Juliet England: My deafie diary – part 7

Continuing Juliet’s experiences of daily life with a hearing loss.

Friday 31 January

To distract myself from Brexit Day misery, I’ve arranged to meet a friend for a coffee and a stroll around a local museum’s exhibition about bees. In a startling triumph of hope over experience, I arrive uncharacteristically early – it feels so unsettling I’m not entirely sure I want to repeat it.

Anyway, I realise that the museum is over the way from the back entrance to Audiology. With atypically efficient use of time, I decide to get my hearing aids retubed before my friend rocks up. Waiting at the drop-in repair clinic, I stare at a notice advising people not to clean their aids by popping them in the kettle. This baffles me for the whole of the rest of the day. Why, why, why… would you … why? Why?

Saturday 01 February

A workshop on movement at the theatre I belong to is, I think, really interesting, but just isn’t geared up to someone who can’t hear well. Instructions have to be repeated. And repeated again. We have to improvise in pairs, and I struggle to catch what my partner is telling me.

The contrast between the other ‘performances’ at the end and what my partner and I come up with is marked. To be fair, I’m not sure ‘movement’ is really my thing anyway; still, it’s a more than slightly dispiriting afternoon.

Saturday 08 February

It’s my second appointment to do with the possible cochlear implant, an MRI scan at a hospital in a neighbouring city, to ensure there are no physical reasons for not being able to have the surgery. Getting to the right place at the right time is probably the day’s biggest challenge, and I wander through seemingly endless corridors, deserted on a Saturday afternoon.

I have had an MRI scan before, so long ago I remember almost nothing about it. I’m braced for intense claustrophobia, having long hated enclosed spaces. (A hangover, I’m sure, from my boarding school years, when we were never allowed out.) In the event, it’s actually quite relaxing, and I’m almost disappointed when it’s over.

One more scan to go, in yet another town, near the end of the month.

Wednesday 12 February

Ah, ear syringing. Always good for entertainment value. I’m the kind of warped individual who has a horrified fascination with examining those cardboard tubes afterwards and studying the lumps of earwax within.

This time, I’ve been unusually diligent with the old ear drops (extra virgin olive oil if you’re interested) and a satisfyingly meaty piece of wax the size of Heathrow Terminal 5 plops in the container from my right ear after just one blast of the syringe.

“Is that better?” asks nursey, who I can hear unusually clearly.

“Sorry?” I can’t help asking, never one to miss a golden opportunity for a wind-up.

“I said is that …?” She stops when she sees me smirking. “Get. Out. Of. My. Surgery.”

Thursday 13 February

Skype session with someone ahead of a possible English teaching gig.

“Can I call you?” types the contact from the agency.

I explain that I won’t be able to hear via the phone, even a video call, although I should be fine face to face, but that isn’t the full reason for swerving the conversation.

It’s well after high noon and I am still in my pyjamas. Not only do I think I should play the deaf card at every available opportunity, but I don’t think getting dressed at lunchtime is slovenly. It’s an aspirational goal, something I am actively working towards achieving.

Friday 14 February

Let us not dwell on the particulars, but there is someone on whose chest I am placing my head, only every time I do so, my hearing aids squawks, as if said chest is fitted with an alarm. To much hilarity from me and the other party involved, I realise I can even compose a tune this way.

“I’ll name that tune in one,” I say.

Tuesday 18 February

Tesco has done it again. I’m pecking away at the keyboard, headphones on, oblivious when my phone flashes with a call. The delivery driver bringing my online order is at the window. I jump up to let him in, wondering why he called, when my records clearly state that I should be texted. I have told Tesco countless times about this, but they are determined to ignore me.

I ask the driver to explain, very specifically, why he has communicated in a way that’s worse than useless to me. Predictably, I can’t hear his reply, but he’s clearly angry and I can’t understand why. It degenerates quickly into an ugly squabble out which neither of us emerges especially well. Yet this sorry little incident leaves me oddly shaken. I know, I absolutely know, that I don’t make a habit of barking randomly at delivery drivers. And if I’d just been texted as requested in the first place (repeatedly), it would never have escalated this way.

I also know I can’t make a habit of stand-up rows with Tesco, or it’ll be more a case of banned for life than bag for life. Still, highly depressing.