I am so happy to be in my own quiet home. My ears actually are recovering from Christmas. My father has been going deaf for most of my life. His hearing is very bad and yes he has hearing aids. Both of my brothers have hearing problems (I think there is actually a genetic connection as most of the males in my family have had hearing problems). I on the other hand spend most of my time trying to block out the noise and ignore most of what is going on around me. (they atribute my not paying attention to bad hearing, but I am trying to shut things out). My ears are extra sensitive. I mean extra sensitive. My dad, who as you remember can barely hear anything, discovered the battery on the carbon dioxide detector was going out (I kept telling them something was beeping). So, after he put the new battery in he kept pushing the button on the dern thing and made it beep. My ears hurt so bad, and I kept yelling at him to stop - of course he couldn't hear me. My ears ached for two days.
I said something to my dog in a certain tone and he got all bent out of shape because that hurt his ears.
By this time I was about ready to lose it.
He had closed captioning on the television. I still spent half my time turning the volume down on the television.
Yet when I wanted to watch something and he decided he didn't like the show he would get all huffy and go into the other room. The volume was still low.
He got a Lawrence Welk, 3 CD set for my mom for Christmas. So he put it in the Bose player and spent most of the time asking me if they were singing to the music. No, its just the orchestra. Then he would proceed to tell me what he could hear.
After the second song, I told him I got it, but he still went on and on.
I am really sorry my dad is losing his hearing and will probably be profoundly deaf in a couple of years. I know it is not easy for him, I know someone younger than me that has gone through several ear operations and has lost his hearing. I truly understand his loss.
But he cannot understand that I hear and I hear more than he probably heard in his entire life. I am some changling born into my family.
I end up speaking louder than necessary to most people and end up getting loud because if you don't do it in my family no one hears you. I am one of those people that can speak in a roomful of people without a microphone. When you grow up with a group of people that don't hear, you tend to speak loud.
I am so loving the quiet of my house. SILENCE. No television. No radio. No one yelling the same thing four times in a row. No one spelling out words.
Complete and utter silence. I can hear the hum of the refigorator and it sounds too loud! My type of working environment.
I could never work at my parent's house unless I had the type of earphones that they used on airfields.
I love quiet.
