Hearing people struggle too!

I have a bit of a hangover this morning, but I’m happy.

I went to the pub last night; Rob wanted to take me out for a birthday drink and I just thought – ‘hell, I have to try harder really.’ On the way there I was surprised how calm I felt really. I hadn’t been to a pub on a Friday night for more than two years now and I didn’t go down for Christmas.

The pub in our village is much more than a drinking place and everyone from the village connects there. It’s the place where you go to know what is going on, what work is around, who needs a helping hand, you hear the gossip and relax.

Relaxing was something I couldn’t do in the past. For some reason the multiple voices played havoc with my hearing aid and not only did I have to work hard to understand people, but sooner or later the level of noise would give me tinnitus and a headache.

I still thought it was worth it. However when I lost my hearing completely I couldn’t face sitting in a corner just watching people chat and being afraid they would say something to me I couldn’t understand. But I’m in a different place now I realize, I have lost a lot of the fear and don’t panic when I don’t understand.

Last night was lovely; I was relaxed enough to notice everyone saying ‘pardon’, ‘I didn’t hear you’ and shaking their heads as to get rid of the straw in their ears. It must always have been like this, but in the past I was so busy working hard not to be different, I didn’t realize that due to the noise levels I wasn’t very different from anyone else in the room and in fact I could ‘hear’ better because I can lip read (not extremely well, but better than most hearing people).