My Story

My Background

My Background in the music industry

I grew up as a hard rock drummer during the glamorous 80 melodic hard rock scene. We rehearsed and recorded with our local bands in small concrete basement rehearsal rooms with terrible acoustics.

My first recording studio

1990 I established my first professional recording studio, located in Avesta in Sweden. Recording and production was my main interest. It was a small 8-track reel-to-reel studio the old-fashioned way, synchronized with SMTPE to a Mac Classic running Cubase 1.1

Live sound engineer

During year of 2000 I started working more at live venues as a live sound engineer, in combination with my passion for composing music and sound art.

Composer, musician & Sound artist

Composing and performing music has always been my great passion and the meaning of my life. My sound engineer career has been an important part to develop my expert skills in music and sound production. And even though sound engineering and music composer and creator seems like 2 different careers, I have so much use of them both in combination through my working life.

Just like many of my colleagues, I developed tinnitus and a small hearing loss dip around 4Khz in my hearing. Strangely enough to accept tinnitus seems to be the normal state for us people spending our adult life working with music. That alone is just crazy – that we in the music industry accept tinnitus as a normal state of what we do.

That first tinnitus was a big wake up call for me and I decided I did not want my hearing to get any worse than what it was. I decided that I needed to start protecting my ears during jobs and concert’s that where to loud. I invested in a pair of Bellman & Symfon earplugs, custom molded after my ear canals shape, and i started using them to protect my ears for further damage.

Custom molded earplugs

Molded earplugs are not cheap, around 250 €, but it is one of the best spent investment I have ever done. As you probably know, the big difference with custom molded earplugs are that they will bring down the sound level with a pretty much close to flat frequency response. They come with different filters, so that you can switch how much sound you want them to bring down the sound volume.

It is not only in music situations they are useful. They are just awesome in any noisy environment where it might be difficult to hear what other people are saying. Try them at a noisy restaurant and you will discover that you will start hearing the voices of your friends at the table so much better than without the earplugs.

If you decide that you are going to invest in custom molded ear plugs, which I really recommend you to, there is one thing to keep in mind.

If you are a vocalist, you will want to make sure that they make the molds as deep as possible in to the ear canal. That will prevent the occlusion effect from becoming to strong.

The occlusion effect is sensation of increased loudness, and it sounds like you hear your voice through the vibration of your own skull bone, when the ear drum is blocked. Try to put your fingers in your ear and talk (or sing) and you will hear how the lower frequencies will resonate and sounds stronger.

If you create molded ear plugs that goes deeper in to the ear canal, the occlusion effect gets so much less prominent, and it gets a lot easier to sing.

This is also true if you are ordering in-ear monitors to use on stage. And yes – if you are planning on getting in-ear monitors, than custom molded ear pieces is the only way to go. Don’t use these cheap ones that comes without extra cost with the wireless transmitters, these are in most cases total crap. Think of in-ear monitors like studio monitors – you really want’s to buy the best ones you can, and they will stick with you for many many years. Performing with bad in-ear monitors is an awful experience, and does not makes performing a fun experience any more.

Most people that complains about that they don’t like in-ear monitors most of the times has only tried these cheap ones, in combination that they did not take the time to create a great mix in the the pre-production/rehearsal situation. In-ear montiors cant be tried for the first time on a stage in a live situation, you need time to prepare for that. I think I will be getting back to this topic since there is very much to talk about.

Covid changed my life – totally

Covid changed my life

I got infected by Covid-19, even though me and my wife stayed pretty much isolated from our normal life. All music venues and theatres were closed during the pandemic here in Sweden, just like in the rest of the world. I tried to avoid meeting people as much as I could, and I believe I got the infection at a grocery store or any of the other rare situations where I could not totally avoid meeting other people.

When Covid hit me, it was like a disease like no other I’ve experienced before. If you imagine a regular autumn cold – but 100 times stronger. I was totally passed out in my bed at home for 2 weeks, and at some point, I was really worried when my breathing started to get difficult.

