Speak up! April 28, 2006
Since losing the hearing in my left ear lots of things have become difficult or uncomfortable because of the issues around hearing things and processing the sounds I hear. Some of the most mundane things are the most difficult.
Yesterday I opened a bank account for Finn at our local branch of the Bendigo. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do since he was born. The branch has glass between tellers & customers with gaps in it for them to interact. My teller seemed to be very quietly spoken and I had to ask her to repeat each question at least once - mostly 2 or 3 times. All I could hear was the woman to my right (good ear) talking to her teller. I was frustrated almost to the point of tears and there was a moment when I considered just giving up and leaving. The account got opened, but it will be a while before I go back to deposit any money.
Today I’m going to do our grocery shopping. When Mark does it he goes to the butcher, fish shop, delicatessen and fruit shop seperately, rather than buying meat, cold meats and fruit & veg at the supermarket. It’s cheaper and we believe the quality is better. I’ll probably buy everything from the supermarket, though. I find the interactions over the counter in the butcher & the deli just about impossible. The counters are too broad and the staff speak too quietly for me to clearly understand them. I never quite know what I’m agreeing to.
Now I could probably solve a lot of this by telling people I have a hearing problem, but I don’t want to. I don’t want to have to explain myself multiple times a day to people I don’t know. I also tend to forget that there’s anything wrong with my hearing until these sorts of interactions occur. And I hate that people will shout at me once they know. I actually have very good hearing. It’s just that I only have it in one ear.
Sometimes thinking about it all makes me wish that I hadn’t had the tumour removed. It was slow growing - perhaps I could have left it another year or two… But I also know that’s ridiculous. If nothing else, I’d have gone made thinking about the thing in my head.
One thing I used to do with the butcher and deli was just give them the shopping list which I had divided up shop by shop. It doesn’t solve the larger problems but it might help for this.
PS. I would far rather have to say things twice to you now than risk losing you to the tumour down the track.
this is really Mark but I am pretending to be Helen to see if I can get this to work.
I think getting rid of the tumour was the right move.
I find any service where you speak with people behind glass damn difficult to manage even with two ears that work moderately well.
I regularly have similar frustrations, and sometimes they get to me more than others. Try talking to someone through glass when they have a Southern accent. Lipreading will get you NOWHERE.