A moment of deafness

'Would it be OK if I check your processors, please? '


'Both of them?' I felt my heartbeat quicken.


He nodded.


I was at the Cochlear office, in the waiting area. I'd stopped in to help out with some research. The technician wanted to make sure the processors were in full working order before we got started, which made perfect sense and seemed a logical, professional thing to do.


But I was amazed at the feelings of panic it stirred up. I'd only be in silence for about five minutes. I spend a longer time in silence every day, whenever I shower. Six minutes. OK, seven minutes. Alright, alright. (I'm hearing Jase's voice in my head.) About 10 minutes. ;-)


But this moment was different because I was out in public. Near strangers. As I handed him my processors and sadly watched him walk away, I felt immediately vulnerable. All the emotions I used to feel came rushing back.


I sat nervously on the edge of the seat, in the waiting area. There were people wandering by. Some smiled at me. I smiled back but didn't meet their eyes, willing them not to talk to me. You are being ridiculous, I told myself. Of all places, this is not somewhere where you need to worry about being deaf.

I wondered how long it had been. Three minutes? Four? I checked my phone for the time. Nope. About one. I jumped slightly as somebody walked past my chair. Where the heck had they come from? I noticed the entrance slowly shutting. Oh. Normally I would've relied on the little click of the door to know that someone was coming in. Or I would have heard the glass door brush against the carpet softly. I frowned.

I felt myself shrinking in my seat in an attempt to blend in with the background as much as possible, hoping people wouldn't see me. What are you afraid of, anyway? I asked myself. So you have to tell somebody that you can't hear them. So what? I felt my stomach flutter. Yep. I remembered why. It was the embarrassment that came with looking stupid. That I, a grown, educated woman could not partake in a simple conversation with the polite person in front of them. And no matter how much I used to tell myself it was for a physiological reason, and no matter how understanding or sympathetic the other person was, my pride always took a blow in situations like that.

I was very quick to leap off the chair when the technician came back and I thankfully put the processors back on. He smiled and waited patiently for me to connect them, before conversing with me.

I felt the world envelop me once more. As soon as I had sound again, the anxiety disappeared. I felt confident. Within seconds, I heard the buzzing of the fluorescent lights above me, the hum of a nearby computer fan, distant voices down the hall, footsteps, the elevator ding in the foyer outside. I knew exactly where I was again. And I felt like I belonged there.

But I thought about those five minutes of silence a lot after that. How quickly those old feelings had come back. How tense I had felt sitting there. How petrified I'd been. How vulnerable I'd felt.

Every night, when I take off the processors, I feel a little sad. But the silence reminds me that my ability to hear is a gift – one that I should never take for granted – and I feel immediately grateful. Having had a scary little reminder of what my life was like before, I can confidently say that those feelings of gratitude have been ramped up now.