Several months back my mum — who isn’t far short of 80 — told me gently it was time I did something about my hearing.
What she meant, although she wouldn’t have put it quite so bluntly, was that I really should be wearing the NHS hearing aid I’ve had for 15 years or so, since a severe inner ear infection left me deaf in one ear.
To be frank, I’ve rarely used it: it’s cumbersome, clumpy and it makes me feel self-conscious. And I’m vain enough to think that, at 53, I don’t want to parade a sensory loss that we usually associate with geriatrics. Deaf? Me?
For the past decade and a bit, I’ve been blundering through life mis-hearing people, avoiding noisy parties and bustling restaurants, alienating my teenage son with my constant refrain of ‘Stop mumbling!’ and irritating my husband Max into shouting — all this rather than advertise my disability by succumbing to the wretched aid.
Claire Cisotti (pictured) said her mother told her she should do something about hearing
But when my gentle, tolerant mum, who can still hear a pin drop at 50 paces, complained she had to raise her voice several decibels and enunciate like an elocution teacher to make me hear her, I knew it was time for action.
So, opportunely, a little while before lockdown, I decided it was time for some fabulous, new-era hearing aids. I bought two pairs and, believe me, they have been a revelation.
My everyday pair, the Phonak Audeo M90-R (£2,945) are beautifully discreet and sit snugly behind my ear with a transparent wire.
Claire with her Boots audiologist. She said the hearing aid is comfortable and practically invisible
They are comfortable and practically invisible. When I first wore them to work — in those far-off days when we were still going into the office — nobody noticed I had them in.
But how I noticed! Suddenly I could hear my colleagues’ conversations. I didn’t have to laugh inanely, pretending I’d got the punch-line to a joke everyone else found uproariously funny.
Neither did I feel like an outsider or an irritant, detached from everyday chatter by an invisible disability.
With these hearing aids comes an ingenious device which looks a little like a pen. Max now carries it in his top pocket so he can talk to me from anywhere in the house.
And there’s more. An additional gadget sits in the middle of the family dinner table these days.
Claire said that the hearing aids come with an ingenious device which looks a little like a pen. Max now carries it in his top pocket so he can talk to me from anywhere in the house
With my son, Zac, 19, home from university, and his sister, Mimi, 15, back from boarding school during lockdown, it means I’m able to pick up on every nuance of the family’s conversation.
Why, I can even tune in to the arcane language of teen-speak!
Sometimes, however, now I’m working from home, pin-sharp hearing is a curse. I don’t want to listen to Zac moaning at Mimi for hogging the bathroom (I can now hear their voices from the kitchen, even when they’re on the second floor), or be assailed by their incessant requests for food.
But there’s a solution. When it all becomes too much, I can block it out by playing music via Bluetooth through my hearing aid. Selective deafness: it’s what all mums need during lockdown.
Most of the time, of course, I’m supremely grateful for my new, sharp sense of hearing. It’s goodbye muffled, indistinct world and hello clarity.
Claire said: ‘Communication is a vital bulwark against loneliness in these times of social isolation, so for those of us with impaired hearing, an aid is more essential than ever’
Deafness is tiring. You’re constantly straining to hear; misinterpreting, feeling excluded. Now I feel relaxed and happier — yes, even in lockdown.
And with the new reliance on FaceTime and Zoom chats to keep in touch with colleagues and extended family, it’s wonderful to be able to join in, to hear perfectly, to be part of the conversation.
Communication is a vital bulwark against loneliness in these times of social isolation, so for those of us with impaired hearing, an aid is more essential than ever.
Deafness has been with me since I was 39. Mimi was six months old when I had an extreme case of labyrinthitis, an inner ear infection which affects balance. I couldn’t move from my bed for three weeks; the slightest twitch of a muscle made me physically sick.
When the room-spinning giddiness finally abated, I assumed my hearing would come back. It didn’t.
I went for a hearing test at Crawley Hospital — I was living in West Sussex at the time — and sat in the waiting room next to a lovely lady who showed me photographs of her great-grandchildren. I was the youngest person there by at least four decades.
The tests passed in a blur of regret. I remember crying when the audiologist said the deafness was permanent; the damage caused by the labyrinthitis to the tiny filaments in my ear that pick up sound, irreparable.
At home, my family’s initial sympathy evaporated into intolerance as the years passed.
Mimi has generally been considerate and has made efforts to face me when talking to me — instinctively you lip-read when you’re hard of hearing.
But Zac speaks in the boyish language of grunts.
When I think back, there were so many ways in which my hearing loss impeded me.
My everyday pair, the Phonak Audeo M90-R (£2,945) are beautifully discreet and sit snugly behind my ear with a transparent wire
‘Come into the room and talk to me,’ I’d admonish when Zac yelled something indecipherable down the stairs.
‘You’re just deaf!’ he would shout back. ‘I know I am. But if you just spoke properly . . .’ went the usual refrain.
But you adapt — of course you do — and I began to enjoy Scandi detective series with subtitles, and would happily go to the cinema, where the loud volume and clarity of the dialogue was usually fine.
But parents’ evenings in the school sports hall, with the echoing din of competing voices, were impossible, and I could never hear the bank cashier behind her protective glass wall.
You dread parties and noisy gatherings. Finally, you stop going to them for fear of seeming aloof.
Of course, I didn’t help myself by stubbornly resisting wearing the very visible hearing aid the dear old NHS had provided for me all those years ago.
(Those self-isolating take note: please don’t be as daft as I was. If you have one languishing in a drawer somewhere, give it a go.) I’m so grateful Mum nudged me into doing something about my deafness, although I was nervous before arriving at my super-detailed hearing test at Boots in Kensington, West London.
My right ear, it emerged, had suffered normal hearing loss for my age; in the left, as I knew, I had no hearing at all.
As I write, I’m wearing my ‘everyday’ aids (I’m keeping the bespoke, imperceptible Phonak Virto M90-10 for best) and they are quite incredible.
Life feels easier, brighter. When I go out for my daily exercise, walking my dog Muffin through the park, I’m buoyed by the sounds of the world around me: the wonder of birdsong, each delicate cadence finely transmitted through my aids; the whoosh of breeze in the trees; the intermittent hum of the occasional car passing by.
I feel I’m now invested with superpowers. I can almost hear through walls!
And when we’re back to normality and I’m once more walking through bustling streets and travelling by Tube to the office, if it all gets too intrusive and insistent, I can just zone out and play music or listen to the radio through my hearing aids.
I’m kicking myself I waited so long!
- For information about appointments with Boots Hearingcare, ring 0345 202 7014 or visit bootshearingcare.com/support. For more details about Claire’s hearing aids, go to phonak.com