My dad, if you ask him, doesn’t struggle with hearing loss. It’s the people around him who are speaking too softly. How inconsiderate.
Funny thing is, those same people – me, my brothers, mum, his best friend Bruce, the newsreaders on telly have, until recently, spoken perfectly audibly.
These days, if I want him to hear me, I have to be in front of him (preferably slightly to his left). Go to his place and the TV volume is turned up so high the neighbours can hear it. When he’s talking on the phone, he shouts as though it’s not him who’s losing his hearing. He sounds rude and impatient and that’s awful, because he’s anything but.
Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Australian Hearing. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.
My dad is the nicest, gentlest man on the planet. People describe him as ‘a true gentleman’. Or they did – and that’s what worries us. Mum, especially, because she’s the one who has to live with it, who has to apologise to the neighbours about the TV volume and smooth things over when he misses chunks of conversation.
Just last week, she told me they’d been to lunch with ‘the crew’, as she calls their group of sixty-something pals, and it hadn’t gone well.
“Dad’s really upset,” she said. “Bruce was telling a story about their trip to Melbourne for the tennis and dad kept asking him to speak up and Bruce said, ‘Did you forget your hearing trumpet, mate.’ Everybody laughed but your father’s really hurt.”
My heart broke a little but mum and I both know Bruce had a point. Dad knows it too. He’s losing his hearing and it’s annoying not only for him but for the people around him and our worry is if he doesn’t address it, his quality of life will start to suffer. The invitations won’t completely dry up but they’ll get fewer and become less enjoyable.
So I know it, mum knows it, my brothers, neighbours and friends know it. Dad suffers hearing loss and won’t admit it. Why?
Simple really: dad believes hearing loss is an old person’s problem and he sees himself as anything but old. And why not? He might be 68 but he still plays tennis (best of five sets, thank you very much, none of this girlie three set business), he still does some consulting for the company he managed for 30 years and he laughs at the suggestion he pay someone to clean his guttering for him.
No wonder dad bristles at (even the most delicately put) suggestion he might see someone about his hearing.
I really wish he would though. Much as I hate to admit it, I’m starting to find conversations with dad tedious. I’m keeping things simple – especially on the phone and that feels patronising and wrong.
His hearing loss isn’t just affecting him, it’s getting all of us down. He’s missing out on so much and as a consequence, we’re missing him.
This video would be funny… if it wasn’t so scarily accurate.
Click through this galleries of celebs who suffer from hearing loss:
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Top Comments
So important to get it checked early - hearing loss ignored can lead to dementia as your brain loses the ability to process syllables, words, sentences etc. My mother put it off for years and years and even now with hearing aids up full blast she struggles to UNDERSTAND the words...pretty scary. She can hear you talking but if you don't over enunciate and pronounce everything clearly she cannot understand what you are saying...while hearing you perfectly.
My mother lost her hearing as a side effect of some medication and my father was a gunner in the Korean war. You can hear their tv from the car outside the house. Dad wont accept its a problem and Mum wont wear her hearing aid because of the feedback and it picks up all the background noise at the same volume as what she it trying to her. It is infuriating as you just can't talk to her at all.
Then you need to take her to the hearing aid place she goes to and get new ones for her, you can get all types of hearing aids. Some are much better than others. my grandfather has this box thing that he can put on the table and it catches what people say and send it to his hearing aids :)
She's had at least three types already. I think the problem is that she doesn't try to get used to them and just takes them out. Understandable when my dad has the TV up at ACDC concert volume all day