My Journey with Hearing Loss

I have written this for my Facebook friend Kat.

Kat,

Let me apologize right now for the long diatribe I have written. Please, just take some time and read my words. I am not one to put on any airs, I am just being me so excuse my blunt language. These words come from decades of experience and a heart of compassion for you and what you are going through. They are written just for you. Here goes! ❤

My Journey with Hearing Loss 

By Andrea Tadpole-Broussard 

I have dealt with hearing loss since I was 24 years old. I am 57 now...33 years I have been dealing with it. I am not going to lie, when I realized I had lost my hearing it was scary as fuck! I lost my hearing due in part to it being hereditary. My mom and grandma had hearing loss. My hearing loss was gradual at first and I naturally and unconsciously compensated by reading lips, but I did not know it. I just thought I did not pay good enough attention when someone was talking and that was why I said huh or what a lot when I could not see someone talking. I did not realize it at the time though. I guess I just adapted the best I could over the years. Never in a million years would I have thought I could not hear!

Then when I got sober and started college a professor told me to get my hearing checked. He thought I might have hearing loss. Long story short, I saw an ENT doctor. He was the one who made me realize I read lips. He did surgery on my left ear, the one with the worst loss. He promised that I would be able to hear again. The surgery went bad, my eardrum fell apart when he started the surgery and a 2 hour surgery turned into 8 hours! When I woke up I had the most HORRIBLE RINGING in my left ear, so loud it drowned everything else out. It has been like that ever since. I went from moderate loss in my left ear to severe to profound loss. I have moderate loss in my right. 

Ear surgery left me with horrible vertigo for several weeks to the point I had chairs stationed all over my house so I could sit after a few steps before blacking out. It was a nightmare! I had a 3 and 5 year old I was raising in the middle of all this. I had the surgery done during Spring break and was determined to not miss class. So, I literally hopped from chair to chair to my car every morning. As long as I was not walking I was okay so I could drive to school. 

A classmate would meet me at my car with a lawn chair and unfold it so I could sit down every few steps all the way in to class. To this day I do not know why I never thought to get a wheelchair. I can laugh today about it. I am sure I was a crazy sight to see! I just kept thinking I cannot let this get me down no matter how scared I was inside. It took several weeks for the vertigo to subside. However, I still have a slight balance issue. It feels like I have been walking with one shoe on and one shoe off for a little while, I am always just a little off kilter. It has become my "normal" over the years. It is what it is.

I did get hearing aids in both ears after I recovered from surgery and it helped me communicate. I have worn them every day ever since, but it is not at all like having real hearing. Most people think you just slap hearing aids in your ears and the world is back to normal. Oh no...NOT TRUE! 

The first time I wore my hearing aids my audiologist told me if I did not know what the sound was so go find it. I went straight to my regular AA meeting and I kept hearing this weird noise. It was over by the coffee pot...this was back in the days of percolators, way before Keurig. I got up during the meeting because the noise was driving me crazy. Here I am about to crawl under the table where coffee pot is and a friend came up and asked me if I was ok. I asked what the rhythmic noise was. He said the coffee pot! I had never heard it before!! It blew my mind. I also never knew a skirt hitting the back of your legs makes noise. It took me forever to figure that one out. I have a plethora of stories about noises I never knew of. 

Honestly, today I give myself what I call "noise free" time once in awhile and leave my hearing aids out. Sometimes my brain just needs a rest. It takes my brain alot more effort to hear and translate sounds than it does a normal person. People with normal hearing take it all for granted. 

The world and alot of people in it can be very cruel, especially when someone has a disability that is invisible. Hearing loss is invisible. What makes it even more difficult for me is that I speak real good because I did not lose my hearing till my young adulthood. People accuse me all the time of lying about my hearing impairment. They say stupid crap like, "You have selective hearing. You only hear what you want to hear." What is even worse is when I explain that I am hearing impaired and read lips so please look at me when you talk and keep your hands away from your mouth people act stupid. They either talk real slow as if I have a mental problem or yell real loud. Neither of those work. What really pisses me off is when someone tries to "test" my hearing in case I am faking. 