I had a really difficult time in my bed at home, and at the same time i was so grateful that I did not have to spend that time at the hospital. There were lots of people having a far more serious conditions of Covid than me, and many people fought for their life and needed assistance to breath in respirators. And with so many deaths around the globe in this pandemic – all I could feel was a feeling of gratitude, that I did not get any more sick than I did, that I could be treated at my home.

That was the easy part of Covid for me.

After Covid I kept feeling tired and dizzy. If I had a walk, I was totally exhausted and needed to take a nap to make the day work at all. At that time, I learned a new medical term; post-Covid condition.

A large group of people are suffering from their Covid infection long after the disease has disappeared. I was struggling with tiredness and fatigue as my big post-covid symtoms. Post-covid has for me at occasion also showed up as brain fatigue (having difficult understanding complex texts), head ache, and depression to some degree.

Covid affected my hearing

But the biggest post-covid issue for me was that it affected my hearing. I started to notice that my tinnitus got stronger than what it used to be. I know my tinnitus very well, so I certainly can tell the times it gets stronger, which in normal cases happens during stressful situations, during heavy physical training/work or during noisy environments.

But now, I noticed that my tinnitus where remarkably stronger all the time. Even without the reasons I mentioned above.

I also noticed that I had developed hyperacusis, which is when you get super-sensitive for certain types of sounds. Hyperacusis cause these sounds to sound distorted, loud and harsch to me. The sounds that trigger my hyperacusis where sounds that were not loud or dangerous at all, but rather seems to be in a specific frequency range. In the morning I cant stand the sound of paper bags for fresh bread, running water or turning page on a newspaper, or grinding coffee beans. When I hear these sounds, even at a low volume it immediately triggers my tinnitus to start screaming in my ears. These sounds, are to my ears distorted, harsh and just painful.

Before Covid, sounds like small waterfalls and rivers in the nature where beautiful and peaceful – now I am trying to stay away from these sounds, since they are right in the frequency field where my hyperacusis are, and they give me a terrible experience. That is just so sad. Some of the sounds that I used to love – I now can’t stand at all without feeling pain and discomfort.

That is just sad.

After analyzing the sounds that trigger my hyperacusis, i notice that these sounds are in the frequency range of 2-4 Khz, and above. It is quite interesting to analyze the every day sounds, since as a sound engineer and sound artist, I had never thought of what properties they actually have. I measure frequencies of music all the time, but never every day sounds in the environment.

The sound of running water, had a frequency response that I never thought of before. Frequency response measurements with the software Smaart show that the sound of running water is mostly about 3 Khz and above, with a peak at 8 Khz and 16 Khz. At least that is the response in our kitchen-sink, with that specific water mixer tap installed in our kitchen. I guess each kitchen has it own frequency curve at running water.

One of the worst sounds of them all for me in this condition, is when open and rustling these Polypropylene (plastic/metal) bags for potato-chips. Their frequencies start around 1 Khz and has a terrible peak at 8 Khz that are just killing me.

– Yeah I know, potato chips are not healthy to me any way so now I could make some joke about that this could be a good way to stop eating them… but in reality, I get sad when realizing that something that is supposed to be enjoyable and make me feel good, instead makes my ears scream of pain. Like the paper bags that I get with freshly baked bred from the baker in the morning – now I am trying to avoid them.

The sound of turning page on a newspaper is also painful to me, and something that I am going to stay away from. It has more of mid frequencies, and at 400 Hz it starts to raise and have peaks around 1.3 Khz, 2 Khz and 3,2 Khz that are extremely painful to my ears.

Now I keep earplugs close to me in the kitchen, to use for certain tasks when preparing my breakfast, to avoid to get a bad start of the day, while doing anything of what I mentioned above.

The more I read about post-covid symptoms I realized that many people where suffering greatly increased tinnitus, hyperacusis and hearing loss as a result after a covid infection. So it seems like that would be the case for me as well.

Could it really be hearing loss?

