As my husband got out of bed the other day to go to the loo as I was getting ready for work, I made a snidey comment about him not saying good morning to me.
(“…and a good morning to you!” or something of that nature, you know the sort of thing.) He defended himself, hurt: “I did say good morning! I did!” I snorted. “Well, it must have been sotto voce…” This is a good representation of married life, by the way – thirty years next month.
“I’m a bit worried about your hearing, why don’t you take a test?”
This is a sore spot for me, ever since the smoke alarm debacle several months ago, with my ongoing tinnitus a daily reminder of the episode. I’d been toying with the idea of getting a hearing test, but could never find the time. I remember when we were worried about our oldest daughter’s hearing many years ago, before we discovered she’d just inherited her father’s selective deafness. We got referred to the hospital to have her hearing checked, as she was only a toddler at the time so needed special equipment. This involved sitting in a soundproof office, and then having noises played on one side of the room or another, followed by a toy clown popping up out of a hidden box on the same side. The theory was, the child would look to where the noise was coming from if they could hear it, to see the clown pop up. I was allowed to sit behind her for emotional support. The problem was, every time the clown appeared I would collapse with nervous giggles. Samantha paid no notice to me, too used to me being weird and inappropriate I suppose, but the hearing technician was quite dismayed. After several minutes I begged to be let out of the room, in agony with helpless laughter. The technician said she’d never had a parent behave this way in all the years of doing this type of testing. I was mortified. Was it the memory of this episode that was making me procrastinate about getting my own hearing tested, all these years later? But then Simon told me I could do my own hearing test, using my Apple EarPods, that I paid so much for and never use.
So this morning, I’ve done the test. It was frankly very alarming that after the first few quite loud tones, the rest of the testing time seemed to be spent in near silence. Nothing was as loud as the ringing my own ears were producing so I was quite nervous. However, after five minutes, the test was done, and the results are very reassuring.
Yes, there must have been damage done, as evidenced by the tinnitus, but it’s not at a level to significantly affect my hearing function. It’s a great relief. Hearing loss is a risk factor for dementia in later life, and I need all the protection I can get as far as brain health is concerned.