Teresa Garratty: What I should have said to my audiologist

I’m typing this one from a busy cafe in Stratford right now. My brain is currently trying to adjust to the new ear moulds I picked up this morning. The new hearing aids weren’t strong enough, so I’ll be back again next week for even more upgrades, that’s lucky!

The new moulds have made just enough difference to ensure that nothing sounds “quite right” and so I’m sat amongst the hubbub, letting my brain re-programme the way things “should” sound.

This can be quite tiring for some but I never notice, due to being permanently exhausted anyway. That’s lucky!

I’ve come to this cafe because there’s an array of different sounds here. Different voices, accents, pitches. Water boiling, babies crying etc.

So it seemed like I’d get more out of my new moulds here than by working from home. Made all the more better by the fact I can use my Freedom Pass to get here, that’s lucky!

If it all gets too much and I can stand the din of the four school girls talking over each other no longer (gosh I hope they can’t see this screen), then I can simply pop my hearing aids out for a bit and take a breather. Peace and quiet in an instant…that’s lucky!

I’m quite eager to get to my appointment next week, as the other audiologist specialises in transitioning people over to hearing aids for profound deafness.

Apparently these hearing aids are a different make but also more advanced, so should make it easier for my brain to match up and file away the new way in which I’ll “hear” things. And all for free too! That’s lucky!

I know this because the audiologist had a chat with me. She asked me lots of questions. She asked if I was born deaf. I wasn’t. She asked if I’d had various x rays and blood tests. I had, they were all clear. She asked me if early hearing loss runs in the family. It doesn’t.

“Oh, so you were just…unlucky?”

It’s just a word isn’t it? It’s shouldn’t bother me. Except it did, it felt like an insult. Like anything that had happened since or as a result of my deafness was worthless.

That, if only luck had been on my side, I would some how be a more valuable person than I am now. In what areas did she think I needed improving, I wondered? Smarter? Richer? Looks?

I sat there, staring at some space age contraption called the “Aurical” (I see what they did there!) and I knew there was nothing wrong with me. Not in the way she thought there was.

I knew that for every hearing friend I had lost, I had gained a new deaf one. I knew that for every door of opportunity that closed, a new one into the deaf world had opened. I knew that I’ve experienced things, met people that she can’t comprehend and probably never will.

I didn’t say anything. I should have.

I should have told her that I don’t mind being a deaf person and that what she sees as bad luck, I sometimes see as a blessing. That she should choose her words more carefully.

That the only reason she calls me unlucky, is because that’s how she sees me and that in itself, is more damaging than any level of hearing loss could be. I didn’t say any of that though, I let her get away with it. Blissfully unaware and ill informed. I wonder if she counts herself…lucky?

Read more of Teresa’s posts (with cartoons!) by clicking here.

Teresa is a freelance film maker, photographer and full time cynic. At school, she was voted “Most likely to end up in a lunatic asylum”, a fate which has thus far been avoided. Her pet hates are telephones, intercoms and all living things. Follow her on Twitter as @TGarratty