Having hearing impairment as we age can have its lighter side.
I can hear a call coming from the next room, “Have you cleaned the electrician's fish!!!” Puzzling.
No electricians or fish to be cleaned around here at the the moment. Ah. But there is a new kitten. No fish for it though. Must be something else. It clicks. The call comes again, “Have you seen the kitten's dish?” Got it. I just put it in the sink to wash a few minutes ago. Chris is looking for it.
David Lodge, an English novelist who must be going deaf himself, has written a story and called it Deaf Sentence and he uses the first chapters to tell the painful but funny results that come from these mishearings.This is a conversation with his wife in the car on the way home after a party.
“ Who was that young woman you were deep in conversation with?”
“What?”
“You were deep in conversation with a young blonde”
“I didn't see Ron. Was he there?”
And of course it goes further and further wrong in a way that many of us who have gone through it will recognize.
Hearing impairment seems to fail to bring out the empathy that other ailments do.
Fred: Murr Murr Murr.
Me: (playing for time) Uh Huh.
Fred: Murr Murr Murr.
Me: (making a guess at the content of the message) All right.
Fred: (surprised) What?
Me: What did you say?
Fred: Why did you say “All right” if you didn't hear what I said.?
Me: Let me get my hearing aid.
Fred: No. Don't bother. It's not important
Fred is his unsympathetic wife.
The hearing impairment can have a more serious side ranging from my having to carefully locate myself in church so that Chris sits on my right next my good ear so that I can hear near her whispered comments about how well or otherwise the choir has done today all the way to the complete frustration many of you will know in trying to make out conversations in the hall, any hall, at coffee.
Some of you trying to be helpful shouldn't be like a couple of colleagues I worked with once who always said to a stranger waiting in the office as they passed through, “He's quite deaf. He won't admit it and you'll have to speak up “, and waiting later for the puzzled comment from the boss about the shouting visitors. Shouting doesn't help. Facing your friend and speaking as clearly as you can sometimes overcomes the background babble and allows a bit of lip reading.
Realize too that those of us with the problem do try to cover up in fact. David Lodge explains that there are two basic cover up strategies. One involves appearing to listen carefully, nodding a lot and saying non committal things like “Yes” and “I think so too” when there are pauses in what you are being told. The other is to dominate the conversation and pay no attention to comments by others. This last fits with the style of many conversationalists I find, so doesn't appear unusual.
Some of us are just coming into this interesting phase of life as we age. When family complains that the tv is too loud and you are using “What was that again?” a lot it's time to get a hearing test. They are free and the new hearing aids these days do help although they assuredly are not free. For the rest of us be glad of having your sense of hearing but keep in mind the comment from a very brave young lady comedian who is seriously impaired physically and has difficulty speaking. She was asked how the impaired community talk about of healthy people, the other people, and she said “We call them 'the Not Yet Impaired”
Written by: Derek Bisset