After working with music and sound for more than 30 years, i knew that my hearing was’nt perfect. I knew that I had a dip around 4 Khz, and some tinnitus (don’t we all?), but otherwise my previous hearing tests showed that my hearing was over all good for my age, which at this point is 50.

During this summer of 2021, when I noticed that my tinnitus and hyperacusis raised, I still had not noticed and difference with my hearing, frequency wise. Since I am working with mixing music every day, both in studio and live, I constantly work with tweaking EQ frequencies, so I am extremely familiar with listening and analyzing frequencies. I belive if there would be some change in the frequency response in my hearing, I would notice that right away.

That was what I thought.

During this summer my mixing jobs continued without any problems, but i started to notice a couple of things in my everyday life.

I had started to work with mixing sound for streaming and live-concerts in local churches, which I had never done before. I just loved that for me new working environment, and the clients that also where the people I worked close together with. Everybody in the churches where such beautiful and caring people, and I really like (and respect) the vibe of churches. It is something truly magic in these historic gigantic rooms.

But i noticed that some of the people in the staff, where just talking so soft and where just mumbling. I heard mostly the vowels of what they said, and I thought it was a combination of they not able to speak out loud and clear enough, in combination with the reverberant room that Scandinavian churches have, that are often made of stone and have a huge space with a super long reverberation.

In the beginning I did not realize, that it was not these people that where speaking soft and mumbling. In fact, it was a sign that I was starting to lose more and more of the high frequencies in my hearing – which makes it difficult to hear consonants. When you can’t hear consonants that well, it sounds like the person in front of you are mumbling, and you hear mostly vowels and mumble.

The result was that when some of the people in the staff where talking to me, to give me instructions or something work related, I had to reply “what?” to make them repeat what they said. When I still did not hear their reply, I would ask them to repeat again. When I still did not hear what they were saying, I just felt bad and could just not ask them to repeat for a third time. Because, what would they think of me? They might think that they had hired a sound engineer with degraded hearing. Which they had.

Instead I just nodded my head and said “mmmm” (neither yes or no) and crossed my fingers that what they just have said, not was of great importance. Most of the times it seemed like that was the “correct” answer and the work continued as usual. And they did not look through my lie. But at other times, they were expecting an answer back from me. And I had not heard the question at all.
That is when a really awkward moment appears, and i had to ask them to repeat the question for a third time. That is when you really look like a dumb ass that doesn’t listen or take your client serious. Luckily enough for me, these clients where the kindest people that did not show any irritation at all. Other clients would not have been that forgiving…

Another insight was when me and my wife on a beautiful summer day, had a walk in the nature. She said to me – wow, listen to all the beautiful crickets, aren’t they amazing?

I answered something like a mumbling “mmmm” trying not to lie to much. I did not want to tell her that I could barely hear the crickets, to make this beautiful moment in to something awkward. And I did not want to say yes, which would be somewhat a lie. But to be honest, at that moment I started to realize that my hearing probably was in worse condition that I could imagine, and that i probably never would truly hear crickets again for the rest of my life.

That is a truly sad experience – when you realize that you are missing out sounds in the nature which usually have been something of great value for me. What is probably more sad, is probably the fact that I did not have the guts to tell my wife about it, and let her know my experience.

I have no problem at all showing my most vulnerable sides for my wife in normal situations. She is the most caring person I know, and she is supporting me in every situation of life. Why I did not have the guts to tell her about my problem hearing the crickets was more about that I tried to hide this lie for myself. I did not want to face that my hearing where starting to degrade, so I just looked the other way around, and tried to change subject in the conversation. I was probable so afraid to what my life with music would be that day my ears not would be these super-instruments any longer, that they had been so far in my music career.

The situation above may seem like I have a severe damage hearing problem, that absolutely would make it impossible for me to continue as a professional sound engineer. Well, that is not the case. At least not at this point in my life. There is such a fine line when you have a perfectly normal hearing, and when you are starting to have problems in your everyday life.

