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The discovery that I had lost my hearing
began with a loud buzzing in my ears that woke me up one December morning in
1999, when I was seven years old. I still vividly recall my first hearing test.
I was in a soundproof glass booth, instructed by a hearing specialist to press
the clicker in my hand when I heard a noise through earphones on my head. A
simple task, but there seemed to be a problem -- the test did not seem to
start. Confused after a few minutes of silence, I glanced outside the booth and
saw tears streaming down the cheeks of both my doctor and my mother. It became
suddenly, terribly clear in an instant that the problem was not with the test,
it was with me. Something had happened to my hearing. Fright overcame me, and
I, too, began to cry.
The subsequent months were filled with blood
tests, hearing tests, CT scans, MRIs and genetic studies. We visited with the
finest hearing specialists. My parents, pediatrician, and I hoped for a logical
explanation of my sudden hearing loss, but none was forthcoming. In fact, ten
years later, there is still no concrete answer, just hypotheses that a virus
robbed me of my hearing overnight. So that is why, if I run a high fever, I am
scared that I will lose even more of my hearing. I currently hear starting at
95 decibels in my left ear, about the sound of a lawn mower or tractor, and at
40 decibels in my right ear. To give you some context, normal conversation is
at 60-70 decibels.
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