When I was born I had a pinched nerve, as a result my smile is crooked, my right eye doesn’t open as wide as my left & my right eyebrow doesn’t raise at all, I’ve never really minded, well not since I was a teenager & got a lot of ‘wow, you curl your lip just like Billy Idol’ which was not always a flattering thing to hear! I’m not sure if my hearing problems started then but I think they did, I can remember lying in bed in my crib watching my mother walk across the room & I couldn’t hear her walking or what she was saying until I lifted my head off the pillow (yes, back in those days we had pillows in our cribs! I also-gasp- never had a car-seat! though I had something called a car bed, There’s also a story about me rolling off the back seat of our Volkswagen bug onto the floor as an infant but being so tightly wrapped in blankets -VW bugs have next to no heat unless you count the not very useful ankle burner- that I wasn’t hurt at all.) I can remember talking on the phone with my best friend when I was young (like 6 or 7 ) & not being able to shift the phone to my right ear when my left got tired.

There’s also the ear infection issue, when I was 8 or 9 I had something like 3 or 4 types of ear infections on top of one another due to swimming all day every day at a neighborhood swimming spot (my mother was the director of the park that year so while she was working my brother & I swam, swam, swam. I have no doubt that when I am diagnosed with skin cancer in later years that it will date back to the multiple blistering sunburns I received that year (were there 2 summers she worked there? I can’t remember, maybe) Either my Mother or Grandmother, in later years, suggested the hearing problem may have been from the infections but I doubt it, simply because a lot of my memories of not being able to hear things date back before that time. Like as a 2 or 3 year old my mother teasing me by referring to me as a ‘what what bird’ because I apparently said ‘what?’ all the time. & how if it was noisy at night due to company or the tv being too loud I could roll over & put my ‘good ear’ in the pillow & still fall asleep.

In later years this came in handy with loud, partying roommates & neighbors, it comes in handy now when 17 has friends over & they want to watch a dvd on my living room tv (our only dvd player is in the living room & my bedroom is right next to the living room) or when they’re up & talking late into the night, teenagers never whisper- sometimes it’s hard to just get them to talk instead of scream. The problem with it is I can’t stay on my good ear all night so if I fall asleep on it a few hours I’ll wake up & have to change to the other side & the rule is if I wake up & the teenage drama queens are still at it they have to shut it down or 17 does not have friends over again for at least 2 weeks.

For years my mother didn’t believe I was deaf in one ear, she said I was exaggerating it & making a big deal out of nothing, these were years in which my father was mostly unemployed & we didn’t have health insurance so nothing was done about it one way or another, when I was 15 my aunt took me to the doctors because she was going to help me lose weight while I was living with her & my uncle taking care of my cousins for them & they tested my hearing & found me to definitely have a lot of tone deafness. Once again though, it never went any further than that. No hearing aids, no further testing.

I’ve always been fascinated by people who are more deaf than I am, the ones who have to wear 2 hearing aids one on each ear & the ones who wear only 1 which is, I suppose, what I should be doing. I worked with a man who’s wife & daughter were both deaf & had to wear hearing aids, he got them both jobs with us & had a lot of fun with the other guys who worked there (it was a pizza restaurant) teasing his wife on her first day, at night after the place was closed she & I were cleaning up the dining room & she was gathering all the salt & pepper shakers to be cleaned off & refilled in the back, the 3 guys on duty were cleaning out front by the cash register & front counter & M all of a sudden yelled ‘incoming’ & began firing all the salt & pepper shakers at her husband & the other 2 guys!

I will never forget how surprised I was my first day at cosmetology school when I turned my head to someone at the lunch table & said ‘what?’ & she immediately pointed to my right ear & said ‘you’re deaf in that ear aren’t you?’ I’d never had anyone notice that quickly & often people I’ve known for years don’t know at all unless I tell them. It turned out G was deaf in one ear too & though she had a hearing aid didn’t wear it much. She was a lifesaver that year, I found out about 4 weeks after starting school that I was pregnant with miss 10 & G gave me a ride to & from school every day once the weather got bad (I only lived about 4 blocks away from school but it was in Haverhill MA & the ‘hill’ part of that city was very aptly named- it wasn’t that hard to go to school down hill but to get home from school was up a very steep hill) We were very broke back then & G often bought me candy bars at break time without my asking, tossing them to me & saying ‘feed the baby!’ as she walked by. When I had miss 10 I left school for a few months & by the time I got back G had graduated but I’ve always remembered her kindness & that it started because we both couldn’t hear as well as most people!

There are certain people who’s voices just fall into a register which I have to strain to hear. Unfortunately my 10 year old’s voice is in that register & my aunt by marriage who shares 10’s date of birth does too, although I rarely see that aunt any longer I did see her at my Grandmother’s funeral in December & sure enough, half of what she said to me was lost.

I admit to some damage to my hearing via loud music & I still believe if it’s too loud you’re too old but I also think it doesn’t need to be loud all the time! In the car on the way to & from work I do play the radio loud but I notice that when I use my mp3 player (I only use one of the ear-buds since the other isn’t doing anything for me anyway) I don’t want to have that very loud right there in my ear.

Driving in the car with other people presents problems, if I’m driving, the radio has to be low & the drivers side window has to be closed in order for me to hear my passenger speak something which miss 17 loses patience with very quickly, not that she’s known for her patience in any situation her aggravation with my inability to hear her is huge & I’m sure extends back over her whole life. I admit to a little bit of convenient hearing when I’m being asked for money or permission I don’t want to give, I don’t always hear the request until they actually shake my shoulder! Which can be listed as a plus just like being able to be oblivious to people making noise around me while I’m asleep.

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