Juliet England: My deafie diary part 23 – life coming out of lockdown

Continuing Juliet’s experiences of daily life with a hearing loss – as lockdown eases

A close family member has become really quite seriously ill in recent weeks, with a problem that looks set to stick around. And, despite the magnificence of my cochlear implant, it’s at times like this that the lack of an ability to speak on an ordinary phone really makes its pesky presence felt.

Mark you, I also have to admit that not being able to drive the patient in question to their hospital appointments is equally frustrating, even if the fact that I am a non-motorist is probably the single most significant contribution to British road safety since Goodyear Tyres. (Other makes are available.)

And so we are forced to confine our communications to email and text message, although I do have a video call with another close family member, who marvels at my newfound ability to hear and respond.

Equally, I do manage a WhatsApp call with a friend, and it’s amazing how much I catch. But it’s exhausting and incredibly hard work, as I strain for every syllable and stare at the screen of my phone, which goes black after a while, in a doomed search for any visual clues at all, despite knowing there are none.

Meanwhile, to take my mind off the worry, I continue to volunteer at the jab centre. In these wild times, it’s been a lifeline. I show up one afternoon to find myself being asked to work on the car park barrier again, with the ex-copper who previously refused to remove her mask briefly to speak to me, despite being outside.

I take the manager to one side and attempt to explain the problem as discreetly as possible. Happily, he’s very understanding, and sends me instead to the observation marquee.

This simply involves making sure people sit still for 15 minutes after their vaccinations, and wiping down seats once they’ve left. The only really crucial bit is knowing the time each patient was injected, since obviously this determines the time I can send them merrily on their way.

I don’t always catch their reply, but they can flash me the sticky bit of paper with the time on, and the afternoon passes off productively and happily enough.

It’s fair to say that I’ll miss the old place when it packs up for good some time later this summer.

Now, as the hated but necessary lockdown restrictions start to melt away, I am looking forward to the increased number of opportunities for testing the implant in the wild. I’ve done one ‘out out’ lunch on a pub patio so far, at which, again, there was much marvelling at how I didn’t have to ask for every other thing to be repeated.

But I’m wondering how I’ll fare, say, inside a dimly lit restaurant or at the theatre, or a party if I ever get invited to another one and can remember what’s involved at such an occasion. I’ve asked my constant companion if he’d fancy a posh dinner out, but received a non-committal grunt by way of response. Nice.

However, I’m eagerly awaiting my first cinema excursion in more than a year this weekend. (Last time, watching Emma, I reacted badly to a lunchtime sandwich that wasn’t gluten-free despite being advertised as such, and let’s just say that (empty) pic’n’mix bags were involved. Nomadland can only go better, CI or not.)

I still rely on subtitles for TV, a crutch I can’t quite bring myself to lay aside for now and, anyway, I don’t have to. So I’m curious to see how much of an uncaptioned movie I can follow.

For some unfathomable reason, I ran out without the implant the other evening. To Waitrose – don’t judge or @ me for being posh, it’s the nearest supermarket and, as mentioned, it’s not as if I can drive to another one. Anyway, I’m glad to have gone out bare-eared, for it served as a reminder of how much I need the implant, how dependent I now am on it.

Inexplicably, the manager wanted to know if I’d be paying for my purchases by credit card or cash. This isn’t a particularly ordinary thing to be asked, and so it threw me.

I desperately tried to think of things I could feasibly be being asked, as the queue behind me built up, my faced warmed and the guy increasingly gave the impression of a busy man who doesn’t much care for having the punters winding him up. In the end, I think I even apologised – why, in God’s name, why?

Oh, and finally … I still haven’t worked out how to retube my hearing aid. Just as well I’m not using it at the moment. Where are you when I need you, local audiology department – and why didn’t you reply to my email?