Ear, ear...

The healing power of strangers

I’m not sure my acceptance of the woowoo world (deep though it is) extends quite as far as actual angel encounters, but every now and then specific strangers do seem to cross your path at exactly the right moment.

One such event has just happened to me.

First, to put it in context: for the past year I’ve been struggling with my hearing, to the point now where I am fully deaf in my right ear. It’s so not fun.

And adding to the non fun, it was caused by my beloved sea swimming.

There is an ongoing scandal here in the UK, that since the water companies were privatised in 1986 – to the point we now have the most privatised water system in the world – they have put shareholder profit above all else.

While paying themselves mahoosive salaries, one of the things the vampire CEOs of these companies have been doing is pumping raw sewage into the rivers and the sea.

Without warning and pretty much whenever they feel like it.

So, one day last August I went for a lovely sea swim, without first checking on the Surfers Against Sewage app and inadvertently put my head under a sea bobbing with poos and wees.

I didn’t realise what had happened until I seemed to develop an ear infection, which seemed weird. Considering I left kindergarten a while ago.

I went to see my GP and the first thing she said was: ‘Are you a sea swimmer?’

I said I was and she replied that she was seeing about seven ear infections a week from it.

Antiobiotics cleared up the pain and pus, but my hearing was weird and a referral to an ENT specialist revealed that the infection had caused a perforated ear drum and associated deafness.

In June I had surgery to patch the tympanum, but it hasn’t worked, so I’m still deaf in that ear. Even more deaf than before the op.

As the hearing in my right ear was already compromised by radiotherapy I had to my head thirty years ago, I am living, like Joni Mitchell’s wonderful song about Beethoven, in a bell jar.

It’s really boring not being able to hear what people in shops are saying to you. Social situations make me grumpy, because it’s so tiring straining to hear what everyone’s saying and missing out on the fun and jokes. And as for work scenarios, it’s traumatic. Shudder.

The other thing that’s hard to process is how people react to it. Of course, most are nice and do their best and speak up – although sometimes actually shouting, which is both mortifying and doesn’t help.

Others get impatient and irritated with you and don’t hide it.

Then there is the most mystifying group – the ones who make fun of you. Total strangers, silently mouthing words at you, after you tell them you have difficulty hearing, thinking they are being hilarious.

It has given me a tiny insight into what it must be like to be a disabled person. Flipping heck.

So, that’s the background and here’s what happened today.

A lovely young man arrived to sort out a problem with our home wifi. He had large earbuds in and while I did think it was a bit odd that he left them in, I assumed they were for his phone and maybe something to do with the job.

He was unusually quietly spoken and in the end, I had to say, ‘I’m really sorry, but I have a hearing issue, so I’ll have to come and stand closer to you or I can’t hear anything…’

He immediately smiled and pointed to his earbuds, then told me his story.

Out of the blue, he’d developed a condition much more distressing than mine, where his hearing would fluctuate from being compromised – to being super loud. Unbearably so, someone talking normally was like a plane taking off in his head.

It took him a long time to get even a medical acceptance of what he was experiencing, let alone a diagnois, but eventually he got help, which is via those ear buds.

We stood there, smiling sadly at each other, feeling a true kinship.

I mentioned the weird ways people react and he totally understood – and it really meant a lot to me to be able to talk about it, to someone else who has experienced the same thing.

Although, in fact, it had been much worse for him, because he’s young and prejudice against young people with disabilities seems to be much harsher.

While openly irritated, at least people aren’t surprised when an old bag like me is deaf, but as a young man, people he thought were friends started calling him ‘loser’ and openly made fun of his ear buds.

We ended up having a long talk and he shared a lot with me, about how the isolation caused by that reaction affected his mental health and how he has overcome that.

He said it has made him a better person and he now wants to use what he’s learned to help other young people coming to terms with a disability.

Certainly, hearing what he’s been through, helped me put my own situation into context.

It was a pretty amazingly deep exchange to have with a total stranger who has come to your house to fix your wifi. And very healing.

So, if that makes him an angel for an afternoon, I’ll take that.

(POST SCRIPT: There is hope for my lugholes. I’m having another operation next year to try and fix the eardrum a different way. And I’m getting hearing aids.)