Oh, and do not get me started on the nightmare hell of masks now! You would think I asked a cashier if I could infect them with COVID19 when I asked them to either pull down their mask for a minute so I can read their lips or please write what their saying. I swear the only reason I do not bitch slap this one cashier for rolling her eyes at me is because I do not want to go to jail!

While I am talking about dislikes, I HATE SCOOTERS! I cannot hear them! Most people who operate them are idiots anyway. I have been run over by them, caused them to wreck...it is so bad downtown I just do not go there anymore. Bicycle riders aka Lance Armstrong wannabes have ruined walks on the river for me too and for the same reason. I CANNOT HEAR THEM! I stopped going there too. I just got tired of having people scream, "What the hell is wrong with you? Are you deaf are something?!" Yeah...I am.

Now that I have spewed all the negativity let me tell you this. Just because I live with hearing loss every day, that does not mean I have stopped living. My hearing loss has made me more in tune with those I love. I remember thinking I was not going to be able to be a good mom to my son and daughter after my surgery. I thought I would never be able to complete college or work. I had a million different fears going on. Yet, God kept bringing angels across my path. 

My family loved me regardless and found a way through it all with me. I was so worried I would not hear my children in the middle of the night if they needed me. Yet, the mother heart in me was always there and woke me up. My kids came out ok and now they have their own children. And yes, other than motherhood, being a grandmother is one of the most awesome things in my life!!

My AA sponsor told me when I lost my hearing, "Andrea, we are all on this journey together. We are all on this same path. Some of us are a couple of steps ahead, others way ahead and still others a few steps behind. We all a have light. Some lights are bigger, some lights are smaller. Right now you have a pen light, I have a small flash light, my sponsor has a big lantern flashlight and the newcomer behind you has a match that is about to burn out. We all have to reach for eachother and share our lights and help eachother stay on the path. That is part of paying forward. If we do that we can all get to the One Light together." I have never forgotten her words. Here I was a newly sober, scared, crazy deaf girl. Yet, anytime I was afraid she would grab my hand and shine her brighter light for me and help me keep walking on the path.

Over the years I have accomplished a lot of things that I never thought I would without my hearing. I finally went back to college. I went to TU and did my undergraduate in Fine Art. One of the requirements was to take a foreign language for a year. My advisor tried to force me to take ASL because she did not think I could learn any other language due to my hearing loss. I demanded that I be allowed to take Spanish. I passed it with flying colors just because she said I could not do it! I graduated summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA in 2005. I also got my MBA from AIU in 2009 with a 4.0 GPA. I am not telling you this to brag. Degrees do not impress me. I am telling you this to try to make you understand that hearing loss may feel like the end of the world to you right now but it is not. God has a plan and He will carry you through.

Before I forget....MUSIC! I love music! I also love to dance and I hide in the shower and sing! I figured something out a few years ago. I had gotten a new pair of hearing aids and they had a customized setting for music. I went to this bar in the Pearl District the first night I had them on and stood right in front of the stage and heard a band called Cosmosis! It was like a holy, spiritual experience for me!! I wish I could have that time back.and I sure wish the guitarist Matt was still with us today. I got the courage to dance there and would watch the drummer to keep the beat. Just another bit of joy I got back that I never thought I would have again because of hearing loss. 

I shared all this to try to tell you that YOU ARE NOT ALONE! In a perfect world, I hope and pray your hearing comes back. If does not happen, it might feel like the end of the world but it is not. There is hope! 

You may only have a pen light on this hearing loss path but I have a flashlight and there are others with even bigger lights ahead of me. I am not pushy person. I do not force myself in someone's life or circle. However, I am here for you. I am a text away. I just PM'd you my cell number. You need a friend, I am here and I will walk the path with you. You are in my heart and prayers. 

In His Grip,

Andrea