With the audiogram in my hand I get to meet the doctor (Otologist) that will make a medical statement for what status my hearing is. She takes a closer look at the physical state of my eardrum. This is not a very nice moment.
With a small tube of metal, which seems to be an extremely small vacuum cleaner, she puts it to the eardrum and cleans it from…. Whatever is stuck to the ear drum. This is such an unpleasant feeling that just feels soooo wrong. Is it really healthy to treat the eardrum this way – isn’t this one of the most vulnerable part of our body!!!
It is not that it is a massive painful feeling, it is more of an extremely weird feeling when someone is touching something that is so vulnerable and fragile and really intimate.
My brain knows that what she is doing is good for me and I have 100% trust and confident in her treatment, but my gut feeling is just screaming NOOOO!!!
After a couple of minutes my eardrums are clean and she tells me they look good – that’s a great relief. We talk about the test for 5 minutes, and finally she says to me without warning: “
If you like, you can go downstairs and make an appointment right away with our audiologist to try out a hearing aid for you”.
What did she just say – hearing aid???
It is so strange to hear somebody for the first time talk about that I should try out a hearing aid.
A hearing aid???
-That is something elder people use, or “these people” with a disability…
It sounds to me like she is talking to someone else in the room. And at the same time, I am totally aware of that it is me she is talking to.
Of course, I had thought about the possibility that I might would be suggested a hearing aid at this point, but I guess I did not take it in until I heard the doctor tell it to me – here in the real world. With real words. Directly to me.
Maybe it is just me that are silly – but to be honest, I got really afraid when I heard the word “hearing aid” be told to me for the first time. Scared for what I have lost, and what the future would be like. I really felt that this was a turning point in my life that would change everything from now on.
I felt so scared and vulnerable at this point.
To realize that I am having a disability. That my body has flaws. That I am having degraded hearing. That my most important part in life – my hearing have been ruined.
You might think that I reacted over dramatic, and you’re probably right. But this was my first instinctive feeling, and I had a really difficult time to identify myself with the idea of an hearing aid. To identify myself as a person with a disability.
So i went down stairs and met the audiologist make an appointment for testing out a hearing aid. She was very helpful and even though she was fully booked for the day she took the time to speak to me without rush. Since I needed financial support related to vårdgarantin, we decided that I should return to my hometown, and make the appointment for a hearing aid with my local audiologist.
When I walked out of Audionomkliniken Serafen in Stockholm, I left with very mixed emotions. I felt really scared by the knowledge that my hearing was in such a bad condition. That I from mow on would consider myself as a person with a disability. That I am handicapped. I can’t describe how deeply sad and afraid I felt at this point.
At the same time i feel relieved to finally have made a proper hearing test and getting a result that I could actually trust. Now I had some answers on what status my hearing actually was at, and I had a starting point to process my degraded hearing.
It was devastating to get the insight that I actually need hearing aid. Now I started to grasp the magnitude of my situation, and to realize that my hearing loss is for real.
Since I was kind of prepared of having a hearing loss, I could coop with the situation and think through what my life might look like in the future. I called my wife and told her about the test result, and I had such a great support from her. I made the travel to Stockholm alone, and for me that was a good thing. I had lot of time in the car for myself where I could think through the situation, and sort out my minds. For other people it might had been better idea to make this travel together with someone to talk to.
The two-hour car ride back home was an emotional roller coaster. Of course, I was very scared and sad because of the situation. On the other hand, I started to think what my future could look like.