Numbness
I beg your pardon? 50th hearing aid
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Our writer was only in her early 40s when she felt so numb. It quickly became clear to her that if she wanted to stay young, she had to wear a hearing aid.
by Bettina Klee
Anyone who knows me well knows: If I smile unusually well, with the corners of my mouth gently pointing upwards, then I have no idea what it is about. That happens more often. For example, when someone makes a funny remark in passing. I can tell from the pitch that it is meant to be fun. But the words? No idea. Or just an approximate. But it’s not enough to laugh heartily or to answer witty answers.
Only grandmothers are not allowed to hear well
Even worse: the editorial conference. Boss (left of me) jokes, graphic artist (right of me) counters, everyone laughs – and my ears chase the sound waves back and forth across the room to catch up with the punch line. Mostly in vain.
Of course I could, “I beg your pardon?” ask. A second time too. But three times? Then people reliably switch to grandma-hears-bad mode, answering slowly and clearly. The compassionate subtext “You are really difficult to understand!” is audible even to me.
Grandmothers are not allowed to hear well, they are even loved for it. But early 40s? That’s when it started for me, after a sudden hearing loss. As if people were suddenly speaking in a foreign language that I only understood bits of words. “Yesterday the guy mumbled, mumbled, and then in all seriousness mumbled, mumbled, with the saxophone, mumbled, mumbled …” But a hearing aid? “You don’t need to. You have the party syndrome,” said my ENT doctor. Sounds sexy, but disdainfully means that hardly anything gets through to me if there are background noises. So no girls’ evenings in loud bars. No radio at family breakfast. At 160 on the autobahn and have a chat? Not if the journey should be emotionally accident-free. Because: Understanding nothing makes you aggressive. And someone who keeps asking questions, too. I noticed my children’s eyes rolling, even if they tried hard to hide it from me.
Grandma accessory hearing aid due!
My strategy back then: I switched off in between to save energy. It doesn’t matter if I don’t hear every word while small talk about the perfect asparagus risotto in the canteen – the main thing is that I can listen as soon as the gossip comes to the table in a lowered voice. If the context was known, I corrected the hearing gaps. But if someone sprinkled out of the blue English words into German sentences, I was lost – until my brain switched its ear to English.
I was sure that I would hide my handicap skillfully. Until my husband gave me a book for the hard of hearing. That was bold of him, because at the time he was not yet my husband, but urgently wanted to be. So he had to be seriously alarmed. A little later, at a party, an acquaintance was indignant: “What’s the matter with you? I’ve already spoken to you three times, and you don’t even react.” I understood.
So a hearing aid. A delicate time, because 50 was in sight, so grandma accessories are a very bad keyword. But for me the only chance to stay young. “Cool,” said my relieved children, because I now wear Bluetooth devices in dynamic anthracite that I control via an app on my cell phone.
Back in life
However, I don’t necessarily need some new sound experiences, such as the juicy smacking of flip-flops on the parquet. Or tail wind that sweeps with full force on the hearing aid’s microphones behind the ears. But what an uplifting feeling, no longer “how was that?” to have to ask, to hit a smack ball at punchline ping-pong in the conference and finally to be really present again. Inspired by this I’m-back-in-life mood, I finally strutted to the cinema. Expectant, because I would understand every movie whisper again, I threw a handful of nuts into my mouth. Rookie mistake! The chewing sound made a deafening noise.
Spoiler Corona has complicated the situation for me. With a headset in the home office, I don’t need the hearing aids, even more for confidential live calls from a distance of two meters. Glasses plus hearing aids plus mask are quite a burden on the ears. On the other hand: almost all of them are now hard of hearing due to the mumbling masks.
BETTINA KLEE sometimes lets music play on her hearing aids at dreary events. Nobody notices.
This article originally appeared in Barbara issue no. 06/2021.