The life of an underground potato

In so many words, several sense perception specialists like Diane Ackerman and Merleau Ponty have articulated in one way or another that the loss of hearing can be compared to that of an underground potato. Ackerman notes that the inability to hear is like being cut off from from the worlds daily commerce, "as if you were a root buried beneath the soil." Whether its a root or a spud, it seems as though the general consensus of hearing loss is both isolating and condemning. I live with one of these underground potatoes.

My dad developed tinnitus when I was in middle school. His first signs of hearing loss began with a constant ringing in his ears.

(heres a link that shows the different sounds and kinds of tinnitus: https://youtu.be/0rT2Q82Q1E4 )

Shortly after being diagnosed, he received his first pair of hearing aids at age 47. The decline of his hearing since then has been gradual but irreversible. Now he requires hearing aids that sit deeper in the canal of his ear and have a wire that extends outside to act as the receptor for what external ear hairs would normally detect. Naturally, my dad holds harbored frustrations toward his handicap in hearing. He doesn't describe it like being a potato buried underground, but the same feeling of isolation affects him on a daily basis.

I asked him recently about what his experience was like and how he's coped with his gradual hearing loss. He told me that, surprisingly, there are a few advantages, although they don't outweigh the negatives. For one, he was always bothered by background noises that distracted him while he was working. If his office at work or his family at home is too loud, he simply takes out his hearing aids and continues working without hindrances. On business trips, he sometimes has to stay in hotels and the outside noises at night keep him awake. All he has to do is take out his hearing aids, and he gets the quiet he needs to fall asleep. So as far as distracting sounds go, he appreciates having some control over what he hears. The negatives, though, are not worth the mere absence of background noises.

My dad's number one grievance with hearing loss is the inability to have conversations with people. A lot of the time, he has to pretend he understands something when he doesn't because he doesn't want to ask the talking party to repeat themselves so many times. To avoid that, he has to gauge other factors like body language and expression to emit a response that would seem appropriate to what that person might be saying. Obviously, sometimes this doesn't work, and the other person feels annoyed or frustrated that he either didn't hear them or was just pretending to listen. Because my dad is so empathic, he doesn't get upset when people get frustrated with him, even though he can't do anything about his quality of hearing. This is the most isolating part about hearing loss for him.

 While hearing aids can alleviate part of this problem, they don't have an ability to turn some sounds up and some sounds down. At loud places like concerts or bars or social events, my dad gets overwhelmed because his hearing aids amplify everything. There's so much noise that he still can't hear what he's trying to listen to, so he resorts to taking them out and experiencing a muffled soundscape instead, which is no better. I asked him if he had to pick one sense to live without, what would he choose? My dad immediately said smell, because it didn't keep him from being able to be independent or communicate with people. It was interesting that my dad looks at senses as a means to something else. He doesn't enjoy sight simply because he likes to see beautiful things or hearing because he couldn't live without listening to his favorite song; he thinks of senses in the way of survival. It's important for him to be functional without the aid or help of someone else.

It's hard to imagine what sense we love the most or the one we would live without because it's like comparing apples to oranges. They all give us unique input that can't be translated by any arbitrary sense. Each one has its own avenue, its own way of transmuting outside reality into something we can process; its difficult to imagine what it would be like to cut off one of those communicators. For me, seeing what hearing loss is like for a person I am close to makes me more conscious of what I can do now to preserve my hearing. Listening to music on the way to class and hearing my teammates communicate on the field is something I value highly and use as an outlet for stress and frustration. Knowing that hearing loss is a possibility if you damage your eardrums enough, I try to revel in the gift of hearing and protect it with being mindful of volume.