For me, I have a fading frequency curve, starting slightly at 2 Khz, and goes more drastic at 4 Khz and above. My experience so far is that I am still able to do great mixes, both in the studio and live, as long as I am aware of what I am missing. The problems with this kind of frequency loss, is rather to hear consonants, especially in acoustic difficult environments. And to hear crickets.

At this point I could not lie to myself anymore. My tinnitus and hyperacusis had got worse really fast as a post-covid condition, I could not hear crickets like I used to do, and I realized that I was having trouble following conversations in some situations. I really needed to check my hearing and get to know exactly what is happening here – and what I can do about it. So I booked an appointment with my doctor.

Some days are really bad Sound days

Today is one of the first larger concerts after the pandemic and I work as the venues stage manager. I don’t have any sound engineer duty this night, but of course I spend lot of time at FOH to check that the PA sound as it supposed to and that the sound and light engineer has everything they need from the venue that I am working for.

When the sound check starts, I notice that the distortion in my left ear are having a really bad day today. Everything sounds distorted to it, and I am having difficulties to hear nuances and the frequencies as I am used to.
The dynamic sounds heavily compressed and I am having a hard time to tell if the sound engineer is having the instrument levels right. Everything is just blurring together in to one big mess in my ears. If I had been behind the mixing console today, I would not have been doing a good mix, that’s for Shure

Right now, I am just feeling sad, and starts to questioning the job I am having. Working with music today is not feeling fun or meaningful at all. My head starts to spin, and thoughts like “is this really what I should be spending my life with”?
If music is going to sound like this even in the future it is not enjoyable at all, and there is no meaning at all trying to continue working with sound. That is what my mind is telling me at this moment.
I know that these thoughts come up occasionally, and disappear other day. But this time, it really doesn’t feel good at all.

The joy I have felt before working with music, did really compensate for the long working hours, often 16 hours a day, and to sacrifice weekends and evenings with my family. But if music will sound like this from now on – than it is just not worth it anymore. Today it just feels like a meaningless work with very bad working conditions.
And this is what I have built my whole life for – a life dedicated to work with music production.

I know that I will have a lot of these questions answered as soon as I get to meet my local health center for a hearing test that I have been waiting for. I need that so bad at this moment, since I can’t really trust my hearing at this point. I just have to figure out what is going on with my hearing.

First visit at health care

I visited my doctor at the local health center, (hälsovårdscentral in Swedish) where they do the initial hearing tests no matter what issue you got. These medical teams have a very general and broad knowledge of different issues, and they make the first tests, to see if they need to send you to any type of specialist.

Since I notice that my tinnitus gets stronger during day when working with sound, i asked them to make 2 hearing tests. The first test in the morning, and the second test in the afternoon, after a normal day of work with sound.

The hearing test was the one where you listen to different sinus tones in closed headphones, and your challenge is to push a button when you hear a note.

The first test went pretty fine, I think. As you know as the test goes in to higher frequencies, it is getting more and more difficult to actually hear the notes. That is the case for most people, since loss of high frequency is very common. Even if we don’t expose our hearing to loud sounds, we will have a degraded hearing of the high frequencies as we get older. During the test, I found to what I should listen for. I had a hard time to hear when the note where being played, but I had much easier to hear when the note stopped playing. So I pushed the button whenever I heard a note stopped playing. I know, that is not how it’s supposed to be done – but that seemed to work for me, because I heard most of the tones being played.
At least, that was what I thought.

One problem with doing this first initial hearing test at a health center, is that their staff are not specialists in sound and hearing. So, they just play the sinus tones in frequency order, starting with the lowest on 125 Hz, continue with 250 Hz, and working their way up to 8 Khz.

Since the change of tones most of the time changes by 1 octave at a time, it is so easy to predict what tone that are coming next. That makes me prepared to listen really really careful for that frequency – and then it is easy to nail when I hear it. Or when I think I hear it…
I asked them to trigger the frequency in random order, but they did not seem to understand what point that would be. If you hear a note, you will hear it, they said. So, I pushed that button. Many times.

