Juliet England: My deafie diary part 25 – life in lockdown

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

I‘m not sure I’ll ever get used to what feels like the everyday miracle of being able to make an actual phone call, in the normal fashion, with no text and no visual clues.

It’s true that interactions have to be basic and I’m not up to complex or lengthy conversations just yet. But being able to call up Specsavers and cancel an appointment still feels a thing of beauty.

As I think I’ve mentioned before, the only issue seems to be getting the person at the other end of the line to understand what a cochlear implant is, and why this very ordinary phone conversation is so wondrous.

But the Specsavers lady just wants to know if I’d like to book another date, and for me to get off the line.

It’s now more than six months (around eight to be precise) since the operation, and the implant has become so deeply embedded in my daily routine it’s become almost unnoticeable, even if I am grimly determined never to take the thing for granted.

Equally, given that, as I am sure I have said before, it’s no miracle cure and I don’t want it to affect my identity as someone with a hearing loss. (I still need the free bus pass, after all.)

This summer, I went back to Oxford for my six-month appointment and passed all the various hearing tests with such flying colours my smugness quickly became unbearable.

From hearing around 10% of a stream of random words through a speaker, I’ve gone with the implant to being able to catch something like 75%.

Sadly, I wasn’t able to see the lovely Emma, my speech therapist, on the same day. But she caught up with me via video call. I think I now have just one appointment with her before I am on my own, abandoned to my fate.

“You were so nervous when I first saw you,” she says. I remember. The tears, the tantrums, the hysterical wailing as Emma’s face peered patiently from my screen and the implant slithered all over my head like an eel. The complete inability to twist the battery back into place.

Anyway, again I passed all her exercises in sickening manner.

In other news, I have been thinking about moving house. So I was speaking online to an estate agent or mortgage adviser, and explained that I didn’t have the confidence for a lengthy telephone conversation, that I had a hearing loss.

“Oh,” he typed. “I am sorry to hear that.”

Sorry to hear that? Sorry to hear that? Have I just lost a close family member or something? Been given six months to live? Won free tickets to see Jim Davidson live in Aldershot? To be fair, I explained why his comment was infuriating and he apologized, but it quite ruined my evening.

But it’s not all bad. The other Saturday evening, as my constant companion was partaking of my finest lentil soup, I stare at him in disgust.

“Gross. Was that a burp?”

“Yes, sorry. I thought you wouldn’t be able to hear it.”

At which, I laugh until the tea streams from my nostrils. Still – it’s funny how people forget.

But, as mentioned, the implant is still a work in progress. One video call with a Very Important (new) client recently brought me out in a light sweat.

He is talking to me from a noisy café in Amsterdam and the quality of the call isn’t great. He’s also giving me very specific instructions, to which I nod along seriously, as my panic levels steadily rise like water through the decks of the Titanic. Somehow, the fact that he was actually very pleasant merely served to make matters worse.

Even more frustratingly, another call I did almost immediately went like a dream, every last word as clear the proverbial bell.

Another client invited me on a ‘fun away day’ (three words to strike chill into anyone’s heart) this week, and it involved water ski-ing, an activity to which I am uniquely unsuited.

Although just how unsuited I’ll never really know, since when it was my turn and I was in the water sans implant, I simply couldn’t hear the instructions. So I had to stop, before the boat engine had been turned on. A shame, and mildly humiliating, but I was taken for a spin across the lake in what I can only describe as an inflated bariatric chair, pulled behind a speedboat. Marvellous.

Next week, my implant and I go on holiday for the first time together, to the Isle of Skye. Like any fledgling relationship, it’s a first trip away fraught with nerves. What happens if I am on some Scottish hillside and the rain closes in?

How do I keep it moisture-free while on the move? Do I really need to lug the drybox all the way up north (not to mention across London) by train in my case? And what about the sleeping arrangements – will it be able to share my room – will I be able to plug in the charger and drybox in the bedroom?

I’ll let you know how I get on.