My mother can't hear me, part one
Tuesday, 5 January 2016 07:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
carose59"This Is The Consul General Of Venezuela. And This Is, Uh, Somebody Else—Can't Remember His Name."*
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Before Pat died, her speech got hard to understand. It was one of the effects of her muscular dystrophy: the muscles in her hands, feet, neck, and head were atrophying. Her eyes didn't close properly anymore, either, and it made her eyes very dry and painful. Anyway, she got hard to understand. Sometimes I'd have to talk on the phone for her.
She and my mother talked frequently. My mother confided that often she couldn't understand Pat, but she pretended to because she knew Pat needed someone to talk to. Pat confided that often it seemed like my mother wasn't hearing her properly, but she pretended not to notice because she seemed to want to talk to Pat. They had a classic O. Henry relationship. I never told either of them.
Pat was hard to understand, but my mother had also started to lose her hearing. And her hearing of higher-pitched sounds had never been that sharp. It's one of those things that comes with being a girl having a boy twin: you're exposed to more testosterone and it effects your hearing. (The evolutionary explanation for this is, women need to hear the high pitched sounds of babies crying. Babies need not to be heard by men, who are more likely to kill them. For these reasons, women have more acute high-pitched hearing than men.)
Pat died in 2004. It'll be twelve years in June.
That's how long ago I can document my mother's hearing loss.
I pushed her to get her hearing tested, but it took years for her to actually do it. (I wanted her to see an actual audiologist, to find out what was causing her hearing loss. I didn't know then about the connection to osteoporosis, but it's possible surgery would have helped.) Then, when she got her hearing aids she wouldn't wear them. Then, when she would wear them, she would only do it when "people" were coming over. I wasn't people. I got to shout, and be told to speak in a lower register. I don't have a particularly high voice, but it only goes so deep.
When she got her hearing tested, we found out that my mother is an excellent lip-reader. Since the stroke, this no longer seems to be the case. And I think her osteoporosis has made her hearing loss even worse. (There are tiny bones in your ears that conduct the sound. Osteoporosis can cause those bones to break, breaking the connection.)
Mostly, she's said that she doesn't mind losing her hearing because it means she doesn't have to listen to other people anymore. And that's exactly how she's behaved.
I've been shouting at her, and running interference for her, for years now. She can't go to the doctor alone because she can't understand what's being said. She can't go anywhere, really, or talk on the phone. I have to do it.
Since the stroke, communicating with her has gotten much more difficult. She's positively gleeful about her inability to understand what other people are saying. It's virtually LA-LA-LA-LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! If she can't hear it, it doesn't matter. It isn't true. It doesn't count. Things she did know but doesn't remember are blamed on her hearing. Pretty much everything is blamed on her hearing.
I no longer try to tell her anything that doesn't relate directly to her physical needs. I never talk about myself, except to tell her that I've paid her bills or whatever. Still, nothing I say is of any interest. I'm just an annoyance.
And I am so, so angry with her. Years of forcing me to yell when it wasn't necessary have left me exhausted and resentful. I wasn't important enough to make things easier for, even though I asked her to. I was just the one doing everything.
I talk to her all the time now, when I'm frustrated. She can't hear any of it, but that's a good thing because nothing I'm saying is anything she'd want to hear. But it makes me feel better.
*Frank Michael Thomas
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Before Pat died, her speech got hard to understand. It was one of the effects of her muscular dystrophy: the muscles in her hands, feet, neck, and head were atrophying. Her eyes didn't close properly anymore, either, and it made her eyes very dry and painful. Anyway, she got hard to understand. Sometimes I'd have to talk on the phone for her.
She and my mother talked frequently. My mother confided that often she couldn't understand Pat, but she pretended to because she knew Pat needed someone to talk to. Pat confided that often it seemed like my mother wasn't hearing her properly, but she pretended not to notice because she seemed to want to talk to Pat. They had a classic O. Henry relationship. I never told either of them.
Pat was hard to understand, but my mother had also started to lose her hearing. And her hearing of higher-pitched sounds had never been that sharp. It's one of those things that comes with being a girl having a boy twin: you're exposed to more testosterone and it effects your hearing. (The evolutionary explanation for this is, women need to hear the high pitched sounds of babies crying. Babies need not to be heard by men, who are more likely to kill them. For these reasons, women have more acute high-pitched hearing than men.)
Pat died in 2004. It'll be twelve years in June.
That's how long ago I can document my mother's hearing loss.
I pushed her to get her hearing tested, but it took years for her to actually do it. (I wanted her to see an actual audiologist, to find out what was causing her hearing loss. I didn't know then about the connection to osteoporosis, but it's possible surgery would have helped.) Then, when she got her hearing aids she wouldn't wear them. Then, when she would wear them, she would only do it when "people" were coming over. I wasn't people. I got to shout, and be told to speak in a lower register. I don't have a particularly high voice, but it only goes so deep.
When she got her hearing tested, we found out that my mother is an excellent lip-reader. Since the stroke, this no longer seems to be the case. And I think her osteoporosis has made her hearing loss even worse. (There are tiny bones in your ears that conduct the sound. Osteoporosis can cause those bones to break, breaking the connection.)
Mostly, she's said that she doesn't mind losing her hearing because it means she doesn't have to listen to other people anymore. And that's exactly how she's behaved.
I've been shouting at her, and running interference for her, for years now. She can't go to the doctor alone because she can't understand what's being said. She can't go anywhere, really, or talk on the phone. I have to do it.
Since the stroke, communicating with her has gotten much more difficult. She's positively gleeful about her inability to understand what other people are saying. It's virtually LA-LA-LA-LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU! If she can't hear it, it doesn't matter. It isn't true. It doesn't count. Things she did know but doesn't remember are blamed on her hearing. Pretty much everything is blamed on her hearing.
I no longer try to tell her anything that doesn't relate directly to her physical needs. I never talk about myself, except to tell her that I've paid her bills or whatever. Still, nothing I say is of any interest. I'm just an annoyance.
And I am so, so angry with her. Years of forcing me to yell when it wasn't necessary have left me exhausted and resentful. I wasn't important enough to make things easier for, even though I asked her to. I was just the one doing everything.
I talk to her all the time now, when I'm frustrated. She can't hear any of it, but that's a good thing because nothing I'm saying is anything she'd want to hear. But it makes me feel better.
*Frank Michael Thomas