Jenny Hersh: My hearing test experience during Covid-19

I’m partially deaf. At the start of 2020, I started struggling more with the hearing in my “good ear”. I was beginning to find it more difficult to hear normal conversations, and one too many “you’re not *that* deaf” comments pushed me towards breaking point.

Due to only having had my hearing tested two years previously, I had to be rereferred. This, of course, was as the pandemic was beginning to spread, and lockdowns were looming.

My ENT appointment in a clinic was cancelled as there had been an outbreak there, and I ended up having my conversation over the phone.

A very fun experience indeed, especially when half of the problem is that I couldn’t hear very well over the phone. A personal highlight for me was when the audiologist couldn’t understand me saying “three years” over the phone, and after – ironically – three attempts, I gave up and said “the number between two and four”.

This was back in March, and I was told I’d be given a hearing test appointment when things were getting safer. I’m a millennial, with access to all the technology I could wish for. I’ve followed the PPE shortages, and panicked along with the deaf community about the prospect of my lipreading ability being taken away.

Incidentally, I think I’ve been into shops fewer than twenty times since March, because I refuse to go solo when I can’t understand anyone. Anyone else enjoying the experience of getting their masks caught on their hearing aid tubes?

So, with all this in mind, I was ecstatic to receive a phone call last Wednesday offering me an appointment. I went on Friday, after jokingly saying to my mum and boyfriend “this will be fun if they don’t have clear masks on”.

Clear masks, they did not have.

An ENT department, with a hearing test booth, with no clear masks or visors, this is the state of the NHS right now. I thought it was bad enough trying to lipread whilst I was in the waiting room, but oh no, things were about to get even worse. I had to laugh, otherwise I’d have cried.

Throughout the test, I was being spoken to – whilst wearing soundproof headphones – by someone wearing a mask. My hearing is muffled to begin with, it was like sticking wool in my ears!

I felt awkward enough having to take my mask off when taking my hearing aid out (note to self: buy more hearing aid friendly masks), and didn’t dare risk saying to her that I lipread, and asking if she could take her mask off. I *think* they’re ringing me with results this week!

If I found this experience frustrating, I feel for everyone else out there with worse hearing than myself. So yeah, can some company somewhere please donate clear visors and masks to NHS ENT departments please?!

Jenny is a twenty-something year old navigating the world after formerly being an undiagnosed deafie for the first 23 years of her life.