At the end of the segment, Garrett Morris would appear on the screen to repeat the top story for the hard of hearing. He did this by cupping his hands around his mouth and shouting, “OUR TOP STORY TONIGHT.”
It made me laugh every time. But then, that was before I became one of the 36 million Americans who have some degree of hearing loss.
I’m not sure how it happened. There was no sudden trauma. No genetic predisposition of which I’m aware. Some people with hearing problems can trace it to years of listening to blaring rock music pumped directly into their brains through headphones, but I don’t think listening to The Platters on my 45 rpm record player had anything to do with it.
Whatever the cause, I wear two hearing aids today. They are expensive and the cost is not defrayed by my health insurance plan. Insurance companies apparently believe that getting deaf is optional.
But even the most high-tech hearing aids can’t solve the problem. The best they can do is ameliorate it. That’s why they call them hearing “aids” and not hearing “cures.”
So I’ve pretty much stopped listening to talk shows on my car radio, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Television program dialogue is increasingly difficult to follow, and I’ve had to sharpen my speed-reading skills to keep up with the closed captioning. I have to concentrate a lot harder to follow conversations, especially with young women. Not that I have a lot of those discussions anymore.
But my hearing loss doesn’t just affect me. I know my wife gets tired of having to repeat things two or three times before I can understand her. Although, to be honest, I didn’t always understand her before, either.
Because I really don’t have much choice, I try to handle my hearing loss the same way I do most things — with humor.
One of my favorite columns was one I wrote about me running through the house in my underwear in pursuit of our dog, who was eating my hearing aid. In public appearances, I’ll joke about my wife saying, “How about some nice sex before you go to work this morning?” and me thinking she said “Rice Chex,” so I reply, “No thanks, I’ll just pick up something on the way to the office.”
But the truth is, losing your hearing isn’t all that funny. Contact D.L. Stewart at dlstew_2000@yahoo.com
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