Ok - I have to admit it. I turn 60 next year. And I now have a Hearing Aid. I have been experiencing greater and greater hearing loss in my left ear for about a year now and I knew four months ago that it was never going to get better. Hearing tests, MRI scan and trips to the audiology department at the local hospital confirmed that my hearing in the left ear was about 20% and falling fast.
As much as I hated to admit it, when I was told I needed a hearing aid, I was actually quite relieved. Getting my head round the idea of being a granny with a hearing aid (as opposed to being a granny without one) was quite different, though. Nobody likes to admit they are getting old. I suppose vanity played a big part, even though I have never ever been vain about anything (except that my hair is always clean and shiny but that is another story).
But now I have got it and am used to it and can hear again - I mean actually hear - it is like closing the door on a muffled snowy day and opening another into bird-sung spring. In fact when the hearing aid fell off the other day (obviously I hadn't put it in properly in the first place) I was actually shocked at just how deaf I am in my left ear! And how much I had been over-compensating with my right one!
I can remember boldly stating as a child that if I ever had to lose any faculties as I got older, I'd sooner go deaf than blind.
Almost five decades later that is exactly what is happening. And you know what? It's okay. I can cope. It is all, as Mufasa says in The Lion King, part of the Circle of Life. And as long as you don't fight it; as long as you accept it graciously, you'll be all right! Honestly.
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