By Jessica Lasser
As a speech pathologist and communication coach, part of my job is teaching communication workshops for people with hearing loss. I teach strategies to maximize communication in the face of hearing challenges. However, as a (relatively) young person with normal hearing, I didn’t expect to need to use these strategies myself anytime soon. That all changed on the morning of March 26, 2019. I woke up with symptoms of dizziness and fullness in my right ear that felt like an ear infection. I had difficulty hearing out of my right ear, and I experienced tinnitus that was like a delayed echo in that ear. By visiting my ear, nose, and throat doctor, I learned that these were the symptoms of labyrinthitis, a viral infection in my inner ear. The fullness I was experiencing was a result of sudden sensorineural hearing loss in my right ear. For the next two weeks, I had to manage my hearing loss symptoms using the strategies that I have been teaching.
When I had hearing loss, I experienced many of the communication challenges that my patients have described to me. In the presence of a group of people having multiple conversations simultaneously, I felt like I was swimming underwater. I could hear everyone talking, but I couldn’t make out what anyone was saying. When I went out to dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday, I strained to hear my friends’ voices above the background noise of the restaurant. Throughout the week, I had to listen extra hard to provide feedback to my speech therapy patients. Did this patient’s vocal quality improve since last week? I wasn’t sure because my hearing had changed since last week. My ears were straining to hear tiny differences in sound. By the end of the week, I was exhausted.
I quickly learned that my poor communication habits that I could get away with the previous week no longer worked for me. I needed to consciously use the communication strategies that I teach to my patients. I got face to face with the people I was talking to. I reduced background noise before starting my conversations. I confirmed what I thought I heard when something didn’t make sense to me. Often, I heard wrong, resulting in entertaining mistakes. I politely asked for repetitions and was as specific as I could be. I advocated for myself by taking breaks throughout my day. I shut my door and turned off my lights to give my body some time to recharge and readjust. Instead of listening to music or a podcast, I drove home in silence at the end of my day to give my ears a rest. These strategies did not solve my hearing loss, but they did help me to navigate the multitude of communication situations I found myself in throughout the day.
I am happy and extremely grateful to report that all my symptoms that I experienced at some point during my bout with labyrinthitis (including nausea, dizziness, and tinnitus) have subsided. Most importantly, with the help of steroid medication, my hearing has returned to normal. However, I will not soon forget my experience with hearing loss. It taught me to have empathy for my patients.
My feelings of fatigue, isolation, and frustration were real and intense. I feel lucky that I knew what to do to help myself communicate the best that I could in the face of my hearing loss symptoms. I will carry this new knowledge of what it actually feels like to have hearing loss with me. I am hoping that it will make me a more empathetic clinician who can better relate to my patients with hearing loss.