My dad, if you ask him, doesn’t struggle with hearing loss. It’s the people around him who are speaking too softly. How inconsiderate.
Funny thing is, those same people – me, my brothers, mum, his best friend Bruce, the newsreaders on telly have, until recently, spoken perfectly audibly.
These days, if I want him to hear me, I have to be in front of him (preferably slightly to his left). Go to his place and the TV volume is turned up so high the neighbours can hear it. When he’s talking on the phone, he shouts as though it’s not him who’s losing his hearing. He sounds rude and impatient and that’s awful, because he’s anything but.
Just as an FYI, you should know that this post is sponsored by Australian Hearing. But all opinions expressed by the author are 100 per cent authentic and written in their own words.
My dad is the nicest, gentlest man on the planet. People describe him as ‘a true gentleman’. Or they did – and that’s what worries us. Mum, especially, because she’s the one who has to live with it, who has to apologise to the neighbours about the TV volume and smooth things over when he misses chunks of conversation.
Just last week, she told me they’d been to lunch with ‘the crew’, as she calls their group of sixty-something pals, and it hadn’t gone well.
“Dad’s really upset,” she said. “Bruce was telling a story about their trip to Melbourne for the tennis and dad kept asking him to speak up and Bruce said, ‘Did you forget your hearing trumpet, mate.’ Everybody laughed but your father’s really hurt.”
My heart broke a little but mum and I both know Bruce had a point. Dad knows it too. He’s losing his hearing and it’s annoying not only for him but for the people around him and our worry is if he doesn’t address it, his quality of life will start to suffer. The invitations won’t completely dry up but they’ll get fewer and become less enjoyable.