Here comes a highly personal note:
It seems like the medical world’s approach to tinnitus is that just because you hear a tone in your head, (which you do with tinnitus) that tone should not affect what you hear on a hearing test. Personally, that sounds strange to me. I have a tinnitus tone at 4 Khz ringing in my ears, and to me it would be reasonable if that tinnitus tone would mask a 4 Khz tone at the hearing test. And what I have read, many other people with tinnitus seem to have the same idea as me.
But hey – that are only my personal and other people with tinnitus ideas. Probably (actually most certainly) the professional audiologist and medical science are correct on this point. I believe in science, but sometimes I have to think – what if…
End of personal note.

The two tests I performed in the morning and in the afternoon gave pretty much the same result. It did not seem to make any difference if I had fresh ears in the morning, or if I had tired ears in the afternoon.

After these two tests, I met with my doctor for a valuation. He did not seem happy at all. His first sign of my result at the hearing test, was the he just shook his head from left to right, with a very sad facial expression. We could clearly see at the audiogram that my hearing was starting to fall off at 3 Khz, ending with a big dip at 8 Khz. My doctor was very worried. For me, it was more of a confirmation that there where issues with my hearing. Actually, I felt a bit relieved. At last, we had a result that we could investigate further, and make up a plan how to move on from here.
And it was a good feeling that I finally actually did something about my hearing instead of just lying to myself with believing that it was ok. It was time to get down to business and do what I have to do about my hearing.

I told the doctor that the hearing had been much worse after my covid infection, and that’s why I had contacted him. He was skeptical to my theory that covid should have had an effect on my hearing. He thought it looked more like a normal noise induced hearing loss, after a working life with music and sound for many years. An occupational injury.

I am not an educated doctor, but I strongly believe that we both were right. Of course, my hearing has been degraded after a long life working with music and sound production, but as I noticed so drastically that my hearing changed after the covid infection I believe that made my hearing issues to tip over.

Now in 2021, there are coming more and more reports from people having post-covid conditions that hearing problems is pretty common. At this point ca 5% of the post-covid patients are claiming problems with hearing. We will see in the future what medical research will tell us about it.

Anyhow, my doctor was not happy with my hearing test result. And neither where i. So, the doctor referred me to an audiologist to make a proper hearing test in proper conditions. After all, their need to be a specialist to make the final decision on what the exact status of my hearing is.

Swedish health care & Vårdgarntin

In Sweden we have a fantastic health care.

No, please let me rephrase that.

In Sweden we have an AMAZING health care!

Every citizen has the right to public health care, without paying extra for an insurance for medical care. That is already included in the tax that we pay in our everyday life.

When we visit a doctor or a nurse, we pay 20 euro as an administration fee, and that’s it.

That is just amazing!

And wait, there is more. If we need to see a nurse or doctor many times during a period of 1 year, and we have paid 150 euro for all these visits – than we get a free card, meaning that the health care is TOTALLY FREE for the rest of the year!

That is just amazing – and that is how it should be everywhere!

Health care should be every human right to have access to.

Now in 2021 during the pandemic the health care and hospitals all over the world have been put to an extremely pressure and overload of work. That is of course the case here in Sweden as well.

So, when I got the referral to an audiologist, to make a proper hearing test, I was noticed that they had a waiting list of 1 year in my city. I could not believe what I heard – wait 1 year to make a simple standard hearing test. That was unbelievable, but totally understandable in the time of the pandemic.

Once again, I am lucky that Sweden have such an amazing health care, and we have a term that in Swedish that is “Vårdgaranti” which freely translated is something like Healthcare guarantee. That means that if the local health care not is able to provide me with the medical support that i need with in 90 days at a specialist (like an audiologist), then I am offered the same health care in another region. At no extra expense at all. Actually, the health care will help me and pay for the travel costs to the other city as well.

So, if you live in Sweden, and get referred to an audiologist or ENT (audionom eller Öron Näsa Hals doktor), and you can’t get an appointment in 90 days, then you have the right to be referred to an audiologist or ENT in another region. In most cases you can contact the audiologist yourself, but check with your local health care to make sure that is the case.

