Hearing Loss Is No Laughing Matter (Except When It Is)

         I suspect everybody who’s suffered hearing loss has a funny anecdote. Well, funny in retrospect at least.

For me, probably the most embarrassing and humbling (and funny) incident occurred roughly halfway between my overnight hearing failure and my first cochlear implant operation seven months later. I was communicating during this period by email or text — or with a steno pad and a pen.  I got to the door of my office at the University of Georgia journalism school one workday morning and realized I didn’t have my key. In fact, I didn’t have my whole key chain. I got the receptionist to let me into my space, put my backpack down, and hiked back up the long, steep hill to the UGA ramp where I park. 

           I climbed the stairs to the third floor, and there sat my old Mazda. Running. I could see a light stream of exhaust fumes coming out the tailpipe.

I ran to the car, pulled on the front door handle. Locked. I barked a long string of expletives I could not hear. I had apparently gotten distracted when I was getting out of the car. Not being able to hear the warning beeper, let alone the engine, I had instinctively flipped the door lock and walked away.

      I’m a longtime AAA member, but I couldn’t call for assistance.  Couldn’t hear the dispatcher. Couldn’t text them either.  AAA doesn’t do texting.  I texted my wife, Marty, but she didn’t reply. I remembered she had gone to a medical appointment. 

        I walked back down the hill to the journalism school, sheepishly told a colleague what had happened and asked if she could drive me to my house to get my spare keys. We drove, of course, in silence.

        I had no door key to my house, either, but there was a possibility. Our house, like so many houses in hilly Athens, is built on an incline. The front of the house rests on solid ground, the back on stilts, 18 feet high. We have a deck off the back of the house, a deck for which there are no stairs. There is a sliding glass door to the deck. I asked my colleague to wait. I dragged a garbage can alongside a corner post of the deck, turned the receptacle over, climbed on top of it. From there I was able to reach a cross beam. I pulled myself up and began to shinny up toward the railing. It was like being a kid on a jungle gym – the maneuver, not me. I found myself using muscles and contorting my body in ways it hadn’t been contorted in decades. I would be feeling it for days.

         I managed to drag myself up and over the railing. The sliding door wasn’t locked, thank God. I found the spare keys, changed clothes – my khakis and shirt were filthy from the climb – and zipped out the door to my colleague’s car. Ten minutes later, he dropped me off by the parking ramp. I trotted upstairs, unlocked my car, turned it off. Then I restarted it briefly so I could look at the fuel gauge. I had burned about a quarter tank. I took some comfort in knowing I was still getting pretty decent mileage.

What’s your story?