.
This fluctuation continues but I soon realise that the good periods are shorter and the bad ones longer. The other thing I notice is that even when the hearing is better it doesn't reach the levels of before. At audiology they continue doing hearing tests that show a downward trend.
I notice in every day life that I can't often use the phone as it is unclear what the other person is saying. I also notice that my singing which I used to enjoy is now going out of tune or off key....no it hasn't always been like that......ask anyone....no actually don't! When I play the chords on the guitar I can't make them out properly so I'm singing and playing in two different keys!
Audiology give me a hearing aid which is useful at times but still doesn't make things clear.
2011 and 2012 sees a return of the vertigo attacks. Whilst running around a track in training, I experience a sudden turning feeling and end up falling to my left turning an ungainly somersault/ roll bruising my shoulder. Walking to the tube station in September 2012 to go to the Paralympics with my family, I suddenly get that feeling again. I feel pulled backwards by the sudden vertigo and hit my head on the road.
I guess all I can say is that the attacks don't last long. A few minutes recovering in a cold sweat and some water and I'm up and off again. Sounds mild compared to some of the stories people tell me about days in bed in a darkened room or having to give up work.
Eventually in 2013 as my hearing continues to deteriorate, I recognise the need for a more powerful hearing aid. There is a noticeable difference now. Teaching is harder, I can't hear the most simple things the children are saying. If I think about it, the last 18 months before my surgery represented the fastest deterioration.
For that time I had to make some adjustments. Instead of question and answer verbal sessions with the class, I would get children to write things on boards,etc. My school purchased a phonak roger pen mic to make listening easier, if easier is the right word here. It certainly helped. Not perfect solution but combined with the lip reading that I just had to acquire, it assisted me in meetings.
But while these adjustments were going on, at an audiology appointment in Sept 2013, the consultant suggested again more strongly that I should go for a cochlear implant.....hurrah...there you go, I have remembered what this blog is about! So the ball is set rolling.....
Work is challenging but I have now accepted that my hearing won't get better without surgery. I guess if I had known back in 2007 that I would end up profoundly deaf in the left and pretty much the same in the right, I may not have been able to cope with that thought. But like I said, it is kind of a relief really. My wife quite rightly says to me to stop saying to people that I have a hearing difficulty. I can just simply state "I am deaf." And there is a certain release in saying that. It's not defeatist. It's not accepting that life is rubbish. No. These are my circumstances. I make adjustments but the world around me needs to be aware too and make its adjustments.
I now realise that I'm gonna have to blog about the cochlear implant process in the next blog entry. We will get there I promise!!
No comments:
Post a Comment