So this past Wednesday, I toddled off somewhat unwillingly to my audiologist’s office for the pending hearing test. As I noted in the previous entry, I knew I needed this checkup as my role calls for me to be able to hear in more and varied situations and to work with individuals one-on-one and in groups.

The last audiogram (that’s the technical word for them) I had was in 2018, but I barely remember that. I think I intentionally block them out. I should probably call them audiograms more often anyway, as the word “test” connotes academics, and the feeling that I am not doing as well as I would like can make me feel a little bit of that failure feeling. The last audiogram I recorded in this journal was in 2016, and can likely be found under the “Hearing” tag.

I sat in the booth with a different audiologist and, I guess, her student who was doing most of the work while under supervision. First, they checked my ears to see if there had been any wax accumulation, but she said apparently I’m doing a pretty good job of keeping that at bay. I’ve learned some lessons after my much-documented challenges keeping hearing aids going as they constantly filled up with the annoying stuff.

“How long is this going to take, approximately,” I asked.

“It should take no more than 20 minutes” she replied. 20 minutes? It felt like an hour easy!

This test was different than the one I recalled from 2016. First, they had a recorded male voice reading back the words. They start to become predictable to some extent, or at least they make us think they are, as they say “Baseball,” “Airplane,” “Northwest,” and the like over and over again. And of course they test each ear, sometimes playing white noise or a wind sound in the other ear. Another, very real challenge I experienced was shutting down my inner thoughts: dinner, sleep, work the next day, etc.

One of the words that kind of caused me to laugh… it sounded like he said “Say the word Bi*ch”. Hmmm, I’m pretty sure he didn’t say that, I thought. “Ditch?” I tried tentatively. Probably… not that either. Ah, well.

I then had to get the beep test. I think I actually did better on this part, and especially when they put on the big clunky things that kind of fasten to your head as honestly I could often feel the beep more than hear it. We laughed though when at the end of the test she said something to me and my hand shot up as if I’d heard a beep again. “Sorry, you just get conditioned to do that’” I said.

“I understand,” she replied.

The results were a little worse than the last time. She said something like my word discrimination dropped from 80 to 55% in my left ear, and my right ear remained profoundly deaf as it has been for some time. “It’s probably time for you to consider a cochlear implant, especially on that right side” she said. “And as your left-side clarity diminishes”. I have noticed that this has happened, for sure, as my Norrie Disease-related progressive hearing loss keeps progressing. A little disheartening, but such is the way I guess. I just don’t know about CI’s, because I’ve heard all sorts of stories about them. There is a possibility that it might not work, and I think you don’t really have a way to fall back if they don’t. But I know that time is likely coming more quickly than I would like.

Meanwhile, she went ahead and made adjustments to the aids as a result of the tests. And they’re kind of a mixed bag. Sports sound a lot better, and I was much more able to hear my supervisor and trainee today at work. But I am still kind of working to adjust to my wife’s voice and others, as the sound while turned up is also somewhat muffled. I think I’m getting there though and will just have to be patient, while hoping others are patient with me. The paratransit vehicle I take to and from work also sounded really loud for the first few days, but that is starting to calm down as well.

So yeah, this issue is always going to be complicated. But ultimately I am grateful to those folks and their good work of really getting the aids to work for my needs. I still haven’t tried them in the holy grail of hearing, the restaurant, but I’m sure that is coming soon. That will really tell me if a difference has been made. And even more the National Industries for the Blind conference I will be attending in three weeks as a result of winning Employee of the Year. I’ll keep you posted, and I mostly write about this to help parents of children with Norrie gain some insight into what this experience might be like, again realizing that my voice does not represent everyone’s. I do hope it helps.