So i was told that I would have to wait for a whole year, to make a proper hearing test in my home town. That was because that the Covid pandemic has taken all resources and now the local audiologist had to catch up with all the patients that had been waiting.

So, the choice was easy for me, I made an appointment to an audiologist specialist in Stockholm, for a proper test made by professional medical staff that work only with hearing. My local audiologist arranged so that all the payments for that service where in order, based on “Vårdgarantin” as I mentioned above.

YEAH – so now I got the appointment with the audiologist booked and i was so excited about this, and could hardly wait to go there and get some proper answers!!!!

Refferal to an audiologist (Yeah!)

I woke up early, excited for the day of the hearing test at a professional audiologist. A two-hour drive takes me to Stockholm on a sunny, beautiful summer day. Stockholm is such a beautiful city in the summer time, and I take this feeling I have as a good sign.

At Audionomkliniken Serafen, a health care center in the heart of Stockholm I meet the nurse that are going to do the hearing test. She place me on the chair in the soundproofed both and put the closed headphones on my head. She is very careful to make the test right, and I am being told to take of my earring out, since they can make sound leak out (or in). She gives me the instruction to press the button every time I hear a test tone. And she closes the door and the test are ready to begin.

I have been waiting for this test for so long, and are so inspired to finally do it to get some proper answers. So, when I hear the first test tone, I am fast to press the button. Yes, this is the easy part I think to myself, soon it will get more difficult.
I keep pressing the button and I think everything is working out just fine. After just a minute or so, the nurse opens the door to the booth. I think to myself, are we really ready now, we have just started the test?

The nurse looks at me and says; “You know, this isn’t a championship!”

I have no idea what she is talking about. Then she says: “You are pressing the button all the time, and I have barely started the test”

Oh… that is not the best start…

I explain to her that I am having difficult to hear when test note starts, so instead I press when I can hear a test tone stop. I also explain that some tones are so low in volume that I press when I have the slightest perception or sense of a tone.

Now I get to learn that that this is totally wrong approach to a hearing test. She tells me that I should press the button ONLY when I am totally sure that I am HEARING a test tone. Not when I have a vague perception or sense of that I hear a tone.

That was new to me. I have always tried to be such a good listener in these tests and have pressed when I had the slightest perception of a test tone.

When I write this, I understand how stupid this might sound to you. How could I misunderstand such a simple test? I guess the answer is that I believe that most people can hear these super quiet tones, and that I am trying to be as good as anyone else. Without realizing that I have missed the whole purpose of the test.

Ok, now I get the rules of the test better, and I am once again preparing for a new test. And this time I am going to nail only the test tones that I am sure that I can hear. Not just chasing the high score of pushing buttons.

The test takes a couple of minutes, and I think I do pretty well. This time the tones come in a more random order, and I am not able to predict what frequency the test tone are going to play in advance. That is a big difference from the initial test I did back at my local health center. That feels good.

After a couple of minutes of test tones, the nurse opens the door to the soundproofed both, and now she takes the headphones of my head. Then she puts a device on my head, that are going to make vibrations at the skull bone. As I understand it, this test will see if the inner-ear are working as it should. This method makes it possible to play sounds (vibrations) that are transmitted directly to my skull bone and not by the ear drum like acoustic sound wave does. Since this device is sending sound waves but is bypassing the ear drum, they are able to check if the problem with hearing is at the inner ear or the outer ear. That’s a really clever solution to detect where the hearing loss are.

Anyhow, the nurse closes the door once again, and starts the test with the transducer attached to my skull bone. I hear the test tones loud and clear, and it feels like this test went fine as well.

In my work with Sound Art, I have been experimenting quite a lot with audio transducer that transforms tabletops, windows and other surfaces in to a speaker. These transducers work like a speaker, but without the paper cone that set the air in vibration. Instead you place it on a surface like a tabletop, window or any other surface. Those become the speaker’s “cone” that makes the air vibrate, and that we can hear sound when it hits our ear drum. These kinds of transducers are also well known together with in-ear monitors on stage for drummers, where they place the transducer on the drum stool, so that the drummer can feel the vibrations of the bass. In this setup they used to be called “but kick”.

