the ears of my ears awake

I've always been a little bit 'hard of hearing'. My mom used to think that I just daydream too much. If you are driving a car with the radio on and I am sitting in the back behind you there is 100% guarantee that I won't hear you. I am prone to be away with the fairies in noisy environments.

And I'm also very loud.

A few years ago in my early 20s I went for a hearing test and was told that I was battling to hear higher sound frequencies. I said 'cool' and moved on with my life. I got degrees, directed plays, found a soft spoken guy, settled down... And started teaching.

And this was when my hearing loss became more difficult. I couldn't work out where sounds were coming from in my classroom and found that I was spending more and more time watching people's mouths and body language to see what they were saying. This became crushingly obvious when I watched a play which was about a group of people in a room when the lights go out. Most of the play was performed in darkness and I had no cooking clue what was going on...until the lights came on and I could see their faces.

A few years ago I went back to the audiologist... Several in fact. And they all came back with the same, somewhat bizarre conclusion. I have a very abnormal hearing loss where my hearing is absolutely fine until a certain high frequency is reached and then it disappears completely. I haven't been able to hear a Christmas beetle (circada) in years. On a graph there is a straight line and then a sudden drop. They call it a ski slope drop. This particular hearing loss means that places which have a lot of noise are and absolute nightmare for me. One on one conversations are generally fine. And every single audiologist/ENT I spoke to said I needed hearing aids.

Just to put you in the picture Stephen and I could have gone on a trip to Turkey for the price of ONE hearing aid. And if you're on a normal medical aid they are not covered. Blows the mind really.

Anyway I was about to start procreating and didn't have the kind of cash that could buy me a small plot of land in The Valley of a Thousand Hills lying around.

And so I had my children and with each birth the volume button dialed quieter.

Returning back to work from my second baby has been a nightmare for me. The loss of hearing is now profound and along with the normal fatigue of being a working mom (which I feel is a lot more exhausting when you actually spend your day looking after other people's children) I found that my brain just could not function. I even fearfully told Stephen one night after an exasperating day of trying to remember everything that I needed to remember that I thought that there was something wrong with my brain. Some cognitive impairment that I just could not put my finger in. An impairment worse than the usual sleep deprivation of a baby mom.

And it turns out there was.

I had already booked my appointment to see an audiologist to get my hearing aids up and running when we had a training day at school which dealt with inclusion. One of the major disorders that we as teachers now have to accommodate in our classrooms is Auditory Processing Disorder. And as the description was being read out a haze suddenly lifted for me.

I have Auditory Processing Disorder.

In short, for me, I have to work mentally so hard at hearing and making sense of sound that there is then very little cognitive capacity to process and store what I have heard for recollection later.

And suddenly I know why I have always carried a diary with me.

And why I'll never remember a person's name.

And why I got better and better at Varsity when postgraduate work no longer revolved around lectures.

And why so many people say I'm a good listener - because I freaking have no choice!

And why Stephen can remember verbatim WHAT someone has said and why I remember everything else about HOW they said it - facial expression, body language, the vibe of the thing.

And why rooms full of noisy people are tortuous for me which is a real asset when teaching rowdy teenage boys.

And why I can generally tolerate a low lying murmer of noise in my classroom.

And why every sound device I own is always cranked up to the max.

And so last week I went to my appointment already armed with the knowledge that I have a disability and that I am going to own it so that it can give me my life back.

And I paid for these two tiny pieces of technology with the cash that could have bought me an old, but still functioning, car.

And for the first time in a long time I can hear my voice, which means I'm no longer loud.

I can hear people even with my back turned to them.

I dont feel absolutely exhausted after trying to follow conversations in a loud environment.

I can start listening to what people are saying rather than having to scrutinize how they are saying it.

And most importantly I can hear the full melody of my children's voices.

Now when I don't have my hearing aids in I can hear even less in a noisy place because my brain has finally been given a break from frantically trying to overcompensate for not being able to hear.

And the point of my post is this - I will walk around looking slightly elderly for the rest of my life. So what? Vanity gets you no where. I can hear my son sing.

If there is an aspect of your life which is stopping you from fully experiencing the glory of it all and you know there is something you can do about it - do it.

It may be as simple as reading glasses or as complex as depression medication.

Don't sit in the dark trying to hear, see, feel a play that everyone else is able to appreciate while you sit nursing your disability.

It takes courage to admit that something is wrong. But you will find that everyone is in need of some sort of aid. Since I got my hearing aids I have unknowingly motivated someone else to have his ears tested and he too will be getting hearing aids and his life back.

Much like my favorite e e cummings poem celebrates -
and now the ears of my ears awake
and now the eyes of my eyes are opened

I can't wait to hear the Christmas beetles.