Anyhow, I have tried these transducers on different surfaces, and even put them on different parts of my body. I would strongly advise you to not try the following part that I will explain on yourself, since I suspect that it might not be healthy at all. It might even be dangerous, but to be honest I don’t know:
When you place the transducer on your skull bone there is a strange effect. If I put it on the right side of my skull, the sound will appear to come from the left. That is such a strange feeling, and I have always wondered why that is. (and no, don’t try this at home)

After the test is done, I get out of the soundproofed both, and finally it is time to have a look at the audiogram. It will be really interesting to see how close it is to the initial test I did at my local health center.

The Audiogram

The moment I get to see the audiogram it is not what I thought it would be like.
Actually, it is quite of a shock!

This Audiogram is not even close to the one that I did at my local health center. This is so much worse, that I am having a hard time to take it in. Since I am working with frequencies as a sound engineer, I can immediately understand in what condition my hearing are. And it is not a pretty result.

The hearing is fine in the low and mid frequencies, but it starts to drop as early as 2 Khz. At 4 Khz is a big dip, which is something I have had for a long time. But now, the dip is down at 55 dB which is far greater than it was before. At 6 Khz it is slightly better, but at 8 Khz it goes straight down to 65 dB.

What happens after 8 Khz, I have no idea about, since audiogram are only measured up to 8 Khz.

This is a devastating result!
The nurse has not explained any of my result at this point, she tells me that the doctor (Otologist) will do that in just a moment.

But I have seen the audiogram and I understand that this is bad.
Really, really bad.

I think to myself that for people in general, this might not be too bad, but for us that are tweaking sounds for our living – this is EXTREMELY bad. To have lost so much of the higher frequencies, might be the end of my career with music and sound, is what is spinning in my head. I am feeling a bit dizzy, and I really don’t know what to say to the nurse. At the same time, I am trying to keep my head up and act like a professional. Cause that’s the right thing to do, right?

The verdict – Meeting the Otologist

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.

Facing the fact of my hearing loss

When I arrived back home from Audionomkliniken Serafen in Stockholm, my head started to spin in thousand different directions. I thought about the audiogram and what the doctor had told me. Since i work as an audio engineer, I understand what the audiogram is showing me and could understand that it was really bad. And I tried to communicate with the doctor and the audiologist on a professional level, talking about frequency response, comb filtering effects, distortion, compression and had a really technical talk about my hearing.

I don’t know if the nurse and the doctor thought that it was easy to talk to a sound engineer like me that understand sound and frequency charts. Or if it is even more troublesome with people like me that “think” they understand sound from an audiologist’s point of view.

I have understood that this can be troublesome for some audiologists. I have seen podcast episodes for audiologist where they give tips to other audiologists on how to deal with annoying sound engineer’s (like me) that think they know everything about sound… I realize now that the they were talking about people like me…

What struck me when I came home, was that I had not heard the doctor give me a clear verdict on what status my hearing had. She never told me – “you have a hearing loss” or something like that. And I did not get an answer on if the problem where an occupational injury or if it could be related to my previous Covid infection and maybe be restored to some degree. All that the doctor told me was that I should make an appointment to test out hearing aids.

Of course, I understood that my hearing was in a bad shape, but did I have what could be described as degraded hearing or not?
Did I have an occupation injury, or was it temporary as an effect of the covid infection?
Exactly what was the physical problem with my hearing, is it the hair cells (that I’ve heard about) or something else?

I felt like I was kept hanging in the air without any clear answers on what’s going on with my hearing. When visiting a doctor, you want clear and precise answers on what’s going on, not just – take this pill, or use this device.

So, I called the doctor to get some answers.

The Doctor’s Statement

I contacted the doctor at Serafen on the phone, to get a statement of what the official medical statement of my hearing actually was.

The doctor explained to me that I was having a bilateral sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL). She explained very simplified that it was the hair cells in the cochlea that had been damaged. The reason where most likely by “sound induced noise”. Yepp, “sound induced noise” that is the medical term for “loud music”.

The audiologist also made a statement about the status of my hearing, and it was:

“The patient has today, 2021-09-02, done a hearing examination at Serafens Specialistmottagning at Serafafimenlansarettet in Stockholm. The result of this measurement shows a hearing loss that affects the frequency range 3-8 kHz. The hearing loss is bilateral and affects both the right and left ear.

The hearing impairment affects the patient’s treble perception both in terms of speech and sound signals. This affects in group conversations and the patient’s perception of consonants. The hearing impairment also affects the patient’s profession as a large part of the work consists of sound and music management.

A recommendation would be to try a pair of car hearing aids to amplify the reduced frequency range 3-8 kHz. This is to improve speech comprehension but also to improve opportunities within the work.”

Finally – there I had it!

The statement is loud and clear. And it is no question at all that I from now on can consider myself as a person with hearing loss.
Period.

It is strange, but at the same time as it felt terrible to read these words, it also felt like a relief. Now I know the status of my hearing and it was no questions at all about it anymore. I don’t have to guess, or make assumptions anymore.
I know now that I am dealing with a hearing loss.
I know now that I will need to wear hearing aids for the rest of my life.
I know now that my hearing will never get any better.
I know now that I have to deal with my hearing loss and create new routines in my life.
I know now, that i am a person with a disability

Now I was ready to take the next step in my new journey.

Alone with my thoughts

When I faced the fact that I am having a hearing loss, there where thousands of thoughts rushing through my mind at a split second. I felt terrified, scared, vulnerable, fragile, and I realized my life would never be again what it once had been like. I felt afraid of that one of my senses were starting to fade, and what it would mean for my future life. What does it feel like living with a disability and how would it affect my life?

Will it be possible to continue work as a sound engineer – for us, the hearing is our most important tool. Or would I need to give up the career I have been building the last 25 years?
Music is not only my job, it is my everything. It is my main interest, my hobby and what I do 24/7. What would my life be without music?

I can’t imagine a life without music. I have so much more I want to do and explore in my work with music, I am not finished and ready at all!
My first memory as a child is all about music. My forever dream about working with music as an adult. Now I am in the middle of my work life, and are living very much the life that I always dreamed about. Music is something my whole life are built and shaped around. Music is what I do in my spare time (when I have some). Music is what I am dreaming about in my sleep. Music is my everything in life. Nothing is more important in my life than music.

Do I have to quit working with music now?

If I can’t trust my ears anymore it feels like my sound career has come to an end. Who would like to work with a sound engineer with hearing loss? Who would like to hire a sound engineer with hearing aids?
Is it even possible to continue work as a sound engineer when wearing hearing aids?
I can’t be the only sound engineer with a hearing loss, there must be other people in my situation before me.

Now when I have to realize that I am having a hearing loss, which is a disability, I feel that I needed to find out how other people are dealing with this situation. To seek information how to deal with it. I am totally aware that I can’t be the only sound engineer in the world with a hearing loss, so there got to be tons of information out there on how to deal with the situation.

As a freelancing sound engineer, I don’t have a manager or boss that I can talk to about my work-related health issues. I don’t have any close coworkers other than my dear wife and business partner in our company to discuss occupational injuries.

I started to feel very lonely, that I was left alone with this problem, and no one that could help me or even discuss my situation. I just did not know where to start. Do I need to inform some kind of organization or insurance, to make the best out of my situation – how does this work?

The only external source of information I had access to was google.

In most cases that involves my life as a freelancer, I have a positive feeling of doing things on my own. I like to be the lone wolf, without having the same coworkers around me every day, and I love to meet new environments and people for each gig. To handle things on my own, and to find innovative solutions on my own.

But at this point, I felt really alone with my disability. I felt left behind, and that me and my wife didn’t have any support from any other instance of the society. This time it was not a good feeling of being the lone wolf in my working life.